Does anyone know any former FM Towns developers? It appears as if a number of titles, for the Marty, were developed in the UK. I'm interested in finding out some of the limitations of accessing VRAM and using sprites. I'm in the process of optimizing a Mode 7 style routine for the FM Towns. It currently runs fairly decent under UNZ, but seems a lot slower on a real Marty. I was told that UNZ doesn't emulate the VRAM access limitations.
why dont you work on a real fm towns? I think is the best way to have the best result! mode 7 on towns you talk of the snes mode 7?
You are thinking about Psygnosis right? I don't know these guys, but there was an article about them in the very first issue of EDGE magazine (1993). John Gibson, Kenny Everett, Simon Moore, Mike Anthony and Andrew Toone was listed as FM Towns programmers at Psygnosis' HQ in Merseyside, Liverpool.
Rebellion Developments Ltd was a FM Towns developer. Titus, a French company, also did some FM Towns development.
I might possibly be able to help you out with Rebellion. If you knew any names, it'd be a help. Don't forget it was a long time ago - I would expect their memories to be pretty sketchy, and I'm doubtful that you'd get the sort of specifics you're looking for. LOL, Kenny Everett! Ahh, poor guy - bet he gets ribbed a lot!
Jamie Lokier was the name that I found: http://tantalophile.shareable.org/jamie/cv.txt Is it common for game developers to keep a copy of the stuff they worked on? I still have quite a bit of stuff from a game that I worked on (Revenent).
Argh, I just had a big reply, but I pressed a wrong button and it went! Developers often don't care about the material. It is a job, in the end. There's no point keeping it as you won't be able to run it without the special dev tools. If you're going to another job, your old company won't like you stealing their material, and you have credits on the game and your CV anyway! I would have said talk to Jamie, yes! I assume you already have by now? There are a couple of people you should track down.... Richard Garriott, creator of Ultima. He lives fairly near to you, too... for a Brit, anyway! http://maps.google.com/maps?t=k&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=30.363692,-97.820388&spn=0.002694,0.003267&z=18 I don't know how much involvement he had in the FM Towns version, but worth a try. Jeffrey Hall, programmer at Microprose and LucasArts, amongst others. He may still work at Namco in San Jose. If you find him, let me know as I'd like to talk to him, too! Richard E Haley, Jr., programmer at Origin. http://writch.com You could try this guy - apparently he won the FM Towns programming contest for students: http://www.os.rim.or.jp/~ppp/eow/me.html
