Hi guys. I began playing Fruity Frank again with my kids. I began wondering who is Steve Wallis the creator of the game and where is he now. During the past years I have contacted famous CPC game creators and I decided to contact him. Unfortunately, I found that he passed away at the age of 48 on 14th September 2014. I felt very sad. Can anyone tell me about his life, some details if possible? I know that he suffered from a mental disease and that he had turned into a left activist, called Thatcher of the Left, trying to create a more equal society. I also found some videos where he talks about the rights of people. If anyone can offer some info it will be appreciated.
Oh that's sad indeed... And even sadder that he passed and nobody noticed, this was such a gem of a game and a really loved memory of mine.
He suddenly passed away while he(https://gp1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/802892/http_public_production/artists/images/1521441/original/crop:x0y0w236h283/hash:1467170007/1303907399_Steve-April-2011-no-tash.jpg?1467170007)(about:invalid) (https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reverbnation.com%2Fsocialiststeve%2Fsong%2F8411505-dippy-debi-versus-mad-max&psig=AOvVaw0q_BIhjNfbItcCQLfnAs6q&ust=1714504929827000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCMDhkN-S6IUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE) appeared to be well.
Steve Wallis was a hardcore left-wing extremist, conspiracy theorist etc etc - somehow the full program. But I always respected him, he created Fruity Frank for both the CPC and the MSX (the only two platforms for this great game), and Fruity Frank was probably the CPC game which I played most. I even played it during my MS-DOS time after leaving the CPC scene in the mid 90ies on PC demo parties.
Here you can visit his website from 2008:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080623094507/http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/games.htm
15 years ago I recognized, that he did Fruity Frank for the MSX as well, which was very special, as the MSX wasn't popular at all in the UK.
R.I.P. Steve, thanks do you I had countless of great hours with my CPC!
I discovered lately that he had made another great game called Buster Block, which is a kind of Pengo-like, spread on 400 rooms.
Although the CPC version looks a bit ugly with garish colors, the MSX version looks stunning :
Cool, it is using the same sound fx :) PSG rulez.
Though Fruity Frank still appears to be the #1 for me.
too sad the CPC version is so bad - the concept seems to be fun.
Quote from: Gryzor on 18:29, 29 April 24Oh that's sad indeed... And even sadder that he passed and nobody noticed, this was such a gem of a game and a really loved memory of mine.
How true!
Thanks to everyone involved here that we now know the human face behind the great game "Fruity Frank" that gave us so much joy and in some cases still does.
R.I.P. Steeve
(Translated with DeepL.com)