Who coded Cyberball ???

[cpc4eva]

just been playing one of my fav cpc games Cyberball.

probably only cpc game from Tengen / Domark that i actually thought was any good

has a great title tune and some nice in game FX and tunes by Ben Daglish....


but can't seem to find who coded the game ?

It is only credited in the game with being written by Domark.  I have done a google search and not found any coders credited to the game.

On World Of Spectrum it states that Stephen Wood and Matt Furniss did the speccy version but does anyone know who coded the CPC version ?

Also i noted when i loaded the game from cpcgames cd that it loaded but was corrupted you couldnt see a proper screen to play it but when i downloaded it from TACGR and loaded it separately through winape it loaded fine no problems.......

[MacDeath]

The CPC version seems quite different from the speccy version so it may not be a speccyport.
Graphics looks more like ported fromC64 version actually.

Also while the speccy has a perspective the CPC version (and C64) are more straight upward view.

And yep Domerk wouldn't credit the coders.

should check who worked there at the time.

[cpc4eva]

been playing it again this time i have found a bug when your score 100 points in a game you see 100 in the quarter by quarter screen but at the top of the screen and on the enter your name screen your score is shown as 00 or zero.

The game interprets that you scored zero and you dont get the money x score bonus

[||C|-|E||]

It is funny, I never bought this game because I read some terrible reviews about it calling the game a "mess". This was true for many Domark titles, never scoring very well in the magazine I was reading at the time. However, watching a video it does not seem to be actually bad,  definitely not for me, but quite cool .

[villain]

definitely not for me, but quite cool .

Oh, it's not your cup of tea??? 

[||C|-|E||]

Not my crap of tea!

[MacDeath]

been playing it again this time i have found a bug when your score 100 points in a game you see 100 in the quarter by quarter screen but at the top of the screen and on the enter your name screen your score is shown as 00 or zero.

The game interprets that you scored zero and you dont get the money x score bonus

you mean they coded only 2 digits because yeah, no player can achieve such a high score...


reminds me when I killed the whole Revolver team + even the reserve, at Speedball 2.

[cpc4eva]

It is funny, I never bought this game because I read some terrible reviews about it calling the game a "mess". This was true for many Domark titles, never scoring very well in the magazine I was reading at the time. However, watching a video it does not seem to be actually bad,  definitely not for me, but quite cool .

agree Tengen / Domark did some crappy cups of tea on CPC, Cyberball proves to be an exception -  i love the main title tune which is rather cool from musician coder Ben Daglish only goes for 2mins 30sec and doesnt loop just stops the Cyberball review in Amstrad Action#58 overall rating 82% they thought it wasnt a bad game either

[Nich]

just been playing one of my fav cpc games Cyberball.

but can't seem to find who coded the game ?

On World Of Spectrum it states that Stephen Wood and Matt Furniss did the speccy version but does anyone know who coded the CPC version ?

The back of the inlay states, "Programmed by Quixel". I have absolutely no idea who Quixel are, but they also programmed Licence to Kill - another game by Domark.

[AMSDOS]

Staff changes at AA reflected badly on what scores Tengen/Domark got. Initially Xybots & Escape from the planet of the Robot Monsters got scores in the mid to high 70% range as full-price games, but when the budget games came out those scores plummeted. Personally I didn't mind Xybots, though was somewhat disappointed by the size of the playing area, everything else about it was good, initially AA gave a good score for the graphics, but failed to mention the size of the playing area. I haven't played EFTPOTR, but the initial reviewer gave it 78% must of enjoyed playing isometric games, but perhaps felt given the number of them that the Amstrad had, probably considered 78% to be a low score for that kind of game. When the budget version came out it got something like 46%


So it probably depends on the person. Personally I enjoy playing APB, AA gave that 60% mainly because of the Multiload, I'm not sure what it would of got when the budget came out, though AA initially stated to steer clear of the tape version, the Disk Version I found to be quite clever in it would check if you had 128kb, it would load the entire thing, so a Disk based 64k system you would notice more loading, I'm unsure if the Tape version does this, but I don't think AA ever considered a 464 with 128k to test it for their review in AA50.


The other Tengen/Domark game which was rewarded Mastergame in AA43 is Vindicators which got 90% in AA72 it was awarded 87%

[||C|-|E||]

Aaahh... Vindicators. I played it a lot when I was a kid. I never was good, though, they always killed me before finishing the first level. One day I managed to find the final door, but then a specially crappy enemy appeared and it killed me anyway. Hum, maybe I managed to reach level 2 once...

I liked the loading screen a lot

[cpc4eva]

The back of the inlay states, "Programmed by Quixel". I have absolutely no idea who Quixel are, but they also programmed Licence to Kill - another game by Domark.

google search on Quixel came up with mention at mobygames site Quixel - MobyGames

Quixel is the name of a team of programmers used exclusively by Domark in the late 1980's and early 1990's for development of several games, and porting others to different platforms.

It is uncertain whether Quixel was a separate company or a division of Domark.

[cherkasy]

I send email to Quixel developer Colin Boswell about this game. May be we find out soon the correct answer.

[cpc4eva]

I send email to Quixel developer Colin Boswell about this game. May be we find out soon the correct answer.

many thanks

hopefully they will respond with an answer 

[ivarf]

Oh, it's not your cup of tea??? 

Definitely not my cup of tea, although when traveling China I had to learn to drink tea. Everyone we visited offered tea. I had to make it my cup of tea.🙋

[Colin Boswell]

Quixel was a partnership formed from developers who used to work at Digital Intergration - Paul Margrave, Tony & Chris West, Marcus Goodey and myself. We spent a year as a partnership before dissolving in favor of working for Domark full time - we had planned to work with other companies but we wanted to work on Genesis games and it would have been difficult to get a license as a independent. So four of us essentially formed the core if the Kremlin, Domark's inhouse dev team (Marcus prefered staying independent so he didn't come with us). Its true, some of the output from the Kremlin was not great but to give you the idea of the scope of the challenge we faced: often when we did coin-op ports we go little or no support. With Cyberball, I was lucky to get the source (largely uncommented C) but had no technical specs on the HW, no knowledge of C (I was an assembly programmer) and no real knowledge of America football, which would have helped! From what I gleaned from the source code, I began to build a virtual emulator for the Amiga and ST and basically hand assembled the source code as I went.  We had some issues that we had to work around and I think I found some bugs in the original source (ironically, many years later I would work with one of the original authors, John Salwitz, and he said that it was likely there were known bugs in the source as they often patched ROMS after first manufacture). Some of the other coin-ops we did we didnt even get source so often the only way was to just play the arcade game over and over trying to glean everything you could about it.


As to the CPC version, I'm not sure who did that honestly - Quixel didnt have the time or capacity to do the Z80 ports so I am sure Domark contracted another 3rd party to do them.

[Puresox]

Anyone owning up to Super Space Invaders? Nice Presentation, but the Amstrad game  , Domark defntely knew how to do business , they seem to get plenty of good licenses.

[MacDeath]

Quixel was a partnership formed from developers who used to work at Digital Intergration - Paul Margrave, Tony & Chris West, Marcus Goodey and myself. We spent a year as a partnership before dissolving in favor of working for Domark full time - we had planned to work with other companies but we wanted to work on Genesis games and it would have been difficult to get a license as a independent. So four of us essentially formed the core if the Kremlin, Domark's inhouse dev team (Marcus prefered staying independent so he didn't come with us). Its true, some of the output from the Kremlin was not great but to give you the idea of the scope of the challenge we faced: often when we did coin-op ports we go little or no support. With Cyberball, I was lucky to get the source (largely uncommented C) but had no technical specs on the HW, no knowledge of C (I was an assembly programmer) and no real knowledge of America football, which would have helped! From what I gleaned from the source code, I began to build a virtual emulator for the Amiga and ST and basically hand assembled the source code as I went.  We had some issues that we had to work around and I think I found some bugs in the original source (ironically, many years later I would work with one of the original authors, John Salwitz, and he said that it was likely there were known bugs in the source as they often patched ROMS after first manufacture). Some of the other coin-ops we did we didnt even get source so often the only way was to just play the arcade game over and over trying to glean everything you could about it.


As to the CPC version, I'm not sure who did that honestly - Quixel didnt have the time or capacity to do the Z80 ports so I am sure Domark contracted another 3rd party to do them.

Seems another Coder from the glorious era emerges from the Abysses of the internet to share good memory of those golden years.

Welcome here Sir.

Always good when one of the guys who did the games we cracked... err... got ourselves a copy, can light some obscure details on the condition of Devs nightmare.


Those arcade or licensed ports were quite often a nighmare to produce : no source material beside some arcade machine.
Also the 8bit machines themselves weren't always well garnished... CPC for exemple too often had to stick to the 464 config (Tape and only 64k RAM ) while 6128 configs should have been the norm had Amstrad not been the cheap jerks they could be.

Later 80's early 90s offered more cross dev tools, basically just to use an Atari ST, but deadlines and cheapness were the norm.


thx again, Mister Boswell.

Feel free to create a profile in this forum and feel free to give us more infos about all the things you produced in the time (we can be open to other machines)

according to few internet sources (mobygames), Quixel mostly produced Rollerball and License to Kill but main editors were often short on infos concerning the studio who actually coded the things, and would not always credit them properly.

[ukmarkh]

For me, Cyberball never left the tape drive, loved that game, a bit too slow on real hardware these days. 

[Gryzor]

Looking at the vid (never touched an American football game!) it doesn't look half-bad. A bit cramped maybe but otherwise interesting, colourful and cute:

Thanks for the comments, Colin! A real pleasure to have you here

[Puresox]

Oh I have tried soo hard to appreciate American Football , but I just can't get into it  I can grasp most games I think , but I just do not properly get why certain plays are any better than another. Each to there own I suppose .

[cpc4eva]

Oh I have tried soo hard to appreciate American Football , but I just can't get into it  I can grasp most games I think , but I just do not properly get why certain plays are any better than another. Each to there own I suppose .

agreed i cant stand watching the american grid iron game on tv its totally confusing and the american commentators arent a great help either....

however CPC Cyberball really easy to get into and play should be an option to play for as long as you want lol the quarters end too soon

[EgoTrip]

Anyone owning up to Super Space Invaders? Nice Presentation, but the Amstrad game  , Domark defntely knew how to do business , they seem to get plenty of good licenses.

I was so disappointed with that game. I had it on the Game Gear and it was awesome. But the CPC version was missing loads of stuff and was impossible to see because of the backgrounds. The music was great though. One of my top 5 CPC tunes.