RVG Interviews: Steve Turner.
Today we interview Graftgold founder Steve Turner, Graftgold created some incredible games over the years before its sad demise, we chat to Steve about his early years in the games industry and much more.
Enjoy!
Zapiy
Thank you for agreeing to our interview, please take a moment to tell us a little about you?
Steve
I’m Steve Turner, ex-Managing Director of Graftgold. I am now 63 which means I started writing games thirty odd years ago!
Zapiy
How did you first get involved in the video game industry?
Steve
I used to read computer magazines and saw games advertised in them. They looked quite primitive compared to the games in the arcades and as I was a programmer I thought I could do better. I first tried on a ZX80 but it just was not suitable for arcade games. It did teach me how to write Z80 assembler so when the Spectrum came out I had the know how and tools to write a game,
Zapiy
What was the first game you created music/SFX for?
Steve
I did the SFX of my early games but did not write a music driver until Andrew was doing Gribbly’s Day Out on the C64. That had a really good sound chip. I based the music driver on my SFX routines and just added a sequencer. Each instrument was like a different sound effect. The notes were input by hand as code in small sections. The sequencer decided which section to play on each channel. That kept the data short as I could repeat sections. The sections could be any length.
TrekMD
As a composer, is there a particular game type that you prefer to write music for?
Steve
I liked composing dramatic scores with a classical feel. They went better with fantasy games such as Avalon and Dragontorc. The Spectrum did not have much scope with its little beeper but I manages harmonies by counting down more than one loop at a time and reversing the pulse when each counter got to zero. I got a phasing synthy sound by making the counters almost the same.
Zapiy
Did you create any special tools to help you be more creative?
Steve
Andrew and I spent quite a bit of time writing tools. There was not a lot of software around in the early days. Andrew wrote a graphic editor to turn our graphics into hex codes, and a little monitor routine that let you inspect or change memory while the program was running. I wish MS would put that into Visual Studio. It was great being able to adjust game constants to tune up the game while it was being played, rather than stop and reassemble. Later on Graftgold had a large tool set including sound editors, graphic editors, map editors, graphic converters, packing tools etc.
TrekMD
You worked in the industry during its rapid rise to what it is now, were they as rock n roll as we all imagined it to be?
Steve
There was a lot of hype about games programmers driving about in Porches and Ferrari’s but the truth was most games programmers did not make huge amounts of money. It was more a labour of love and trying to survive. Andrew and I both came from a professional programming background so we were actually more disciplined than other games programmers. We worked 9 to 5 for 5 days a week, although I introduced flexitime. At the beginning we did not do all night sessions. That came later when we had a larger team and contracts with deadlines to meet.
Zapiy
Can you tell us about Graftgold and the decision to start you own games company?
Steve
At first I traded as a sole proprietor as it was easier. When we had a few games in a row chart I realised I needed to form a company or lose a large proportion of income as tax. I need to keep the royalties to fund the next round of games so I went to an accountant and bought Graftgold as an off the shelf company. Graftgold was the original name, we could have changed it but it had a ring to it so kept it. Then Andrew and I were employees of the company. I paid us a basic wage plus a bonus that depended on royalties. I kept this scheme up over the years but tweaked the rules a bit when we had more staff.
Zapiy
Do you have any anecdotes you can share from those days?
Steve
I can remember when we had our first big royalty cheques and I invested in a couple of proper desks and director style swivel chairs. They were very comfortable with arms and a huge soft back but you had to be careful not to have you hands on the arms if you were near to the desk and suddenly turned round. It was great being able to buy new kit as it became available so we had proper printers and disc drives. I had tried Spectrum Microdrives but I had less success in reading my programs back than I did with cassette tapes. So I sent them back to Sinclair and got my money back. I was so frustrated one day I threatened to destroy them with a hammer. Andrew took a picture that was printed in a few magazines.
Zapiy
Looking back, which one of the software companies you worked for did you enjoy the most and why?
Steve
Our original relationship with Hewson was really good at first as we were left to create and he did the publishing. The trouble was we did not get advances so later on when programs took longer to write it put all the risk on us. Renegade was a publisher set up and part owned by programmers. They were fair and were really good to work with until they sold out to Warner.
Greyfox
How different has it been working in the gaming industry through the years?
Steve
It changed completely. When we started programs took 6-12 weeks to write and one person could do everything. At the end of Graftgold it was taking a team of 12 or more people a couple of years to develop a game. I worked out that I we had all the income we had ever made from all our games it still was not enough to pay for the next game. That is how fast the cost of games development had risen. It was fun working in a team but that brought its own problems. Development software was so costly at the end, we were paying £10000 a seat for a licence of one dev system. It was the only way to develop a game on one of the consoles.
Zapiy
When you first started, did you ever think that the video game industry would become as big as it has and still be going strong all these years later?
Steve
I remember being mocked by colleagues at work when I predicted most homes would have a home computer. Why would they want to do home accounts on a computer they said. I could see that games were what would sell computers and vice versa. I laughed at Commodore attempts to make the C64 a business machine when it was clearly a games players dream. I predicted games would use data on CD’s when I wrote Avalon on the Spectrum. It was the consoles that took me by surprise. For ages they were the poor mans games platform, inferior to the average home computer. We could see that everything was scaling up and investment was needed to create large networked multi skilled teams along the lines of the film industry. That was when Renegade decided it could not cope without a major investment so sold to Warner. The industry was going through a harsh transition period. The publication model along book authorship lines did not allow for many software houses to get enough funding.
Zapiy
Looking back at your career, what would you change if you had a time machine and why?
Steve
During Graftgold’s later years I went on a management course and found it very helpful. I realised I should have done that before employing people. It is a trap many entrepreneurs fall into. You start a business because you have a skill and then later find you are doing lots of things that are outside your area of expertise.
Greyfox
What are the biggest challenges you faced with the limitations of the hardware, particularly as you continue to expand features title-to-title from one generation to the next (8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, Memory, Graphical capability, Speed and so on)?
Steve
The biggest challenge was to do something new in the next game. To be noticed you had to stand out from so many other games. Each pushed the machines to their limits. On the Spectrum everything was a limit. I programmed until I ran out of memory then searched for a few bytes to fix problems. You can speed loops up by repeating code rather than going in a loop to lessen the number of jumps. But that takes more space. So it was all a question of compromise and a fine balancing act.
When we changed to 16 bit you get a faster CPU but quickly realise the amount of graphics you need to shunt around is going to cancel out all that extra power and some more. So again you search for every trick you can to minimise graphic plotting time. It was much the same with memory, you have lots more space but the size of the graphics has just grown so much you have none spare. Also the expectation of the public is ,new modern machine, is faster does more , has to have more graphics.
Zapiy
Do you have a favourite game that you were involved with?
Steve
My favourite game was Dragontorc. Most of the technical hard work was done for Avalon so I could just enjoy putting the adventure together and doing the creative bit. I loved inventing the adventure sequences and trying them out. I always wanted to develop versions for new platforms.
Greyfox
How did you become involved with Hewson Consultants?
Steve
When I had finished my first game I selected three publishers from magazines that were asking for games. I selected those that had full-page colour adverts as I thought they were really being serious. I had two offers for the game and chose Hewson. I was impressed that Hewson had their own tape duplication facility. This was a shrewd move as he did not have to preorder stock and could run of copies to fulfill demand. I thought that made them less of a middleman and able to offer better deals.
TrekMD
You developed video games but also music for video games, which did you prefer doing?
Steve
I love music and play guitar piano, sax and now drums. So composing the music was fun. But the thrill of getting things moving on a screen won out. I did not have time to get really good at computer music and develop games so hired Jason Page to takeover from me.
TrekMD
You also wrote articles for ZX Computing. How did that get started?
Steve
I took over Andrew Hewson’s slot when he got too busy to do it. At the time I was not getting a huge amount in games royalties so any extra income was welcome. I suggested the theme to ZX Computing after reading a book “So you want to be a professional musician”. It was fun writing the articles, I used to do it in the evening while watching tele.
Zapiy
Is there a composer whom you consider an inspiration to you?
Steve
I was very impressed with Ben Daglish and Rob Hubbard. They were treating the computer as an instrument and creating a new genre of music rather than just copy other instruments. I suppose that’s when I decided I needed to hire a full-time musician as did not have the time to develop the music routines and techniques to fully utilise the SID chip.
Zapiy
Which one the games you was involved in are you the proudest of and why?
Steve
That is a difficult one. I have been asked it many times and often it is a different answer. Realms was our first big team original game developed over three platforms. That was a huge task at the time and took developes with a range of skills. We honed some of the techniques developing Rainbow Islands which also development wise was a tremendous success. As a playable copy of an arcade game I do not think it has been beaten.
Zapiy
Would you ever consider producing an album of your works or a book like some of the recently successful Kickstarter ones?
Steve
Yes , I have reworked some of ny original tracks on a 12 track recorder. I have been learning drums so I can add proper drum tracks rather than preprogrammed sequences. I am planning to furnish a small home studio so I can get all my gear together rather than spread about the house. I have been learning to record and mix in Reaper DAW.
I have been writing a blog for a couple of years now and may very well collect all the material together in a book. It’s just a matter of finding the time for all the things I would like to do.
Zapiy
Do you have any chiptunes/music from games that never got released that you might like to share to the community?
Steve
Sorry I haven’t. I only ever wrote tunes specifically for a game usually in next to no time at the end of the development. I just had no time for experimentation.
TrekMD
What are you up to these days?
Steve
I have been working back at Eurobase for a few months to earn money for the work on my home studio. It needs the roof fixing and general sound proofing. Other than that I am retired but spend my time playing music and writing my space game. That started off as an updated version of 3D Space Wars but has grown in the writing.
Zapiy
Are you surprised with the resurgence in retro gaming?
Steve
I am surprised and delighted with the interest in retro gaming. We thought our games would be like single records, liked one month then forgotten while others replaced them. It is so worthwhile to be remembered for something you have done especially after all this time.
TrekMD
Are you a gamer yourself? If so what is you favourite game?
Steve
I do play games but not many modern ones. My son has loads of consoles so gets me playing all sorts of 3D extravaganzas. In my own time I like to play mostly battle games such as World At War Steel Panthers. I have been working through the campaigns you can get free online. Some are huge and take years to complete. I also like the earlier Total War games such as Rome. The later ones graunch too much on my laptop.
Finally
A huge thank you for taking the time to chat with us at RVG!
Retro head and key holder of RVG.