Nov
21
The graffiti keeps on coming! Well, grafitti and other artwork. But is there more than just Lemmings out there? Are Lemmings the most recognisable characters from the DMA stable? Where is the fan art for Walker? For Cheule and Rorian? For Uniracers? (Serves me right for not giving the unicycles names, eh?) Well for the moment the Lemmings are carrying the day!
Oct
30
“British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age” is a forthcoming exhibit at the V&A to “showcase the best of British design and creative talent” which happens to contain some special British computer games. But as we’ll see, it’s not the first time a Museum has displayed some of DMA’s games.
From the V&A press release:
There will also be an immersive computer-gaming installation at the centre of the final gallery, featuring specially designed projections of five video games developed in Britain: Elite (1984), Lemmings (1991), Tomb Raider (1996), Grand Theft Auto (1997) and Little Big Planet (2007).
It will run from 31st March to 12th August 2012. This also affords me the opportunity to ramble for a bit.
Not the DMA News 3
This is especially nice, because the V&A will be opening in Dundee in the future, lending a further level of connection, where of course Dundee was home to DMA. However, there is already a DMA exhibit in Dundee, hosted at The McManus, an art gallery and museum. I like this one very much because my name is in there someplace, along with an issue of Not the DMA News 3, a parody of the DMA Newsletter, which was my doing.
This is not the first time that computer games have been on display in an exhibition. Back in the day, the late lamented Museum of the Moving Image had Lemmings as part of Re-Play, a “special feature” which ran from 29th Nov 1996 to 15th May 1997. At the time they had an appeal for old computer software and hardware to create the first national archive of computer games. To quote the press pack:
Around 80% of films made in cinema’s silent era, presumed lost. Similarly much of early television has alos disappeared. Determined to ensure a similar fate does not await one fo the newer image formats, the British Film Institute (BFI) has begun to preserve video games at its National Film and Television Archive in Berkhamsted.
MOMI Re-Play Cover
A small subset of DMA made a pilgrimage during its run, travelling down to London on the train. During the modest amount of research I did for this post, I uncovered a “report” I’d written at the time from the opening night of the exhibition. There, jammed between the pamphlets, were three pages of my own words of which I had entirely forgotten and which didn’t appear to exist on the computer. It may have been printed as part of the old DMA Newsletter, but I’m not sure it ever was. In addition to writing the parody of the DMA Newsletter, I also wrote the DMA Newsletter…
I’m typing up the report at the moment, cleaning up some of the grammar/ de-typo’ing it and will post the result sometime soon, along with a handful of photos I took on the night.
Oct
22
In which GTA gets quite a lot of coverage, given that it’s 10 years old this weekend!
There’s a new article about DMA before they were big. Not sure I’d characterise DMA as not-big before they transitioned to a being of pure energy (i.e. became Rockstar). At one time DMA was the largest independent game developer in Europe. That said, this one has my name in it!
IGN talks to Dan Houser about GTA III. This is to the North of what I really think of as being DMA, but interesting nevertheless. In a similar vein, there’s news of GTA III being ported to iOS and Android.
Yet more on GTA III in a Blast from the Past article on Gamers Hub.
Finally, an article about computer games in education, referencing DMA’s role in Abertay University, written by one of my old lecturers when I was at Abertay in the early 90s, back when it was called Dundee Institute of Technology.
Oct
18
There’s a story behind that image. Of course there is; there’s a story behind every image. This particular set of gurning bitmaps I only ever saw once – and that particular fragment of the DMA story began in 1990 when I made a visit to the office in Meadowside. The original proper office had already become too small and we’d moved into this larger one. Amongst the original DMA people, Meadowside would ultimately become known as the Old Office, as distinct from the Perth Road office where Lemmings had been created. That would become the Old old office. And by ‘proper’ office, I mean anything which came after the very first office in the shape of Russell’s bedroom. (Dave’s bedroom, on the other hand, was merely DMA’s international headquarters.)
At the time I had yet to become a full-time employee, instead doing freelance graphics for Dave for more money in less time than I had even seen in my life. Turning up one day with my latest progress in what was likely to have been gfx for the PC Engine conversion of Ballistix, I happened to have arrived at the same time as Scott Johnston. Scott was the designer/programmer behind the Amiga game Hired Guns and was demonstrating an early version in Dave’s (real) office.
Oct
02
On Feb 14th 2011, Lemmings had it’s 20th anniversary from the day of release. Gary Timmons arranged a talk at Abertay University to inform the audience something of the background to the game. Although I wasn’t the official videographer, I managed to find a place to stick my camera. (That’s me taking stills in the background!)
Lemmings 20th Anniversary Presentation from Steve Hammond on Vimeo
Sep
25
DMA had a Design Department, which lived in Room 2.7 of Discovery House. The whiteboard would often seem to be the centre of creativity for the room, and to blow off some steam. I took these pics with DMA’s Kodak DC40, one of the first widely available digital cameras, which would mean the pics were from sometime after 1995. It had its very own image format, which meant that I had to track down a conversion program to get them into an open format. The camera itself could store 8 (yes, eight) images at a time. We used it to take pictures for the newsletter, meaning that they could be incorporated much more quickly (my dallying aside) than a traditional film camera.
Although his particular afternoon had a Star Wars theme, that’s me in the top right corner, being a Vorlon from Babylon 5. Different as ever.
The Design Department Whiteboard
See the rest of the board after the jump…
Sep
18
Now there’s a controversial headline and, well, we kind of knew that anyway. But it’s nice to have official confirmation. Scottish Games has an item about sales of GTA to date. Although this blog kind of ends before GTA IV, it’s interesting to see the reach which GTA has. Just to underline the point, Genius Anime lists it as one of the top ten genre-defining games ever.
Sep
12
The Gaming Liberty has the most comprehensive interview with the musicians behind those GTA radio stations, I think I could ever imagine seeing. From the article:
“Over the past few months I’ve had the great pleasure in interviewing four key players behind the music of Grand Theft Auto- Colin Anderson, Grant Middleton, Stuart Ross and Paul Mackie. If you’re like me the original GTA, and especially its soundtrack, meant a great deal to you.”
My time at DMA only intersected GTA up until mid 1997, during which I was on other projects such as Body Harvest, but I certainly had fun on the bits I did have a hand in. (Mainly writing dialogue, which would never ultimately be used after I left.) So I’m learning more here about GTA, than I ever knew at the time!
Sep
04
The possible Banksy Lemmings graffiti isn’t the only Lemmings graffiti to be found. I was inspired to try a quick trip to Flickr and Google, for which I came up with these. Can’t tell you much in the way of backstory, though…
Aug
26
One of the lesser-known musical scenes is the updating of old computer game music. Most of the source material seems to be from the Commodore 64, with considerably less coming from the Amiga. On occasion I’ve downloaded tracks to listen to on a Friday night, accompanied by a few cans of beer. Even so, I’ve noticed that DMA games haven’t been particularly well served to date. Thankfully that may be about to change.
010101 Music is currently putting together a remixed collection of some the Amiga’s greatest hits. To be titled Paula, Agnus & Denise – Best of Amiga and CD32 video game music, this brings together a number of different artists. DMA Design is represented by Hired Guns, the original tracks being composed by Brian Johnston and highly acclaimed. Inclusion of what I’m told will be a medley, will depend on obtaining the permission of Sony who currently hold the rights.