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Long,
long ago In the early eighties of the last century, a bloke by the name of Clive Sinclair was busy selling bucket-loads of rubbery keyed home computers called ZX Spectrums (should that be spectra?), here in the UK. Somewhere on this page, at some point in the future, the story of "the making of" a game called "Ant Attack", which was written for the above-mentioned, most venerable machine, shall unfold... Oh yes it shall... Oh yes indeedy... |
Well, I know
I'm probably a bit of a sad git, putting together a page about a game
I wrote myself! But I don't care! Who better to do it? Plus, I thought
I'd better get on with it before some other sad git did it... come to
think of it... I wouldn't at all mind if they did...
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an obvious place to start...
...pack
shot
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August(ish) 1983 |
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The
worlds first isometric 3D game!
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... screen
shot
"He"
and "She" exchange words. |
...
have a shot
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If
you can see the Ant Attack logo, and the words "QUICKSILVA
present..."
(why oh why did I not put presents?) in the box left.. you're
all set to play the original game! Click on your new "virtual"
Spectrum with your mouse, then when prompted, press G or B on your keyboard
to choose whether to be "She" or "He". (AA received
much attention for being the first equal opportunities game!) Controls
are listed below left, or on the original inlay below. I always felt
that the instructions in the box were very sparse, but in keeping with
the spirit of the original, I shall say no more, exept that when the
"scan" box is showing green, you're on the right track...
There is no sound with this, though there would be on a non-virtual
Spectrum. You'll have to imagine tiny clicking footsteps, and the hiss
of the ants when they bite! What do you mean? Of course ants hiss! Oh..
and there's no need to be on-line to play. Once the game has loaded,
you can disconnect and it will still be running!
If Ant Attack seems to run very SLOWLY ("TIME" should count down approx twice per second), ensure that your browser's JIT compiler option, if it has one, is enabled. You also need a processor equivilent to a P166 or faster. If you would like to find out more about the fab technology that lets this web page pretend to be a Sinclair Spectrum, visit credits at the bottom of this page! |
the cassette
inlay
The
story on the inlay was written by Quicksilva's Mark Eyles, who may well
have invented the idea of writing 'blurb' to go with games - starting
with the blurb for ZX 81 Defenda (this was years before the likes of Firebird
and Rainbird started including novellas with games). Someone can't spell
'forwards' though! Mark may well have come up with the name "Ant
Attack"; someone at Quicksilva certainly did. Mark says he can't
remember though! I do remember that QS had to buy the name (for a few
hundred quid apparently) from someone else who had written a game called
Ant Attack!
I particulary like the instructions to set maximum treble and minimum
bass; it reminds me of hours spent fiddling with WHSmith data recorders...
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The cover painting is by talented artist David Rowe, who has since done tons of stuff - like cover artwork for "Populous" and dungeon interiors for the ITV children's programme "Knightmare". I asked David how he came up with the Ant Attack cover. "There would have been a variety of roughs. I liked the Escher references and went for a surrealistic feel to the world and of course a giant ant. I bought a second-hand microscope for £100 (which I still have), captured an ant in a hollowed slide, and drew it from life. I was amazed to discover that they're not black and shiny, but brown, translucent and hairy. What a mad bastard I was!" Well, I say we should all be so mad... :) Being of curious nature I asked David about techniques and materials... so here your are: The original was 12 inches square and painted on CS10 hot pressed illustration board using mostly airbrushed liquid acrylics with a little coloured pencil and (brushed) gouache. He also used a scalpel and typewriter eraser to do some "scraping back"... and it took him about a week to do. That's done it... I want a go! I'm off to get my old box of art materials... sure I saw an ant somewhere... here anty anty.... |
further fetish objects
The very first copy
of Ant Attack - produced at the CBS duplication plant at Aylesbury. Entitled
simply "3D Ant".
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An original tape
as they appeared in the shops... though many had the alternative "copy
from a friend" version... peh...
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Hey.. look.. it's my site, and if I want to have a gratuitously large photo showing the sharp end of a casette tape, that's my business.. OK? |
The green leader, specially made to match the label, was an early anti-piracy measure, designed to make life more difficult for counterfeiters. |
meanwhile behind the scenes...
source code |
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graphics
were designed on squared paper, each filled square taken as a binary 1, each empty square as 0, converted into hex and then typed in. These are original drawings for the boy (in striding pose). It's quite difficult to make anything recognisable with only 16 x 16 pixels - the grenade on his his belt is only one pixel! |
things
I will add as time permits:
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epilogue I'd
just like to say that I feel very privileged that many people have taken
an interest in Ant Attack over the years. I even found the website once
of someone who had done their thesis on it! I've lost that now... if anyone
knows drop me a line! There is something about the Spectrum, and games
for the Speccy that seems to lay bare the mysteries of game programming
in a way that a PC or a Playstation simply doesn't. Perhaps it is important
for us to hang on to these things so that future generations can get a
handhold on it all. Eventually our PCs will be writing games for us by
voice command... and no one will have a *** clue what's going on inside
them. I mean.. that's fine... Get me the DevKit now!!! ...but I still
want to know how a wind-up clock works... or a valve radio! some Ant Attack related links...
Read a review
of AA from "Crash" magazine, 1984 where are they now?
Mark Eyles who wrote AA's inlay 'blurb' ;) has his own site.
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