I worked on Double Dragon 2 as a Producer for Virgin Games in Vernon Yard off Portobello Road in the old Virgin Records building.
Binary Design handled the development work (based in Leeds from what I recall) and the programming was done by Richard Aplin who did a superb job.
The Amiga version featured full overscan and ran perfectly smoothly at 60FPS which was amazing for the time it was released.
Gameplay video can be found here
I worked on Marble Madness Master System as a Producer for Virgin Games.
The project was built by Steve Lamb who was based in the south of the UK. He was a great guy to work with and I used to travel down to see him from time to time to check on progress. At the time this was being built we’d just got 14,400 baud modems so Steve used to send eprom images up via the phone and we’d burn the ROMs in London to allow testing.
Full Playthrough can be found here
Thanks to Moby Games for screenshots
Whole Wide World was a title that I worked on in my early days of iOS programming. It was released by Fingerprint Play in May, 2012
Fingerprint: Whole Wide World, Fun Learning Games for Kids 5-8 helps kindergarten and early elementary school-age kids learn some very basic ideas about the culture and geography of some countries around the world. Kids choose a cute kid adventurer avatar to represent them as they go around the world playing games and collecting stamps. Mini-games in each place teach kids details about the country and its culture, and they require kids to use skills such as simple letter identification, matching, logic, and puzzle completion. The first few countries (at the time of this review, United States, Mexico, and Brazil) are free; other countries require in-app purchases to access.
App screenshots thanks to CommonSense Media
One of the first games I wrote for iOS. Very simple gameplay designed for a (much) younger audience.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPk5Z6tOL3A
Make your own play! Create and customize your character by picking clothing, win and lose animations and your own sound effects to make a learning app as unique your fingerprint.
Screenshots thanks to 148apps.com
Whole Wide World 2 is a nice little app that was released by Fingerprint Play in the U.S.
The game was released for iOS and Android in April 2013 and was the follow-up to Whole Wide World (See here)
“This app makes jet-setting around the globe both fun and educational.” – USA Today
Introducing Whole Wide World 2, the sequel to one of 2012’s most acclaimed educational games.
There’s no passport necessary as you play through the world one game at a time. Whole Wide World 2 takes you on a fun journey of sight, sound and play. Meet kids from all corners of the globe and learn about their customs and cultures. Discover the beautiful monarch butterflies of Mexico and explore the giant rocks of Iceland. Ride a Kangaroo in Australia, find hidden objects in China and much more! Fill your scrapbook with postcards from around the world as you learn fun facts about cultural and geographical wonders. Start with three exciting destinations and then choose where to go next on a learning journey unlike anything else!
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWdUsKt0g80
Quick overview text above thanks to TouchArcade
The title was built for Konami between 2005 and 2007 and was released in 2008.
The team put a huge amount of effort into this game and did so while facing the technical challenges of getting up to speed on PS3 and X360. Unfortunately, when the game was complete (with unreleased DLC), the decision was made to sit on it and wait for the next Hellboy movie release in order to maximise marketing spend. This damaged the title greatly and meant that it was a long way behind the current technical standard by the time it saw the light of day.
It was a difficult project, but it allowed us to figure out the pitfalls of the current state-of-the-art tech and the lessons learned fed straight into the next projects and helped them greatly.
A few screenshots…
Images courtesy of Moby Games
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDENb6YSuHA
Backyard Sports Basketball 2015 was built for Day 6 Sports Group in the U.S. via Fingerprint Play and was a remaster of the classic Backyard Sports Basketball title.
Backyard Sports NBA Basketball 2015 was the only game that let you play with the Pros as Kids! This popular & beloved franchise returned as an action packed, arcade style 3-on-3 pick-up style basketball game.
TV Ad (Featuring Stephen Curry): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFKv0yboq_8
TY Boomerang Blast was a simple game based on the TY franchise (see Krome Studios here) and was the first time I handled the coding for an iOS game.
The idea of the game was to swipe the screen to launch boomerangs to knock down the bad guys without harming the good guys.
The Trailer for the game can be found here
Wild and Seek AR (WaS) was built for Verizon via Fingerprint Play in the U.S.
The game is an AR title (Augmented Reality) which initially used Vuforia as the AR backend but then switched to ARKit when it became available.
WaS started out as a simple concept but grew to include many features as the publisher realised what could be done in the AR environment.
As with most titles I’ve worked on, the backend was built to support the release of multiple packs which could be pushed live via a cloud based server.
The initial release of the game featured North American and African environments with an additional pack of Mosozoic content released later.
The overall idea was to allow a player to ‘drop’ an environment on their coffee table (for example) and then move around it attempting to take photos of the animal living there.
Many additional pick-ups were included for players who wanted to search for them.
Hidden Pictures Puzzles was built via Fingerprint for Highlights in the U.S and was released on iOS and Android.
Initially the game was going to be fairly small, but as we released more and more puzzles, the number of subscriptions grew very quickly. After a few months we needed to rebuild the menu system to allow for a much larger number of puzzles being available via DLC.
As the subscriber base grew, we added the ability to do themed packs and released Halloween and Christmas 2016
A true hall of fame player, Hidden Pictures puzzles were popularized by Highlights for Children in the 1940s which has delivered more than one billion magazines to kids and families. A Hidden Pictures puzzle has appeared in every issue since the magazine’s launch. The new app expands on the beloved play pattern in reimagined ways including timed and challenge modes to let kids test their search skills against the clock. New puzzles with a range of themes from sports and amusement parks to travel and history are added regularly.
On Sunday, kids found more than 300,000 hidden objects in the new app. Kent Johnson, CEO of Highlights for Children said, “Just like Americans come together for the big game, American children have been coming together around Highlights Hidden Pictures puzzles for 70 years.”
Highlights for Children partnered with Fingerprint, a mobile technology company focused on the kids’ market, to reimagine the Highlights brand into a new digital format. The Hidden Pictures app is the first of two Highlights apps being released this winter and spring.
Highlights Hidden Pictures is available for iOS and Android phones and tablets, bringing the fun of hunting for those hard-to-find items to a convenient, on-the-go format. New puzzles are delivered each month, bringing kids hours of Fun with a Purpose™. Touchdown for America’s favorite kids’ magazine!
Screenshots: –
…and the Halloween build
Grumpy.Code.Dude. 