The Jules Burt Interview

[HalStep 855]

we have another great interview from Ross Sillifant a.k.a Chryssalid,so please enjoy:

 

 GOG Presents The Jules Burt Interview

 

 

 OK Jules, We will start, if that's ok, with a small introduction by your
goodself (who you are/titles you've worked on etc)

I’m Jules Burt. I got into games and programming when I was living in
Saudi Arabia as a teenager (with my parents!) and discovered the
Sinclair Spectrum at aged 13 which I started with. I mainly started
by copying in many programs and games from magazines…and due to errors
in inputting (and sometimes in print), had to learn to debug code early on.
Sometimes of course you were really typing in a lot of hex/data which was
actually assembly language and content wrapped in a BASIC program so it got
more interesting. I used to copy games (tapes) that I’d bought while visiting
the UK for friends in Saudi - but ultimately copy protection arrived,
which spurred me on to hack away and write code to get past these early
copy protection systems to enable me to bit copy the taped content.
I finally also got a Sinclair QL, which although seemed a little ‘stuffy’,
was my introduction to the 68008 chip.

 I forgot to mention the best part about my love and involvement with the 68000.
When I was a lot younger, I had some brief experience with another computer -
around aged 9-11. We were living in Sharjah (next to Dubai), where my dad was
working at the new International Airport. He was working on all the airport display systems -
that show arrival/departure times etc on those big boards and monitors around the airport.
They were all controlled by a computer in a room under the airport where he worked -
and I learnt to do some simple coding on it - although without much purpose.
So just text manipulation etc. The way we wrote code was to input instructions one by one
into a tele-typwriter, which then spat out a long paper tape with holes punched in it.
Then you would take the tape and feed it into the side of this huge computer that
filled half the room - where it would then spit out a new tape which was the output and result.
Then you’d feed that tape back through the tele-typewriter and you could read the results
(if your code had even worked). My dad let me keep these huge manuals which had the
instruction set in them when we left Sharjah and I kept them for many years.
Later when I started coding the Sinclair QL and the Amiga I realized it was all
very similar…because the PDP-11 that was installed at the airport was essentially
the source for the 68000 chip…! Fancy that…I already had exposure to the 68000 assembly
language when I was a lot younger! What a cool fascinating world that unfolds for each of us...

I left Saudi aged 16 and went to 6th form college in the UK studying computer
science and advanced mathematics. During this time I convinced my parents that
I needed the Commodore Amiga! I couldn’t believe such a machine existed -
it seemed so powerful with the bouncing ball demo. Later, I discovered and
was dismayed to find the spinning ball was just a 3D illusion and began to
realize what it meant to write cool stuff. Near the end of two years of study
my computer science teacher suggested I get in touch with a friend of his who
was writing games.
I met him and got offered a job on the spot, working in a bedroom in his house -
it felt like I’d finally ‘made it’ in life! :-) He hired me to help convert
Strike Force Harrier from Atari ST to the Amiga, which I was now getting
used to programming. I remember the first day on the job though and had been
asked to animate this small section of the cockpit display -
but honestly had no real idea what to do…but my boss was very cool and helped
me on day two, explaining what was needed step by step, to where I felt way more
comfortable and then got on with the job from there. I learnt an incredible amount from him…

After working there for about 6 months I finally got offered a ‘real job’ working
in a company that had a studio - CRL Ltd. They had been having success with some
great original games for the Spectrum like Tau Ceti which I helped with some aspects
of porting to the Commodore Amiga. I worked for CRL for about 1 year, where we
worked round the clock, sleeping on couches, getting woken up by the office manager
after only getting a few hours sleep each night. CRL used to provide us with free
cigarettes and Pro-plus tablets (caffeine) to keep us working. Now I knew I’d
finally ‘made it’ - this was a real company! :-) Myself and another artist (Jon Law)
built an entire game in just 5 weeks for the Amiga - Black Shadow, a vertical scrolling
shoot-em-up. Jon did all the graphics in just 2 weeks and then helped with the design
and keeping me awake through the days and nights. During that game I finally and
completely figured out how to take over the Amiga OS (and turn it off) and started
writing direct to hardware routines etc. to finally master the machine.
CRL was a great thing and fun too - but I realized quite quickly they were not
concerned with people - just churning out games for a crazy lucrative deal they’d
secured with EA to distribute a lot of games, while we got pop and cigs and hassle
from the office manager each time we needed sleep!!?

Myself and my graphic friend (Jon Law) decided we were going to start our own company -
and ultimately left to start Digital Magic Software (around 1989) and moved up to Widnes,
near Liverpool. When we left another programmer and artist joined us and we bought a big
terraced house to work and live out of. Now we were buying our own cigarettes and pro-plus! :-)
We had great fun for the first 2 years - making a number of games for Amiga: Trained Assassin,
Scorpion, Drivin’ Force, Shockwave and Escape from Colditz. In addition to programming
I was also CEO and operations manager - getting all the boxes manufactured, manuals printed
and when we had tested our games enough drove to the disk duplicators and worked round the
clock to format the disks for duplication. We packed the first few thousand boxes in the house/studio -
and I remember how all our rooms filled up with packaging etc.
I also drove round the country meeting distributors, magazines and some retailers.
In those days everyone was very supportive (the reviews were great) and life seemed good.
Sadly, my business acumen was lacking and I wasn’t aware of margins and other such important
details…so we started to struggle and couldn’t quite make enough profits to make life easy.
We really wanted to maximize our efforts so had started to attempt to produce Atari conversions
of our games - but that machine couldn’t quite do what we needed
(for games like Shockwave and Drivin’ Force) and reviews were bad (justifiably) and we also
finally attempted a C64 version of Escape from Colditz also.
Sadly, we were spreading ourselves thin and I was having a challenge programming and running
the business at the same time. Finally, the Nintendo and Sega machines/market had arrived
and the costs to manufacture was too prohibitive - we simply weren’t selling enough games to survive.
The last year was very stressful, we lost the additional 2 guys that started with us…but did hire a
few more people during that last year. We were ultimately forced by our suppliers to close the
business as revenues weren’t sustaining us and paying the bills. :-( I remember my parents had
invested a lot of money, in addition to suppliers extending us credit - so was a very difficult
time for me particularly. That was about 1992. Some highlights for me were the magazines -
Amiga Computing for example and the support we got, some great hacker/demo writers and music
creators we got to know from Europe (who’s names I sadly don’t recall) who helped with our
tunes and code to play multi channel stuff - and informed us when hacked versions of our
games were available - about 3 days after we shipped most times.
Also, I remember when Jez Sans rang us up to order a copy of Drivin’ Force
(which we got to show on Saturday morning TV) and quizzed me asking if it really ran at 50 fps -
which it did! I remember processing his VISA card that day and we all celebrated! Through the
years my partner Jon Law was a rock. His graphics for most of our games were awesome and his
game design was what got our games built quite honestly.

After DMS, Jon Law and myself were somehow fortunate to get sent a Sega Genesis
development kit from a very kind German man (who I don’t recall the name of either)
but it was what got us off the dole, really. We had built a couple of cool demos
one a top down driving rally game and another driving around NY city
Jon had constructed the entire city accurately. We got contracted by a company
in France called Titus to write Prehistorik a sideways scrolling caveman basher
but never got paid sadly. Finally and fortunately we were approached and contracted
by EA to develop the first running prototype of EASN Soccer…which became EA Sports
FIFA Soccer (FIFA) after they got sued by ESPN. We were ultimately hired full time
by EAUK where we went on to develop the unreleased Aspect Warriors (Sega Genesis) and
then EA Sports Rugby.

Throughout all these years there was a thread for me which was the 68000
chip and it's assembly language…it was all rather cool. We didn’t realize
that we were making games that many, many people thoroughly enjoyed -
as we were really building them for ourselves on some level.
Shame I wasn’t a scrupulous businessman with it to make them more
successful - but I guess that wasn’t my path in life.

 

Q)I'm very interested to hear in your own words, about your role/s on
various Digital Magic Software Games on the Amiga (and announced for
the Atari ST).

A) Digital Magic games were all running at 50 fps. We made this choice
to ensure the slick smooth scrolling and animation - and really helped
us stand out against the pack. It was a key moniker in our ads - ’50
frames per second’. Of course this limited us on some level also -
where other games from the bitmap brothers were imo more detailed and
went further visually - but they ran at a sluggish 25 and sometimes
dropped to 17 :-)

 

Q) Can you tell us a bit more about: Trained Assassin/Scorpion/Drivin Force and Shockwave.

A) Trained Assassin was written by myself. A young guy called Jarred did
all the graphics and it was really awesome. It was a slightly tough game
to play - but was also unique with the changing scrolling direction of
each level which had an added challenge (as you couldn’t shoot up and down!).
I remember testing and fixing many many bugs as we finalled.
Game quality and attention to detail as we polished them off was very important to us.

A lot of our inspiration came from Arcade games. Trained Assassin was
loosely based on R-Type. Scorpion - well I’m not sure, Jon Law developed
the visuals and gameplay and as far as I remember was really his
original cool concept.
Yes of course Driving Force was inspired by Powerdrift…and yes Shockwave
by Afterburner. Shockwave though in fact had a great balance of a strategy
component which really was a key part of the gameplay and mechanic -
i.e. it wasn’t just an arcade shooter. Shockwave was also written by a
contracted programmer called Lance Abson. He took some of the Drivin’ Force
code and adapted it to allow the tilting horizon.
There was also a great ‘Star Wars’ like trench sequence you had to navigate through.

Overall the press was very supportive. Most of our reviews were 8-9/10 ish.
As I’d mentioned the Atari ST version of Drivin’ Force never came close and
without the 50fps lost the arcade like visual quality.
Our inability to generate Atari versions of all our games was merely due to
human bandwidth. We felt it better to generate new products rather than
spend time converting - particularly to a machine that had way lesser graphic prowess.

 

Q) What can you tell us about the announced Atari ST versions of your games?.
UK Press seemed sure they were on the way.

A) Yes, I saw some of the reviews making claims about ST versions of Scorpion etc.
Maybe my memory fails me - but I really don’t believe we had stated we intended to
move all our titles to the ST. Even the mention of a PC version seems dubious in one case.
The only US (Canadian in fact) company we talked to was called Gold Disk and they were
talking about publishing in the US but not PC. Again though they never delivered on their
promise and we spent too much time haggling with them over a few thousand pounds (for the entire deal).
I honestly think Drivin’ Force was the only one we did consciously as it was our best seller to date. Sadly the ST couldn’t compete.

Atari didn’t approach the studio and we never made any moves in that regard.
I think had they we would likely have looked at it. I don’t know today what
chips they ran on so not sure what effort it would’ve taken. I was personally
interested in a novel OS called Taos, running on the ST I think which seemed to
do miraculous things - like ray tracing and superb graphical feats... We did also
speak to some companies like Activision back then about using Drivin’ Force as a
basis for Powerdrift…and Rod Cousens sp? seemed very interested at the time,
but ultimately told us they were developing it themselves.

 

Q)Jules, what can you tell us about the very promising looking Sega
Megadrive title, Aspect warriors?

A) Aspect Warriors was the first title we were tasked with building when
we were hired into EA UK full time (after FIFA protptype).
The project was run by another Producer (Steve Wetherill)
who was really into Games Workshop stuff - as was Jon Law (and still is too).
Aspect Warriors was one game world which was licensed by EA…so that was our source material

Q) My understanding (thanks to the Mean Machines preview) Aspect Warriors
is that it's an unreleased isometric action/RTS, based on a license
from Games Workshop. Started in January 1993 and due for release in
February 1994 it was said to be EA's first in-house Mega Drive game to
be fully developed in the UK.

A)Sounds about right

Q)Basically it looked and sounded (concept wise) bloody marvelous, so
what on earth became of it and does any code still exist?

A) Really, the whole engine written from scratch was a design rip off of
Desert Strike - a game we were all playing and testing at the office.
The mechanics of these ‘missions’ and the slight strategy required to
complete each mission was worked into Aspect Warriors, albeit with a
ground based character.
This allowed more interesting varied height terrain options and we really
felt we went beyond with the visuals, explosions and smoke that remained
as you destroyed targets and characters etc.
The team was almost at Alpha - and we were tuning and polishing and yes
perhaps still building a little - but one day we were all called into a
meeting room. EA execs told us the game was being cancelled despite it
being so close.
We were also told that an additional 20 other Sega games that EA was
developing had also been cancelled that same day - so we didn’t feel that bad.
But of course we were bruised and sad - but we’d been paid for all the
work done (which made a change) and so when they retasked us to make
EA Sports Rugby we just shifted gears and went full onto that instead.
If there’s any lost code or cartridge images they would be in the vaults of EA...

Q) Are there any other Lost games, any format you can shed light on,
for our readers?

A)You’d mentioned the C64 version of the Amiga Escape from Colditz -
another quite successful game for DMS. The article I read which you
sent wasn’t entirely true - about who worked on what.
We did really want to build the C64 version. We’d done some tests and
realized we could recreate the disappearing walls - and really the game overall.
Stu the original programmer we’d hired had honestly struggled to get very far -
and sadly I had to let him go at one point (my first firing).
I remember that day - and how relieved he was that the pressure was off him,
as he’d been struggling. Miles Barry joined the project and had written a
bunch of impressive sound and visual demos. We really thought he was going
to carry it through…but I remember I had to start learning to code 6502
to really get the game working fundamentally.
It relied on perfect multi-dimensional scrolling with layers that could
be turned on and off. I was quite sad that we didn’t finish this game
ultimately as it was looking cool and although Miles worked on it,
he couldn’t seem to take it to completion.
Demo writers have a very different (and cool) skillset - sometimes making my
jaw drop. I often encouraged these programmers to write games - but they were
into something different. Miles however was a great laugh. He brought a new
fresh dynamic to the company - but also sadly had joined us during that last
challenging year before we closed shop…and so the C64 version died.

The shots included in the C64 article were interesting - particularly the black
and white ‘german’ shots of us lot. I spotted another programmer that work for
us who was a whizz - Mike Halsall. He was the Amiga programmer of Escape from Colditz.
He was also instrumental in helping us create an Amiga to Amiga development kit
we had - which meant we could compile and then run on a connected machine -
allowing pretty good live debugging through a wire etc. How Mike accomplished
this and hacked the existing debugger to work down a cable - I have no idea.
I remember his code was hidden in the ‘about menu’ of the debugger - so he was a
sneaky guy but got amazing clever things done at DMS.
He loved queen (which i’d never heard of) and looked quite a lot like Freddy too.
The story about making the characters female akin to prisoner cell block H probably
was some late night hack we did - we sure were watching that show through the long
days and nights. I remember Queen B…was the main prisoner that no-one argued with!

 

The last front cover of Drivin Force was interesting.
The flag we’d ordered from a racetrack in the uk. The gloves and
helmet were lent to us by a local bike shop - and he let us take
them away without even asking for a deposit - we explained why we
wanted to borrow them - but remember this was Widnes/Liverpool.
Needless to say we returned them to him…and the keys…well they
were my house/car keys out my pocket.
Those were the good old days of self publishing…a bit like
the ‘German shots’ of us for Colditz. We rented some uniforms
from a costume shot and took the pick at an old church in Widnes!

 

[HalStep 855]

some new parts added in the introduction and at the very end along with pictures/scans throughout.