Interview: Ian Oliver (2012-05-10) by Bohemia Interactive

This is an unaltered copy of an interview of Ian Oliver, for use as a primary source on Sega Retro. Please do not edit the contents below. Language: English Original source: www.carriercommand.com

INSIDE THE CARRIER: 5 QUESTIONS FOR IAN OLIVER

MAY 10, 2012

Today we’re taking our hats off to salute no one other than Ian Oliver – one of the three masterminds behind the original Carrier Command!
In a short interview, Ian tells us about developing games in the 80s, what he has been doing in the last 20+ years, and what he thinks about the upcoming re-imagination!

Dobrý den Ian, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’ve always been an electronics and computer geek. Yes, I know, what a surprise! I bought my first computer (an Ohio Scientific Superboard 2) in 1979 when I was 16 and was probably the first person in my town to have a home computer. I had to wait on a lot of tables to buy that thing! I still have it in my loft and get it down from time to time for a good old nostalgia fest.

How did you come to the idea for the original Carrier Command?

The Realtime team formed when we were all taking Computer Science degrees at Leeds University . We initially self-published vector and polygon 3D games such as 3D StarStrike for the Sinclair Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, but Rainbird then contracted us to develop the 8-bit versions of StarGlider for them. After this project, they suggested that we work on something original for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, which seemed like a great idea. A wild brainstorming session at Rainbird HQ resulted in a half page outline of a game based on an aircraft carrier attacking an archipelago of islands. Graeme Baird and myself then took this idea and ran with it on the ST, Amiga, PC and Mac, while Andy Onions did a heroic one-man job of somehow cramming it onto the Z80 machines.

Can you tell us how game development worked in the (Internet-less) 80s?

Wow, how things have changed! We had no decent tools, no helpful OS, no 3D or physics subsystems, not even any video or peripheral drivers. Everything had to be done the hard way and there weren’t even any online forums to help. To make things even more interesting, we’d also done some speed and size estimates, and even on the 68000 machines there was no way could we use C. Oh bliss, assembler again, just as we had on the 8-bitters! As a result, even working seven days a week and sleeping under our desks, development took a lot longer than planned. We were inventing the game as we went along, trying to get the 3D and physics as fast as possible, and battling every minute detail with a tiny team of just two! The hardest parts were getting the tactics and game play right, getting everything fast enough, and solving drawing-order problems when objects went inside each other, but it’s fair to say that nothing was easy.

What have you been up to after Carrier Command?

We did a few games after Carrier Command, but it was clear that the industry was changing and team sizes needed to be much larger, larger than we were comfortable handling. Fortunately, we’d started a side project to create some much better game development tools, and when Sega bought this company, I was pulled into Sega to continue running it. A few years later, this team was acquired by Imagination Technologies who create semiconductor IP for many of today’s most exciting consumer products. I now work there as a Director of Development and mainly work on tools and operating systems.

How is it, after almost 25 light years, to see a re-imagined Carrier Command come to life?

The first time I fired up Carrier Command: Gaea Mission and launched all the Mantas and Walruses, I was instantly grinning from ear to ear. Even after I’d flown a wing of heavily-armed Mantas over the island and had every single one toasted almost instantly, I was still grinning! The human imagination is a wonderful thing, and I swear that Carrier Command: Gaea Mission is what we had in our mind’s eyes when we created the original Carrier Command. We wanted seriously better graphics, we wanted more toys, we wanted terrain and troops and grass and rocks and dramatic explosions and kickass sound, we wanted all of this and more. And now, 25 years later, Carrier Command: Gaea Mission is giving us all that we imagined, and much much more. Thanks guys, you rock!

Not only would we like to thank Ian Oliver for taking the time to answer our questions, we’d also like to thank him, Graeme and Andy for conceiving the stellar Carrier Command and supporting us to build upon its great legacy!