Steve Wetherill

I took some time off from working on (shh) Nodes of Yesod for the Spectrum Next to see what I could do with Projectyle. Using the complete Atari ST and Amiga disassemblies I produced earlier with Claude Code, I used Codex Astra to build this Spectrum Next version.

It’s fully playable, with working AI and all eight arenas, including parallax. It uses the Next’s hardware tilemap, with a scrolling play area of 304 × 208 pixels, and runs at 25 fps. The original ST sound-effect bank has been ported, but I had trouble recording the audio, so this capture is silent.

Codex reimplemented the game in C, using the original 68000 assembly as a reference. The C is compiled with z88dk’s SDCC toolchain, with optimized Z80/Z80N assembly for performance-critical routines. The Next’s Z80N is running at 28 MHz.

The menus are placeholders, as you can tell, but knockout, league and quickplay are implemented, along with player deployment and training.

To my eyes, this version looks better and scrolls more smoothly than the original Atari ST and Amiga 500 versions, with a larger scrolling play area too.

It’ll need plenty of testing, of course.

If anyone reading this is interested in collaborating on publishing this and other titles for the Speccy Next, let me know. All rights to Projectyle have reverted to me from Electronic Arts.

#GameDevelopment #RetroGaming #GenerativeAI #SpectrumNext

I'm 16 chapters in on the scribblings I am calling my memoir. Closing in on the first 10 years of my career (and the 20 that came before). I am about 4 chapters out from that point, with a few ups and downs still to come. Granted, my games industry story has another 30-plus years after that.

If you're interested in what the games industry was like in those halcyon days of the 1980s, you're more than welcome to drop by and read for free. Even better, subscribe to my Substack for the price of a Starbucks per month.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com

#GameDevelopment #RetroGaming #Memoir #1980s

Here is some random gameplay from the work-in-progress version of Nodes of Yesod on the Spectrum Next. Still many rough edges, but the core game is pretty much there. This isn't meant to be a polished video by any means, as you can tell, since I keep forgetting where the munchable walls are. :)

Things currently in the build but not evident from the video:

- Edge jumping. Back in 1985, it was kind of expected that platform games would require pixel-perfect jump timing. And 1985 me was OK with that. 2026 me just wants to play and explore without trying 10 times for that one jump and losing all my lives in the process. So, edge jumps. Hold down as you approach the edge of a platform, and Astro Charlie jumps from the last possible point on the platform.

- Jump control. In addition to edge jumping, which isn't always what you want, I've added jump control. It is not quite Mario-level fly-around-in-the-air jump control, but you can accelerate or decelerate while airborne to make the jump a little bit longer, or a little bit shorter.

In practice, these two additions make the game much more enjoyable.

You might spot a couple of other easter eggs in here too, which I'll say nothing about for now.

I'm thinking about what to do with this. Obviously, it is for the Spectrum Next, and I promised during KS1 to make a version of Nodes. I'll provide a digital copy to KS1 backers as and when it is done. Shhh, etc.

I wonder if people would be interested in a physical release?

#GameDevelopment #RetroGaming #SpectrumNext

For some reason, I forgot to include this photo in my recollections of the 1990s-era Eldritch The Cat. Pictured here (left to right) are Dave Collins, Mark McCubbin, Stefan Walker, Marc Wilding, and me. I'll fix this omission in the book version.

I am clearly, obviously, having a real phone conversation with a real person on our very real fancy phone system that we paid for and that evidently needed to be a character in this scene. While drinking a coffee, while posing for a photo.

We are pictured here in the new Eldritch office at the Brunswick Dock in Liverpool. The offices had no windows in the normal sense, but had glass/perspex/something transparent ceiling/roofs to make up for that. Or at least, you *could* have a window office, but you paid extra for those.

#GameDevelopment #RetroGaming #Liverpool #1990s

Chapter 16 is up!

Financially, 1990 was a miserable year in the UK. Mortgage interest rates hit 15%, and the housing market was in a brutal crash.

I didn't escape unscathed, and after giving up my house, I needed a new place to live.

And so it was that I made the acquaintance of a contemptible fellow on the tough streets of Liverpool 6.

A shorter chapter this time, a 700-word snack between courses.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-16-the-twat

#Memoir #GameDevelopment #RetroGaming

Things that (shh) may have happened this week include converting the scripted 'baddies' to world space for their movement and collision, converting the 'bouncies' to world space including spawning logic etc, converting the mole to world space (Charlie can be standing in a logically different room while the mole munches on a wall in an adjacent room), and fixing jump passability for all rooms to compensate for the scrolling camera.

And I may have done some work on music. Although the Speccy 128 version of Nodes had 'AY' music, which was OK, it was simplified to 3 channels: bass plus a twinned, chorused (detuned) lead line. So, 2 channels, really.

I've gone back to Fred Gray's SID source and reconverted the music for the Next, using the Arkos tracker to simulate the SID instruments (to some extent). The Next has a 9-channel AY array (3 AY chips), so I've used between 3 and 6 channels for music, leaving 3 for SFX. The attached video shows a snapshot of the main Nodes theme tune.

Excuse the clicks and stuff; this was a quick screen grab from CSpect.

#RetroGaming #GameDevelopment #SpectrumNext #AYMusic

Crosswize shipped for the ZX Spectrum in 1988. I talk about its development in Chapter 11 of my ongoing serialized memoir.

The link’s in my bio. It’s always free to read, with a paid option.

Evidently, I was keen on space shrimps during this period. :)

Crosswize was the last game I developed for the Speccy, though not quite the last outing for the technology behind it.

Chapter 12 will cover my fairly disastrous stint at Denton Designs. I’ll start blabbing about that next week.

#RetroGaming #GameDevelopment #ZXSpectrum

Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes it's knowing when to stop.

Chapter 11 of my serialized memoir is up!

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-11-sometimes-the-magic-works?utm_source=mastodon

I picked up this hand-painted shirt at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, near Annapolis, during my first visit to the USA in 1987. It was my favorite shirt for years, and the slogan came to mean something to me then, and even more in retrospect. Photo taken in Baltimore's Inner Harbor on that trip.

#RetroGaming #GameDevelopment #Memoir #ZXSpectrum

I recently came across this stitched panorama, which I took in 1999 while visiting the site of Odin Computer Graphics’ former offices at Canning Place, opposite Liverpool’s Albert Dock.

The pile of rubble on the left, where the yellow machinery is working, is roughly where our first office in Steers House stood. Mulberry House would have been above the platform visible on the right.

I’ve written about my time at Odin in my serialized memoir:

https://stevewetherill.substack.com

I found this panorama too late to include it in the Odin chapters, though I’ll retcon it into them later. In the meantime, I thought I’d share it here.

#Memoir #RetroGaming #Liverpool #CanningPlace #Demolition

It's early 1988, and I start work at Denton Designs, a period of personal, professional, and financial tumult. Fired by Dentons, losing my cat, working on three games at once, all of this chaos would lead to new horizons.

Chapter 12 is live today for paid subscribers, with a free sneak peek for everyone else. The full chapter unlocks free for all this Sunday. Subscribe (free or paid) to get it in your inbox.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-12-the-confrontation-and-the-cat?utm_source=mastodon

#RetroGaming #GameDevelopment #ZXSpectrum

Chapter 11 of my serialized memoir drops Sunday.

It’s 1987. Odin is gone, and I’m broke. Colin Grunes and I throw in with Firebird to build Crosswize, the sequel to Sidewize. What could possibly go wrong?

That September, two things happen. First, I meet the woman I’ll marry. She has a VIC-20. Second, I visit the USA for the first time and interview at MicroProse in Baltimore.

Subscribe free to get it in your inbox. Paid support is optional.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-11-sometimes-the-magic-works?utm_source=mastodon

#RetroGaming #GameDev #ZXSpectrum #Memoir

I was told I was “on the chopping block” in my first job in games.

Chapter 5 of my memoir is now live.

This continues my time at Software Projects in 1984, with no real idea what I was doing and nobody there to tell me otherwise, learning fast as I went.

It includes a wiped Tatung Einstein boot disk and porting *Manic Miner* and *Jet Set Willy* without the original source code.

It also marks a turning point. Getting those first games shipped, and realizing I could actually do this.

Posting on a Saturday this time instead of the usual Monday. We’ll see how that goes.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-5-the-caveman-and-the-pirate

#GameDev #RetroGaming #SoftwareDevelopment #Programming #80sComputing #ZXSpectrum #Amstrad #ComputingHistory #VideoGames #Memoir #Writing #Substack

Read about astronauts, ne'er-do-wells, business trousers, and other things in Chapter 7 of my ongoing serialized memoir.

In this one I write mostly about Nodes of Yesod, Odin Computer Graphics, and 1980s Liverpool.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-7-the-astronaut-and-the-sleeping

#RetroGaming #Memoir #NodesOfYesod #SinclairSpectrum #ZXSpectrum #Liverpool #OdinComputerGraphics

Chapter 6 of my serialized memoir, covering the transition from Software Projects to Odin Computer Graphics in 1985, is now live.

In this chapter, I find myself in hot water with the police for stealing my own trousers. And a routine car park handoff triggers something nobody expected.

https://stevewetherill.substack.com/p/chapter-6-the-holt-road-heist

#RetroGaming #SoftwareProjects #OdinComputerGraphics #Memoir #GameDevelopment

Angine de Poitrine. IYKYK

Not seen in Yorkshire.

#Humor #Yorkshire

Chapter 6 of my serialized memoir is live, “The Holt Road Heist”.

https://open.substack.com/pub/stevewetherill/p/chapter-6-the-holt-road-heist

#Memoir #GameDevelopment #1980s #RetroGaming

My other life. Here exploring abandoned Nightingale Tungsten ore (Scheelite) mine in remote north west Nevada. The mine was opened in 1917 and closed in 1956 after the demands of the Korean War subsided. Apparently Tungsten is used for armor piercing munitions.

https://youtube.com/shorts/uCK3M25BuwA

#explorenevada #overlanding

Quick post to note that there will be a new post on my Substack soon. I was away on a trip last week. I am aiming for the weekend, and if not, then soon after.

The title of the next post is, “The Holt Road Heist”.

Seemed rude not to stop. Somewhere in the High Rock Canyon Wilderness near Black Rock Desert Nevada.

@douglasvb@m.ai6yr.org yeah my transfer case does, and engine oil.

@douglasvb@m.ai6yr.org it's the RAM truck. Locking front and rear diffs, IDK if that is why, but drain plugs there ain't!