Questions to the game creators

[xEik]

Seeing that a bunch of the game creators are at least reading the forums and some being active members I've got some questions I'd like to ask them. In fact what I want to know is a list of questions beginning with why.

Nick Burcombe already explained why Kel Solaar had his name. And I would like to know as many things like this as possible. Why Auricom, or Qirex or Phenitia Park... Do they stand for something, have a meaning? Phenitia Park = Park of the Phoenician? Some names or facts may simply not have a defined reason, others maybe the development team wants to keep them secret... But I'm sure this topic could be a good source of WO knowledge. I'll begin with a few but other wipers can make their contributions.

I know that AG-5y5 means antigravity systems and I think FEISAR stood for Federal European Industrial Science And Research. But why Auricom and Qirex?

More questions to come if the developpers are willing to answer. Don't be frightened though :wink:

[Vasudeva]

I'm not a game creator, but I guess you figured that out already ;)

However, my stab at "Auricom". In most companies' names, the 'com'-part stands for 'communications' so I logically assume that this only leaves us with explaining 'auri'. Since communications is derived from Latin, the most probable explanation would be that the first part is too, somehow. Two words qualify for this: 'auris' meaning 'ear' and 'aureus' meaning 'gold'. I personlly think that former conjecture would be more likely due to the obvious link to the word 'com(munications)'.

I wouldn't have an idea about Qirex. All I can say is that 'rex' is 'king' in Latin.

About other teams... I know that 'asagai' is a word for 'spear' in an African language (found that out accidentally with Encarta). Icaras is of course suspiciously like the Greek tragic boy Ikaros... Any other guesses?

Peace,
V.

[Sovokor]

Not a creator or anything, but I would like to know exactly how these names are pronounced.

After taking German for awhile the "ei" and "ie" confuses me now, so how is Feisar pronounced?
Feesar or Fisar ? Does the "s" sound like a regular "s" or what i'm thinking is "z" like /// Fee zar ///or/// Fi-Zar ? I've always used "Fe-Zar" ///-/// Just curious.

Auricom of course is Ora-com or close to that.

I just want a whole listing of every team name and the pronounciation of their names, I have my ideas but I would like everyone elses thoughts on how the names are pronounced.

:roll:

[xEik]

Don't take me wrong but I want facts not people's opinions. :wink: Opinions never had any weight since there can be as many of them as you want. I could also try to guess what Auricom stands for or what the right pronunciation is but it's not worth. :roll: What I really want is that Nick, Lee, Tim and others from the development team share their first hand knowledge of the game creation. Otherwise this topic may get watered.

Oh when I said contributions I meant questions, not answers. :wink:

I hope no offence is taken. :D

PRACTICE LEADS TO PERFECTION !

[Vasudeva]

@ xElk

No offence taken 8)

@ Sovokor

Well... phonetics and phonology being disciplines that interest me, I have my own theories too :D. Personally I simply think it depends on what language you speak. I tend to say (I'll try to make use of the international phonetic notations) /faesα:/ or /faesαr/. I don't think anyone says /kwaireks/ but rather /kairex/. I myself pronounce it /ki:rex/.

Another issue... where should the stress be put? Is it A-ssegai, asseGAI or perhaps even A-sse-GAI?

Love being a disciplined idiot,
V.

[Vasudeva]

Hey the forum messed up my phonetic sign :evil:

Well... I was meaning the "a" as pronounced in "palm".

V.

[Nick Burcombe]

I'll try to remember some for you

Qirex - Is Qi (the spirit also known as Chi) Rex - (King and rule) (pron. Kai-Rex, not Key Rex) Qirex first came in my head because of Q words without U's following them. I started thinking about Qantas - the airline.

Auricom - was exactly as you predicted. Hearing and Communications.

Stuff like...

korodera - from Corrode (hence the style of the level)

terramax - simply from terra meaning earthy (this was actually the first level every created for wipeout, that's why is a little short and just a little weaker than the others.

Obviously for silverstream

Firestar was simply because in olden times people who had first seen mars in the night sky had basically though it was a star on fire becasue of its red hue.

Gimme some more names, I might be able to think of some others....forgotten what most of them are called these days ;) (Only from WO1 and Wo2097 though)

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Bad slogan alert]

"Auricom: From Phones to Clones."

[End bad slogan alert]

[Nick Burcombe]

LOL! The creative writers in Psyggy were funny dude.

Favourite wipeout quote from the creative dept - "Leave those damp brown days alone!"

WTF!!!

[Lance]

.
kai-rex, eh? damn, and all this time ive been pronouncing it as a slightly 'shortened' version of key-rex. all right, Nick, how do yoU pronounce FEISAR? [clearly the most portentous of all the Wipeout questions ever discussed in the forums ;) ]
.

[Nick Burcombe]

Phi - Sar

:)

[Lance]

.
damn. that was a quick response. thanks. my favourite way for that one has always been fay-sar because the 'e' standing alone usually gets a long 'a' sound [in most languages] and the i would just make it a bit of a dipthong. but names should be said the way their creators intended. it's good to know that way
.

[Lance]

.
''Psyggy''

and come to think of it, my first impulse was to pronounce Psygnosis as sig no sis, though clearly by standard pronunciation of greek-derived scientific terms, it would be sy no sis. so now i know that the people in the company pronounced it the way i first thought.

warning: yet another excursion off topic:
and while i'm on the pronouncing thingie, Thrusty mentioned the Vauxhall Vectra. do the english folk say vaux the french way [vo] or do they say vawks?
those old 'Prince Henry' models of the Vauxhall could go pretty fast for their day. a four and a half litre engine in a reasonably light car, or at least probably not as heavy as the old Bentleys
.

[Nick Burcombe]

I've always pronouced it - VOX-hALL (bearly here the H)

N

[Vasudeva]

Vauxhall... Why be so difficult? On the ol' continent it's plainly "Opel" :D

Peace,
V.

[xEik]

Why japanese twins?
Why Phenitia Park?
Why Spilskinanke?
On the first game, before becoming ' the cool thing to have', did the well-known musicians (CoLD SToRAGE might not be a world-wide known one but he's as impressive as them) let you use their tunes voluntarily or Sony obliged them to?
Are there any weapons that never got to the final releases? (description of them appreciated)
Arridos = arid?
Karbonis = carbon?
Why that appeal for latin?
The two persons in a Korodera wall, are they holding a hammer and a sickle? (It was in Rusia so I guess it's yes)

More to come.

[xEik]

I forgot the important one. What's the secret of Anastasia Cherovoski? Don't tell me that Kel Solaar knows it. That's on the manual. :wink:

[Nick Burcombe]

Japanese twins? You've not seen Austin Powers 3 no :) LOL

Phenitia Park - You'll have to ask Pol Sigerson ( I think it was him who named it might have been Eve P actually) In the sequel the arists named thier own circuits.

Spilskinanke - again - art call

Music, there was a list of tracks presented that we thought would really suit the game (I remember one of them was off Carl Cox FACT one - The Pump Panel - Ego Acid I think - really good acid track at the time), I'll try to dig the old list. But they weren't names so marketing weren't happy to cough up for them. The Sony thing obvisouly lead us to Orbital and they saw the game and liked it and wrote Petrol for it. The rest fell into place and once established, the sequel was easier, but a lot more expensive.

Can't remember what weapons got dropped off the top of my head.

Arridos - arrid - yes
Karbonis - carbon - trees etc - yes

Didn't even know there was a latin theme to them - just made them up in a hurry ;) Never done a days latin in my life.

Hammer sickle - yes

Anastasia Cherovski used to be a man and Kel Solaar found out the hard way :) LOL - No that's complete BS - just made it up now. There wasn't a secret, it just sounded good when I wrote it - and somehow it stayed in there.

:)

Nick

[Nick Burcombe]

If you get Kazaa Lite and do a search for just "Ego Acid" find the 8mb version of it.
Just downloaded it and listened to it for the first time in ages! Love it! Still think it works well....I'm off to find some of the others we liked at the time.

N

[Synthetic Consciousness]

:lol: ...And just when I was about to quote Austin Powers "It's a man, baby!"

"There wasn't a secret, it just sounded good when I wrote it - and somehow it stayed in there." ...Suuuure, that's what you WANT us to think. :P Tell us! The world has a right to know!

[Thruster2097]

I remember earing that the silverstream course was partly owed to silverstone, the UK's sole F1 track (blasted F1 authorities, when will they bring it back to brands), but I can never remember silverstone being so twisty - or so icy! it must have just been something in the name...

oh yeah, the whole "vox-hall" (thats sorta how everybody says it) thing really bugs me. Why do car manufacturers have to change their name to sell cars in a different country? Opel and Vauxhall are both owned by General Motors, arent they? And as for Ford..... well they own Mazda, Aston Martin, Jaguar..... the list goes on.

(moving swiftly back to topic) :P

the in-game advertising for W1 has the (then) current psygnosis titles displayed over it, stuff like Krazy ivan, and g-police. Fusion has the same, with adverts for TIF2002. Seeing that W1 was supposed to be set in the year 2052, o you think theyre still gonna remember krazy ivan and Playstations?

[Nick Burcombe]

LOL! I promise you there is no secret.

[Nick Burcombe]

Further investigation reaveals (I'm talking to Andy Satterthwaite here and he remembers more than I)....

Spliskinanke is an anagram of Snake Pliskin - the hero from Escape from New York.

Valpraiso - Is a genuine place in South America

More to follow.....

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Thruster:2097] They'll be using the Playstation 9 from the PS2 commercial. You know...the one that plugs directly into your brain. 8)

[Nick:Burcombe] ...Uh, huh... How about I divulge some answers to life's mysteries if you tell us? I'll start: On average, it takes about 142 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. :P But as long as we're asking you questions about the games, I have one: In W'O"XL/2097, the ingame description of Gare d'Europa is "A disused French Metro system."...so why is the monorail still running while you're racing? (Someone forgot to tell the train conductor, maybe? :wink:)

[xEik]

Why is there an image of an actress (vincoof said it was Teri Hatcher) in the WO2097 CD ?
Why are there images of WO 1 in the 2097 CD?
Why '2097' for the second release of the game?
Why changed it to XL in NTSC land?
How did Red Bull get involved with the game or the team?
I don't know if it does in English but it seems to me that Lee Carus and Icaras may sound quite similar. Is it just a coincidence?
Why Vector, Venom, Rapier and Phantom to designate different speeds?

PRACTICE LEADS TO PERFECTION !

[Nick Burcombe]

Mono Rail - The mono rail is a new system, the tunnels are the abandoned system.

Actress - New to us. Keep it quiet - it must have come over from a programmers harddisk.

WO1 images on the WO2097 - probably a mix up because a lot of the same code was used and if it was buried from the first project - it could all have been copied over at some point. Mistake

100 years from 1997 (developed in 1996 but it was cool at the time to go for the year after) - the original preconception from management was that it would just be a tracks disc due to the fact there was only 6 months to develop it. But once it was turning into a fully fledged new product we had to name it something that wasn't just wipeout 2.

XL instead of 2097 because (NOI) the American marketing at the time told us that the American public apparently get confused and would want to know where the other 2096 versions were!!?!?!?!?! Apparently this came from the fact that the movie "The Madess of King George III" was confusing and the American public wanted to know why they hadn't heard of the first 2 film! LOL. They ended up calling it "The Madness of King George"

Sue Cambell, product manager, sorted that out. The hours we were working, we needed something to perk us up (something legal at least) ;)

Lee Carus and Icaras - No connection at all. Icaras came in in Wipeout3 - we weren't working on it.

Vector, Venom, Rapier, Phantom, Better than speed 1,2,3 and 4. Vector was initally because of the problem that the first WO was thought to be too hard and too fast so when it came to stuff that was old and slow - Vectrex and vector graphics crept into my mind. Phantom existed coz it's just a super dynamic word that conjures good images in your mind.

Additional Trivia from Andy Satterthwaite - There are 2 versions of Wipeout 1 - one with a Red HUD (the original version) and one with a Yellow HUD. It was changed because hen the NTSC version was done the Red bled across the screen too much and the triv bit is that the Red HUD one has a Crash in it. Discovered by me (nick) if you sit down and complete the whole game in one go without any mistakes or saving winning every race (which I did ONCE) the whole thing crashes in the end.

Nick (and Andy)

[Nick Burcombe]

Correction on that crash bug - you have to play through twice so that the second run through includes Mars.

Nick

[Synthetic Consciousness]

Darn! :x And just when I was about to try to hunt down the other 2096 games on eBay! :P

Something else that's legal that will keep you awake--apples. (Believe it or not!) :D

[xEik]

How did The Designers Republic get involved in the game design? Did anyone of the team know them? Was it Sony? Psygnosis?

Do the names in the default records belong to people from the team?

Do you know if any of the music artists, appart from Tim who said he did, ever got to play the game? I mean really play, not just plug a PSX to say 'Oh, that's my track in there' just to forget it in a shelve five minutes after.

If the team members have children, do they play WO? Are they better than their parents? :wink:

PRACTICE LEADS TO PERFECTION !

[JABBERJAW]

Is this in antartica. I saw Vostok on a map once down there. I also saw valparaiso when I was looking for names for some tracks in my design.

[Lance]

.
Vladivostok is the major port city on the east coast of russia/ex-soviet union. and i think one of the russian rockets is called vostok also.

hunger will also keep you awake, but as it keeps you distracted thinking about food, it's not a useful technique.

[spooky]

In reply to how did DR get involved...A chap called Keith Hopwood was the head of the creative department at Psyggy at the time - he wanted to outsource the packaging to them. A fact you may not know - initially there was no intention to use any DR stuff in game. But whilst I was doing the Intro for WO1 I noticed a fax from DR on the fax machine, I noticed the fax header was a really cool design. I scanned it in and applied it as a texture to the sides of one of the ships - DR loved it and the rest is history.

If you have WO1 you can see the DR fax header applied to the side of the craft in the hangar at the start of the intro :D

[Nick Burcombe]

That was Lee carus by the way ;)

Nick

[AmigoJack]

now this is really odd!!! dr faxes itself into w'o'' - and yes - it looks cool on the intro craft

[infoxicated]

Since Darren Douglas is the only artist one to have worked on every Wipeout (I believe) I asked him today about Terry Hatcher!

He said it was nothing to do with him... that didn't really surprize me as she's not his type of chick (i.e. she doesn't tend to get naked often!). Anyhow, Darren said he'd ask a few folk and try to solve the mystery for us :)

[xEik]

Do the names in the default records belong to people from the team?

Do you know if any of the music artists, appart from Tim who said he did, ever got to play the game? I mean really play, not just plug a PSX to say 'Oh, that's my track in there' just to forget it in a shelve five minutes after.

If the team members have children, do they play WO? Are they better than their parents? :wink:
These three haven't been answered yet but I have a new one. Who had the idea of the animal vehicles in 2097? The flying pig was just hilarious. :lol:

Who designed them?

[Wamdue]

Nick, I remember a screenshot I saw in a game magazine like.. before Wo1 release.. it had really odd ships in it and stuff.. You dont happen to have any of those really really old screenshots do you?


edit: Any storyboards for intros and so on would be awesome to see!

[AmigoJack]

one question for nick or lee: how does WipEout get involved into the movie "hackers"? and why where there so much differences - was it just a protorun for testing and experiencing how it would look like?

[Nick Burcombe]

Some more answers.....

Flying animals was a group idea. Darren Douglas built them.

The original screenshots in Edge were sort of mock ups - conceptual stuff, but with a view to what we thought it's look like on the PS. Those ships were actually pretty cool. The very first Edge cover that featured Wipeout had these early ships in them. I'll let Lee explain a little more about them.

The Hackers thing was a further opportunity to explre some ideas. Wipeout, as you may well know, was first explored on a drunken night in the Shrewsbury Arms pub in Oxton, Birkenhead when myself and Jim Bowers got talking about this ideas with these partiuclar ships he had designed perhaps 5 year earlier for a game idea he wrote up called Matix Marauders. matrix Marauders turned out to be a terrible, terrible game despite Jims very detailed design document. The basic ship design remained and we talked about why the old concept hadn't worked and the problems it's implementation.

At the time I'd been enjoying Mario Karts on the snes and straightforward racing with weapons as an interesting element, was order of the day as far as I was concerned.

After discussion with jim about keeping it just fast and fun (without the "overdesign" of Matrix Marauders) jimmy knocked up a piece of video footage with two ships racing and one shooting the other. It was edited to a piece of music by the Prodigy and everyone who saw it went nuts about it.

The next thing was to get some ideas down on paper and suddenly this movie opportunity came up (some connectioni with Sony Pictures I think ;)) and the basic premise was that it was set in the near future and at some point in this film these kids were playing in an arcade on some sort of game - any game - was the criteria.

This was the perfect opportunity to test out some other ideas. Initally I wrote the script of what would happen in thias racing game and Jim would render it out. Trying to convey the excitment of the "Last Lap/Second Place/Great Weapon Strike/First Place/Victory" scenario in such a short amount of footage was always gonna be tough (that was the original script) so to make it more interesting we dropped in a few ideas like shooting the balls to open doors etc. Nice for movie stuff, but once interactive, nothing but trouble.

Those type of features just get in the way and stop the flow of the game. Last thing you want with a Racing game. Anyway, that movie helped focus our ideas on the very basics of gameplay. we kept it simply in ruleset and made it a good challenge and you guys know the rest....

Nick

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Favourite wipeout quote from the creative dept - "Leave those damp brown days alone!"]

There's a song in there, somewhere. Mind if I use that, Nick? :)

[Nick Burcombe]

Ask damien fairclough ;)

[Synthetic Consciousness]

All right...what's his e-mail or web addy? :)

[Nick Burcombe]

Sorry dude - what I meant was - I don't mind, I'm sure he wouldn't either and unless you're going into the top 40 I don't think Sony would mind either.
N

[Lance]

.
Nick: it's very enjoyable to me to hear how my favourite game series really started. :)
i like your philosophy for racing games. it's good to keep them reasonably simple with enough player controllable adjustments and/or vehicle selection to let a fairly wide variety of racers be happy. the only non-wipeout game of yours that i've played is N-Gen Racing. it's one of my favourites; your racinggame philosophy is evident in it. i wouldn't change anything about it except the loading times; the PSX could use a faster CDROM drive!
.

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Nick]

Thank you very much. I'm going to go fire up my Music Generator now. If you or Mr. Fairclough would like a cd when I have it all put together, just e-mail me, and all I'll need then is your address, and I'll hook you up. :D

[infoxicated]

... or they could download it from here ;)

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Infox:cated]

You'd host my song? :o Thank you very much for the offer. :D I have a beat laid down, now I'm just trying to find a suitable melody. Once I get it done, how about I send it to you via Yahoo Messenger? What time(s) are you on there? Maybe the song should only be available for download here? :wink:

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Ni:ck]

I have another question regarding the game. The arcade and time trial times in W'O"XL list "Red Bull" as a team/ship...a super-secret ship that no one can access (without a code known only to you and another person, and each of you only know half of it)? Maybe it kicks 7 kinds of ass, so it NEEDS to be hidden! 8)

Okay...bed time for me. :lol:

[Nick Burcombe]

Erm :)

I would get some rest if I were you. LOL.

Would have been nice though.

Nick

[Wamdue]

where do you guys keep all of yer sketches and concept art? scan it and host it at wipeoutzone! ;)

[Spaceboy Gajo]

Forget that!

I'd buy the book. I love concept art!

I've always been saying we need more Wipeout merchandise.

I was really hoping that I would win that desktop contest to win that rare book. However, my desktop sucked :(

spaceboy gajo

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Ni:ck]

[Those type of features just get in the way and stop the flow of the game.] I just saw "Hackers" on the late late movie on Fox (To quote The Plague: "God wouldn't be up this late."). I agree that doors and stuff would be a bad idea, but that crosshair would have made aiming Plasma Bolts a lot easier. As I've said before, I can't aim those things. :lol: And I think that the names "crushing" the other names on the high score screen was just cruel. :P

[La:nce]

I replaced the drive motor on my PSX with the drive from my Black and Decker cordless drill. No loading time for me. :P

[Nick Burcombe]

The high score thing really worked, should have gone in the game :)
N

[Wiseman]

The original screenshots in Edge were sort of mock ups - conceptual stuff, but with a view to what we thought it's look like on the PS. Those ships were actually pretty cool. The very first Edge cover that featured Wipeout had these early ships in them. I'll let Lee explain a little more about them.Would this include the pics I have of the rust colored ships racing around the track that was in the intro for the final game?

I remember when I was surfing through old magazines I saw them and was like "Cool! That's the track in the intro, too bad it didn't make in the final game." I had always wondered why. That's probably why.


I also have some old screenshots of Terramax before miTDR. Looks waaaaay different. The grass is much greener, and the track is a dark gray, more like asphalt. I could tell it was Terramax by the trademark hill at the beginning, though.

[AmigoJack]

post that pics pls

[Wiseman]

Yeah, sure!

I'll have to scan them in though.

[locopol]

the track "Valparaiso" of W'O'XL is not looked in anything like the City of "Valparaiso" a located in Chile(My country).
"Valparaiso" in a coastal zone, with beaches and hills and not zone of forests as it appears in W'OXL.


Greetings for all

Paul
Santiago of Chile

[Feisar]

Was there a Soundtrack released for the first Wipeout and it was only released in the U.K. and if so, where could i find such a treausure?!?!?!?!?

Ahh Wipeout, the games that bring me tears. I LOVE WIPEOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>-_)^ Underworld^_-< rules!!!
Cowgirl!!!!!!!!!!!

"28.8 kbps modem!!!! 1,000,000 sik-a-delic colors, ohh baby, sweet! i want it man, i want it to have my children"

LOL!!!!!!!

[Nick Burcombe]

Locopol - The artists named their own circuits in WOXL so if the location is inaccurate it's their fault :) LOL.

Feisar - no soundtrack was released as far as I'm aware. Mainly because it was predominently Tim Wrights music and Psygnosis wasn't in the record publishing biz. Looking back - it's probably not a bad idea. Too late now I guess.

N

[Feisar]

why did Psygnosis go out of buisness?


"when i grow up daddy, i want a F9000 Feisar craft"

[Nick Burcombe]

Sounds like a Chicken Across the road joke. LOL

Nah, it sort of didn't - the Psygnosis brand was clung onto when the company got sold to Sony. Over time, starting with the departure of Johnathon Ellis and then Ian Hetherington, it just sort of ended up being called Sony Liverpool. I'm sure there's much more to it, but when we decided to leave and set up Curlymonsters, the name Psygnosis was literally only on the Pension forms :)

Something like that anyway.

n

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Ni:ck]

I'm pretty sure when Feisar mentioned a soundtrack, he meant an official release. I know of a WipEout XL soundtrack (released by Astralwerks), that had music that was both in the game, and bonus material by Photek ("Titan"), Source Direct ("2097"), and Daft Punk ("Musique). If I recall correctly, there was a prize for one of the Wipeoutzone contests of an official music CD for Wip3out (with "Down the River" by Hong Kong Trash as an official CD-only bonus); and a search on CDDB reveals a WipEout soundtrack with groups and songs I've never heard of: "Age of Love" (Jam & Spoon Mix) by The Age of Love, "La Tristesse Dureara (Scream To Sigh)" by Manic Street Preachers, and "Good Enough" (Gemini's Psychosis Mix) by BB featuring Angie Brown.

Now I have to admit that even I'm curious about that last one. :)

[Feisar]

Age of Love is by the band Scooter, there good

[Lance]

.
Psygnosis was bought by Sony and absorbed into it.
this was covered in an earlier post in this thread
.

[Nick Burcombe]

Not without resistance Lance.

:wink:

[Lance]

.
Nick:
yeah. but big corporations can be so hard to resist. sigh
.

[Nick Burcombe]

Ian put up the most resiliant fight (publish on N64 too) but alas - the writing was on the wall.

[Feisar]

hey Nick, how did get your job? tell me the whole story from you being a kid up to now!!
your Auto-Biography here, please!!!!!!

[Nick Burcombe]

Nutshell life in games.

1. Got an Atari 2600 [correction - duh] console aged 11 - played games.
2. Got a ZX81 computer aged 13 - parents thought it'd be "educational" - played games.
3. I lived by the seaside and was always in the Arcades - played games.
4 Got an Atari St - played games
5. Family started up their own printing business - (but never wanted to work in that) - they started printing video game boxes for a tiny Liverpool company called Psygnosis.
6. School holidays - started tesing in Psygnosis.
7. Did crap at school and went to college for 1 year. Got asked "not to come back for the 2nd year" - played games.
8. Worked in a finiancial co licking envelopes for 6 months
9. Applied for the first tester job in Liverpool Psygnosis. And got it.
10. Tested with Chris Stanley for a couple of years, Shadow of the beast, lemmings etc..
11. Got my **** together and did some bits of design work. Boss designs for microcosm and eventually the Game design for Scavenger 4 (not really a design as such - and it was crap)
12. PS1 showed up in the office - I was mulling around in ATG (Advanced Technology Group - actually making videos and playing chess - but bouncing ideas around too).
13. Had a pub conversation with jim Bowers about an old game he designed ages before that didn't come out properly (called Matrix Marauders) - the conversation turned into Wipeout concepting.
14. Wrote the action script for the Hackers sequence which jimmy rendered and it was used to test bed some ideas - most of which didn't go it.
15. Wipeout happened - just. (Rob and Jason saved the day for the Programmers)
16. Wipeout 2097 went better and sold a load more copies.
17 Psybadek went terrible from start to finish - I escaped into the management team - but out of the frying pan into the fryer. Psygnosis was on a hiding to nothing as a company.
18. Left with 5 buddys and set up curlymonsters.
19. The 6 of us made N-gen racing (infogrames/ps1) which was largely ignored but had some dedicated fans.
20. Went met up with MS and Xbox - loved the console - wrote QR and it's just been published.
21. Onward and upwards.

Nick

UPDATE

22. QR didn't sell enough and sequel is off
23. Curlymonsters eventually runs out money trying to pitch new ideas to publishers.
24. Some of us go to EA Warrington, Sony Liverpool and I go to Studio 33 to work on wheel based racing games. :)

I'm back on the forum. Nice to see you all again.

[Feisar]

wow, i am amazaed, you are a very lucky guy!
i want a Atari!!!!

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Got a ZX81 computer aged 13 - parents thought it'd be "educational" - played games.] :lol:

[Feisar]

do you like being asked all these questions?
id be annoyed............

[Vasudeva]

@ Feisar

"Age of Love" by Scooter? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought "Age of Love" was simply by "Age of Love", one of the very first actual trance hits back (I think!) 1994. That track still rocks!

V.

[Nick Burcombe]

Feisar - I don't mind - but that's as personal as I'd get ;)
N

[stin]

NICK: ZX81!

I`ve used to have one then. Mind space invaders then aah good old days! used to love it!

stin :D

[Feisar]

they are a preety old band, heres somewhere i can justify my answer, but they might have been called something else a very long time ago.
http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=815490843/pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/artistid=SCOOTER/itemid=457218 thats one


and this one, track 11 is age of love, http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=815490843/pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/artistid=SCOOTER/itemid=471061

im a happy camper! :lol:

[Nick Burcombe]

The Age of Love track that inspired Wipeout in the first place (A mad session of Mario Karks winning the final race in the game within 2 hundreth of a second!) was actually "Age of Love" by "Age of love (Watch out for Stella Club Mix) Stella being a classic house track written by Jam and Spoon who I believe are the same poeple.

http://www.wallysgrooveworld.com/shop/categories/viewitem/tpath/primary/category/Trance__Classic/id/1305

Is expensive - but that's VERY rare vinyl these days.


I'll try and put it on my website soon.

Nick

Better link added
http://www.global-trance.co.uk/Age_of_Love.html

[Feisar]

sorry master Sensei

[Nick Burcombe]

LOL. Just don't want anyone thinking I was listening to f&%$£ Scooter ;)

LOL. NOI
N

[Wamdue]

mmmm the atari st, a fine peice of technology.. lol, im wearing my Atari t-shirt as I am writing this! :D

[Feisar]

to Nick -
how many licks to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop?

:oops: :oops: :oops: :P

[Hybrid Divide]

Nick, I'd also buy a book of concept art and whatnot. I have the issue of "EGM" (I think that's the one) with the preview of WipEout XL. And I was always facinated by the concept art. Sadly, the cover got somewhat sunbleached.

Also, I want to design my own craft in some 3D program, but I have no exp with them. Any suggestions for a peticular program? So far I only have Rhino 2.0

I'll have more questions when I think about them!

Cheers,

Vagrant Logic OUT

[Wiseman]

::ressurecting old topic::

This post is in reference to Amigo Jack asking me to post those pics I had of an early Terramax and some unknown track that resembles the track in the intro. They are a long time in the coming, but at the time I didn't have access to my scanner, and then I sorta forgot. But the recent "wipeouts" thread made me remember them, so here they are.


Preview with Early version of Terramax:
http://delphicrelic.virtue.nu/wipeout/terramax.jpg

Unknown track that looks like the one in the intro:
http://delphicrelic.virtue.nu/wipeout/wipeout-intro-track.jpg
http://delphicrelic.virtue.nu/wipeout/wipeout-intro-track-2.jpg



If these don't work, then you'll just have to visit this page and click on the links from there (errr watch for popups)

http://delphicrelic.virtue.nu

[Nick Burcombe]

POP UP HELL!!! And no - none of them worked for me.

[stin]

WOW! pretty cool pictures never seen them before! are they wipeout 64?

love it!!! :o

stin :D

[Nick Burcombe]

Ah got em this time...

Link1 was the very first version of Terramax and a first version of the ships. Decorated by Lee C (here at curly)

Link2 was a mockup for conceptual purposes done by Lee Carus also

Link 3 linkwise...

And I'm not even sure Lee was credited with anything on either Wipeout....

[DarkTrancer]

Yeah i saw them here in uk,they were in a magazine called Edge,soon as i saw them i remember thinking hmmm,gotta try that one out.
I think i have the Jam and Spoon mix`s for age of love,there was about 4 or 5 if i remember,i`ll have to dig into my cds,msg me if ya still want it.

[DarkTrancer]

i think my burning question would be,if it was some way possible to have the mesh`s and game code for one of the wipeouts to be opened up (like quake has been) so that opensource people can work their own brand of lil magic.
Sony i think would allow it given the right plea on wipeout communitys behalf,maybe have to change the ship styles and courses,but thats ok it wouldn`t be a direct copy of wipeout anyway (creative process`s get in the way=oP)
I know i`d be dedicated to that,i`d love it ...i`ll coin the phrase here and now to spark the curiousity lol ...OpenWipeOut...w00t has a ring to it.
New ships and courses would be first off,and the second most wanted choice would be Networking it...8 Players world over,it`s just a dream i`ve allways wanted,i even emailed psygnosis in liverpool about it a few years back,but got no reply =o(

[Hybrid Divide]

Does anyone else agree that the interface / demo (intro) track from the beta should have been kept for the final version?

That interface was just so cool! :D

And how about those plan and side views of the craft in that shot from Edge magazine?

Vagrant Logic OUT

[xEik]

What's the origin of Terafumos? Smoke x 10^12 ?
And Qoron IV? Or Altima VII? The reason for Phenitia Park hasn't been posted yet. You promised to ask for it ;)

PERFECTION IS THE GOAL OF PRACTICE !

[Confusion]

The Age of Love track that inspired Wipeout in the first place (A mad session of Mario Karks winning the final race in the game within 2 hundreth of a second!) was actually "Age of Love" by "Age of love (Watch out for Stella Club Mix) Stella being a classic house track written by Jam and Spoon who I believe are the same poeple.


No offence but I thought Age OF Love - Age Of Love was pure ****. I absolutely detested that tune.

[Nick Burcombe]

No offence taken, but it was 8 years ago

[Wamdue]

those mock-ups pics.. talk about nostalgia, as a kid I used to draw them off :D

[Wiseman]

Told you to watch out for pop-ups. :lol:
(maybe you should try using Opera ;))

Anyway Lee Carus was credited in the original under PR/Marketing Graphics Design, didn't see his name anywhere in Wipeout XL/2097 though.



Does anyone else agree that the interface / demo (intro) track from the beta should have been kept for the final version?Heck yeah, espeically the track. First time I saw it I thought to myself "sweeeeeeet!". It looked like it had a nice atmospheric "feel" to it.