Hi, I’m Chris, I make video games.

I make video games and I’ve even gotten paid for it since 1996. Thats quite a while ago and I’ve since made plenty of games. Not all of them have been good, not all of them have shipped, but many have and they sold millions of copies and coins and IAP’s along the way. Dare I say, they even made a child or two smile with glee.

Very Early Years

I started programming at 11 years old, copying games from the pages of magazines into a ZX81. From there it was a ZX Spectrum 16k, then a 32k upgrade pack at Christmas so I could hang with the big kids running those sweet 48k games. A further Christmas upgrade saw a Spectrum +2 under the tree – thats 128k of memory with a built-in tape deck! Nice one, Santa. Then came the beast – the Amiga A500. What a machine. I have one now, in storage, just waiting for enough space to be made on a desk…. someday my beauty, someday…..

Early Years

My first jobs in Scotland were at Digital Animations and Red Lemon Studios, writing in C/C++. Before my first day at Digital Animations I crammed with a “Dummies guide to C++” book trying to get my head around classes and virtual functions. Up until that interview I had written in basic, pascal, COBOL, a teensy-weensy bit of assembly and C.

The very handy icon on the back of the book alerts the reader to non-standard features of both Borland and Microsoft C++. Oh Borland C++, how I miss thee.

Kinda Early Years

1999, I had two job offers. One was staying Scotland and working on Grand Theft Auto 3, the other was to move to America. I chose the real GTA3 and moved to Los Angeles. Well.. hardly GTA… it was Santa Monica, sunshine, palm trees and baywatch. I probably made the right choice but I hear the game was quite successful.

more to come…