Of more concern to myself was the fact that quite a few of these new people didn’t seem to be that interested in games. For me, being into games, playing them and understanding what makes them tick is vital. But then, I’m a designer and I love what I do. It was a real eye-opener seeing some people coming in a treating it as a job – one that began at 10, ended at 6 and nothing more. Back then, I used to think that hanging was too good for that sort of person but I understand now how I may have come across a little strong. Nowadays, a moderate beating should suffice.
The not so seminal Hi Octane
A curious piece of fallout from the EA thing was Hi Octane. This oft forgotten piece of Bullfrog history only came about because the powers that be needed a game to come out on PC really soon. The options were to rush out a stripped-down version of Dungeon Keeper or to come up with something completely original. Peter didn’t want to sully the whole Keeper idea with a rush job so we went with original. We took a version of the Keeper landscape engine, threw in some network code and hover cars and Hi Octane was born. It went from concept to shelf in seven weeks. About 2 weeks in it was really playable and everyone was having a great laugh with it. The driving model was particularly “hovery”, with people all bunching up in the corners as everyone struggled to align themselves with the next straight and get their boost timed correctly. Unfortunately, Peter didn’t get on with that at all and so the whole thing was changed with about 2 weeks to go. The result was something that was more accessible but ultimately pretty bland and unrewarding. Couple all of this with the fact that Wipeout came out at around the same time and it’s easy to see why Hi Octane didn’t go down too well. After Syndicate, this is the Bullfrog Game I’d Most Like To Re-Make.
Whilst on the Research Park, we also discovered that a number of us had a sporting bent. Mainly I put this down to Robbo – he was always sporty at school. We signed up for the inaugural season of the Surrey Research Park Football League but finished a dismal 7th out of 8 teams.
We’d managed to completely outgrow the Research Park now – having to actually get a whole extra building to house QA and the like – so another move was on the cards. This time we opted for the Business Park (there’s a difference!) and some very futuristic-looking office space. As with all the moves, we initially found ourselves with much more space than we could possibly use. So much so that we “squeezed” everyone in upstairs and had the whole downstairs section pretty much open for anything. Indoor football was particularly popular at this point.
That soon changed with a fateful announcement. Les called everyone together and simply stated that us and EA were simply wasting office space and that everyone was going to de-camp to Slough and move in with them. The silence was deafening. Then he said that he was just kidding and, in fact, EA were going to move in down here. There was an immense feeling of relief. It was while before people realised that we’d been ‘had’. Well, apart from Mark Adami who sussed it straight off.
Part 2 of The Bullfrog Story can be found here
226 days ago
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The second part of Alex’s feature will be posted next week.