vnomis: which was your objetive when you started programming videogames?
j. ritman: when i first bought a zx81 i started learning programming and then started thinking about what was possible, it didn't take long to realise that the only thing you can do on a zx81 was play games. i guess i did it originally just to have something to practice my new found skills on.
v: which game have you programed is your favourite?
r: i haven't got one
v: and which one is the one you hate most?
r: namtir raiders
v: do you think that you could be done anything else in the 8 bit era?
r: yes, given the time
v: in the 80's there was news about a proyect game called soccerama. did you make any preliminary version and what happened with that game?
r: soccerama was on an arcade machine than was never launched - the game was finished though but really not that different from matchday 2
v: have you got any photo of soccerama? could you send it to me?
r: no i haven't
v: what do you think about retrovideogaming? and about people that still suport old computers? and about the retro fever?
r: abunch of sad gits ;-)
v: what do you think about there is still people loving your games of the 80's?
r: it's fantastic, i'm so pleased the games have stood the test of time
v: what kind of assembler technics did you use in hoh to put so big maps into 48kb memory?
r: the map itself (as opposed to the graphics) was a mere 5k and relied on massive bit streaming (so as not to waste a single bit) and library techniques
v: do you know anything about 8 bits spanish software? what do you think about it?
r: no
v: which is your favourite platform for development?
r: i haven't started on it yet but I am looking forward to a go at the new game boy advance
v: what do you prefer for programming aplications for development or games?
r: i use whatever tools are available, currently that spans GNU & SN software for the psx2, visual basic for tools & probably gnu for the gba
v: You worked some time for rare. what do you prefer work doing tools for others or programming videogames?
r: i didn't work for rare as such, I was always an independent but I did work with them for several years, both making tools and games.
both styles of programming present interesting programming challenges, and i enjoy both.
v: and what is the best thing in this two kind of programming job?
r: games - the best bit is designing & creating the levels
tools -i guess the challenge of complexity makes these fun - with games it is fairly easy to only present a limited range of options (like what door do you go through) and therefore you only have to program those few options, with a tool such as the assembler I wrote for rare the range is greatly increased, the programmer could do anything and the program must work faultlessly all the time.
v: have you got any unpublished videogame material? could you publish it now?
r: i haven't got any that i can still run
v: did you programmed soccerama for consoles systems? i've remembered a domark game named total soccer in which you appear as programmer.Is this correct? then, you programmed for snes, didn't you?
r: soccerama was probably total soccer on the snes, there was a total soccer on the megadrive but I had nothing to do with it and it was a different game.
i did program it but it was never released. There was a problem with a hard to find bug and Domark were unable to get me the equipment I needed to find it.
v: i've got your pc game super match soccer which was presented in a psx preview here in spain as matchday 3. it has to be renamed because you don't have the righs of matchday brand?
r: we did have the rights but lawyers got paranoid about it so we changed the name
v: did you programmed super match soccer or did you colaborate as manager?
r: i programmed tiny bits of it, mostly i did the in-detail design
v: in spain super match soccer(sms) wasn't a hit. was it in uk?
r: no
v: are you happy with the final result of sms?
r: not entirely, it could have been better
v: what do you think about a probably hoh, batman or matchday version for gba? do you think that they'd be a hit?
r: i don't own the rights for any of these games so there won't be any follow-ups, i shall certainly be looking at creating a large adventure game though
v: which are your current proyects?
r: I am programming a GBA 3D engine and also several versions of F1 GP3/4
v: which question would you like to be asked you? please answer it.
r: q) would you like a beer?
a) yes please
v: any other interesting thing to comment?
r: i'm off to make my dinner
thanks for all, jon!
|  Jon Ritman
 Batman CPC version (1985)
 Matchday CPC version (1987)
 Head Over Heels CPC version (1987)
 Monster Max Game Boy 1994
 Super Match Soccer PC (1995)
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