The Matand Story
In 1985 - at the height of the home computer boom, the ZX Spectrum had found a home in more U.K households than any other computer. World-wide it reputedly sold more than five million units in its various incarnations. I was one of many who spent countless hours playing games - and more importantly, programming and tinkering to make our own programs...
My dad had bought my brother and I one of first 48k Spectrums produced by Sinclair Research in 1982. It arrived in the post, direct from the manufacturer in a plain brown box. The little gem inside would turn out to be far from plain.
I had learnt simple basic commands a year or so before, thanks to my best friend, Andy, and his UK101 computer. I immediately began to dabble with the Spectrum's in-built BASIC typing and changing the many magazine listings (and any commercial games written in BASIC)...
We were both young kids with a pipe dream of owning our software house, called MATAND SOFTWARE - MAT (Matthew) and AND (Andrew). Little did I know that I'd get the chance!
It wasn't until 1985 that I could start to produce 'quality' programs using a compiler called COLT by Hi-Soft. Before this, 'basic' BASIC was all I could understand. At about the same time a utility package called THE QUILL appeared on the market that allowed you create commercial quality text based adventures. This was soon followed by a basic graphics editor called THE ILLUSTRATOR. The two package combined allow me to produced two adventure games - the first was called THE DOOMSDAY PAPERS. In hindsight I should have used this first attempt to learn the design process and command structures - but as I was impatient to get things moving used it for the first release. Magazine reviews were fairly good (CRASH was the most positive at the time) and the orders started to roll in.
I booked a stand at the next ZX Micro Fair - which went incredibly well. I was 15 years old. I was able to pay my dad back the money I had borrowed to pay for the stand and duplication of the cassettes - with a profit as well. Here I am looking very youthful setting up the stand.
By this time, I had my own little office set-up in my bedroom...
I was encouraged enough to start work on the next game - DOME TROOPER. I spent a long time designing and developing every aspect of the adventure on paper before using the computer. The first game had been very linear and designed as I went along. Dome Trooper was to be a less limited and linear environment that allowed free movement between many locations. The game was partly designed in the U.K and partly in Spain while on holiday - mostly in notepads (the paper kind in those days!) and on scraps of paper.
In parallel to the creating the new game, I borrowed a Commodore 64 for a couple of weeks and converted The Doomsday Papers to it with enhanced graphics. Soon the development of Dome Trooper took over though and the Commodore version never really made it from the master tape - even though it was complete and ready to sell. The Spectrum's adventure market was far greater than the Commodore's in any case, but it was nice to work with another platform other than the Sinclair for once. I also wanted Andy to create the BBC versions of the games - but again it didn't happen for one reason or another. Andy did help with the programming of the B-Sides that I included with the games. The first was an amusing (for us anyway!) teletext/bulletin board type affair for the Doomsday Papers and a Light Cycle game for Dome Trooper. I believe that both of these are available on the internet as rom files for Spectrum emulators if you are curious to see them.
It didn't take long to get a working version of Dome Trooper up and running on the Spectrum as it was almost complete on paper already. The whole process took around three or four month's, taking a very long time pushing the graphics as far as I could within the memory available. I had the inconvenience of still having to go to school to learn about less important things during this time also, like Maths and English !
When the time was right, I sent out press releases, review copies and again booked a stand at the next ZX Micro Fair. Overall I made a much more professional job of it second time round and it paid dividends.
The reviews were good - with a superb SINCLAIR USER review standing out above all others. Dome Trooper took the main adventure review that month and it was a proud moment. You can read a scan of the magazine page below (sorry about the very small text !)
By this time I had other programmers sending me games asking if I could publish them and also magazines hassling me for advertising space. I remember having to talk to people on the phone during my school dinner hour (I lived close to the school and went home each day to eat).
I sold the game to various independent shops myself and did the rounds collecting the 'royalties' every so often.
I tried to do things properly, and so I had a business account with a Matand Software checkbook. I met my bank manager and he was impressed enough to waver the charges on my account to help me out. I was a right little business man - or so I thought at the time !
The other person who I owe many thanks to is Jim Judge - who guided me through the business of 'the press release' and many other things. He helped me enormously and without him I would have fallen flat on my face in those early days. He didn't mind lending me hardware (or giving it to me in some cases) and generally supported me as much as he could. If I had been good enough at the time I would have certainly been able to walk into many of the top game publishers of the time with a game to show them. Jim had those kinds of contacts.
He was a freelance writer/magazine producer for stores like W.H Smith and Menzies. He would be sent games and computer hardware to review - and I would gladly help him out. It was fantastic to play many new games and mess around with computer add-ons and complete systems. For example, I remember getting a full MSX import system with arcade sized Konami controllers along with HyperSports cartridges to review. Awesome !
So, I'd write reviews for him to include in his magazines. In return, he'd spent hours scanning the printouts of my game looking for any errors in grammar and spelling - of which there were hundreds. Some will still remain (especially in The Doomsday Papers) as spell checkers were never available on a computer like the ZX Spectrum. The games changed so much during the development stage that it was almost impossible to keep checking everything manually. Both games even changed slightly after being released correcting any obvious mistakes. On the loading screen of Dome Trooper you would see a Ver.2 tag in the bottom left for example.
After the glowing review in Sinclair User, I'd started to plan a sequel which would be set on a space station, but I started to loose interest in the early stages of the project. Sales of Dome Trooper were not as good as I thought they would be and putting four month's of work into a game takes some effort and as I was leaving school soon I had other priories, like getting a job.
If someone else would like to write a sequel or remake of it - I'm open to offers !
I also sensed at the time that the Spectrum computer game scene was coming to a natural end with a new generation of systems on the horizon.
The bottom line was that I was making a few hundred pounds now and again at the Micro Fairs with a trickle of cheques for £2.95 arriving though the post every other day. I realised I couldn't make a living out of it - and didn't expect to anyway. I sold my games to people from all over Europe and beyond. I'm proud of that. I'd taken things as far as I could though.
I was approached by PLAYERS a software house specialising in budget releases a few month's later concerning Dome Trooper, but after a couple of telephone calls and looking back, pretty contradicting conversations with them, nothing came of it and my attentions started to move elsewhere. I'd get another offer for the game from a European software house in 1990, that I didn't follow up, which was odd considering that the Spectrum was a very old platform by that time.
I'd become quite expert in a developers graphic sprite and graphic design package for the Spectrum by this time and after Dome Trooper I did some work in my spare time for an electrical goods retailer group (now Miller Brothers) called Baskill's. This involved animations and static graphics to be shown on TV's in the windows of the stores. I remember having to stay up all night to complete a 'rush job' for an the opening of a new super store in Stoke. This work carried on for a while and paid well (for a teenager). I also started work on a couple of other games that were far more advanced than anything I had done before - with my knowledge of the Compiler increasing. One was something similar to the Tron arcade game and looked very impressive, but I never finished them. The only other game I did complete during this time was an educational game to help with basic French. It was basically Space Invaders with large letters instead of Aliens to shoot. You'd have to spell a French word by shooting the correct letters. It went down well at my school who used it at a local exhibition.
So, at this point I had achieved and greatly surpassed my original, and slightly naive objective of a major magazine review. I realised I couldn't realistically take it further and didn't have the drive or interest. The days of the small mail order software business were over. If I had begun the project three or four years earlier I could have possibly been one of the many software houses that had grown from the bedroom so successfully. I needed to be a little older and wiser as the Spectrum first arrived.
I used most of the profits I'd received from the games and other related work to purchase my first musical equipment. I was in a band by this time, something that would eventually lead me away from computers and games and into the music industry - but that's another eventful story for another day and some other web site. I never had to borrow any money after the first game was finished, so overall I see the project as a success - even if it was a small one.
After leaving school, I happily took a job in my local computer shop and local hang out for a few successful games programmers from - Gremlin / Core, then Eidos. The shop was called, First Byte Computers and deserves to be a legend in it's own right (I am determined to write about the things that went on in my four years there one day!). As I headed toward adulthood though, music, going out on the town and women took over my life and I was pretty unmoved by the whole computer scene so it faded in my ambitions.
I'd still play games and take an interest, but it wasn't my life any more like it used to be.
A part of me now wishes I could have somehow found a job in the games industry though - considering the way it has turned into a multi-million pound playground. The closest I got was in the early 1990's, as professional songwriter, I visited and touted myself to one or two well known software companies concerning the music side of games - but nothing happened in the end. Oh well. I suppose I had my chance all those years ago in my bedroom...
By Matthew Holmes - 1985 Matand Software.
In a far and distant future....
As the world's population grew our cities became dangerously overcrowded.
With no where left to build - a solution was found by the world's governments - massive city domes were to be built. These domes would be constructed on the ground where the old crime and disease ridden cities stood. Whole areas were cleared using advanced weapons creating vast deserts. Most of the populous were happy to be at last given a much higher quality of life, but some who fed off the despair created in the old world were not so happy...
Those who refused to comply with the new world order took supplies and equipment to start new lives away from the Domes. These people soon became jealous of the Dome dwellers and soon turned to crime whilst visiting the domes to trade. Life was much tougher on the outside and tensions grew between communities. This escalated into fighting and a tough new policing was needed to protect the Dome's from attack from the outsiders - the Dome Troopers. Heavily armed defence walls were erected.
You were chosen to be a Dome Trooper and posted to City Dome Alpha. It is your role to protect the people and the dome itself. Intelligence suggests that the 'Desert Rebels' have already infiltrated undercover agents into the Dome. They also have many friends who benefit through illegal trade in arms and contraband.
Your contacts tell of their plan to manufacture a drug so powerful and addictive - death will follow within days of taking your first 'fix'. It's name is HAD - High Addiction Drug. To make matters worse they plan to contaminate the dome's self-contained and highly precious food and water supply with this drug.
If the rebels are successful the whole city is at risk and all will be lost.
The rebels will have secured their first stronghold. An official 'neutral zone' was declared as the first tensions arouse. The rebels chose to ignore this 'safe' area and after the defence walls were built the attacks became more and more aggressive. Now the neutral zone is a place of extreme danger. No one ever steps outside the defence wall if they value their lives.
You know your mission, Dome Trooper - City Dome Alpha depends on you.
The docking bay - I planned the sequel to be set in space, and these ships were an example of what would have been in the game. Dome Trooper II didn't get past the initial idea's stage as I moved away from computer games into music. |
 |
| The Opening Scene - Don't hang around, you need to sort out the reactor inside the dome before it blows! I regret adding this first task now - it caused one magazine reviewer to lose it completely and give up playing...which led to an indifferent review. Why didn't I send out review help sheets ? - Oh well... |  |
| A Cute Robot - He does serve a purpose... although I can't remember what exactly at the moment. It's funny how I've forgotten how to complete my own game. The robot and this level of the dome were inspired by the the sci-fi film, Silent Running. |  |
GAME DOWNLOAD
I'm allowing non-commercial free distribution of Dome Trooper, so download and copy it as you would any other freeware program.
If you do plan to play the game - please read the README file as this will fill you in with the storyline. It will also give details of how to complete the first task of averting the city reactor from exploding. You won't get far unless you do this - and it takes a while to figure it out without help. As I've already said - one reviewer gave up trying !
Download the game from World of Spectrum
Contact me here: email@matthewholmes.co.uk