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Norse
Code: Odin remembered
Interviews, 1997
(left to right - Paul Salmon, Robbie
Tinman, Steve Wetherall,
Stoo Fotheringham, Marc Dawson, Colin Grunes and George Barnes)
Steve Wetherill:
Odin consisted of up to 15 people at any one time and had
rather smart offices right opposite the Albert Dock in Liverpool
(home of This Morning and Richard and Judy,
although they might have been taken off the air and incarcerated
by now for all I know).
There were 4 main artists - Paul Salmon, Stoo Fotheringham,
Colin Grunes and Andy R??. The programmers that I remember
were Robbie Tinman, Mark Dawson, Keith Robinson, George Barnes,
Tommy Laningan, Derrick Rowson, Steve P., and myself. There
was a musician, Keith Tinman plus a receptionist and secretary.
Paul McKenna was the MD.
Stuart Fotheringham:
Yes, I admit it! I was actually the main Commodore 64
artist and Colin Grunes was the main Speccy artist, however,
I did occasionally load Melbourne Draw from micro-drive
and get stuck into some speccy graphics (very significantly
in Nodes and Arc, some bits and pieces on Robin
and I.C.C.U.P.S., possibly one or two small pixels
in Heartland and most of the loading screens). This
explains why the hero of the Yesod games was Charlie Fotheringham-Grunes,
if you ever find the packaging.
Colin Grunes:
In the beginning there was Thor, a software house that bought
its games from "bedroom" programmers; it released
an endless catalogue of poor quality, mainly Speccy, software
(the only, debatable, exceptions being the Jack and the
Beanstalk trilogy).
Thor became Odin Computer Graphics (O.C.G.) for three key
reasons:
- All games to be produced in-house, a new start and break
with the past;
- Odin wanted to be mistaken for Ashby Computer Graphics
(A.C.G.), or "Ultimate Play the Game" as they
were commonly known, as much as possible; [Crash once
described them as "would-be Ultimates"]
- Thor had a bad reputation for very poor quality software.
After the initial successes of Nodes and Robin under the
O.C.G. label, the powers that be decided to bring Thor back
from the dead, but it's name was changed to Thor Computer
Software (T.C.S.). It was to be a sister company to O.C.G.,
with the purpose of publishing "budget" (£7.95
as opposed to £9.99) Odin games.
Steve:
Odin was signed by BT shortly after shipping the Spectrum
version of Nodes. We had a deal to deliver 10 titles
in one year for a six figure sum. I think we just about delivered
10 titles, but only barely. By the time the last title was
delivered there were very few people left and it was obvious
the place was falling apart. I'm sure that this was a very
similar situation to a lot of other small development houses
back in the 80's.
I could tell many a tale about Odin. Like when a certain
artist tried to summon a demon to "get" one of the
programmers; or when an nameless party barfed in the sink
in the kitchen after a particularly heavy lunchtime session,
only to discover that the sink was not actually plumbed-in
yet; or when an advert appeared in on of the Odin windows:
"Fit Girls Apply Within" which lead to one of the
programmers getting married. Needless to say, it was a young
company with very young employees and these types of antics
were only to be expected!
Stoo:
Colin Grunes and myself, Stuart Fotheringham, produced most
of the OCG graphics. The exception was Robin O' The Wood where
Paul Salmon produced the majority of the Speccy version graphics.
Steve Wetherill wrote the code for all the major Speccy titles.
Odin won the "Golden Joystick Awards" Best Advertisement
Award for 1985 and 1986. A local commercial artist called
Gerry Fisher painted them.
What did you do after you left?
Most of us ended up working for Denton Designs (a Liverpool
based software development company) who were then made up
from ex-Imagine people. We didn't stay very long and then
went our separate way: freelancing, setting up business, being
unemployed, et cetera.
Today Colin and I work for the same international management
consultancy company producing business graphics using Apple
Macintosh computers; we work in many countries around the
world, and live in hotels (but get great air-miles). Steve
Wetherill is the research and development director of an American
games software company [Westwood Studios] based in
Las Vegas. Marc Dawson is a manager for a games software house
in Manchester (Barbie - The Game is his latest title). Paul
Salmon was last heard of on the dole still in Liverpool. Keith
Tinman is the in-house musician at Ocean Software. Paul McKenna
has gone back to the construction industry. I don't know what
anyone else is up to.
(Colin was the only Liverpudlian).
Who produced what?
- Stairways
- Publisher: Thor (last game before re-branding)
- Code: Marc Dawson (C64)
- Graphics: Stuart Fotheringham (C64)
- Music: Fred Grey
- Nodes of Yesod (Working Title: "Moon Munching
Moles From Mars")
- Publisher: Odin Computer Graphics
- Code: Steve Wetherill, Keith Robinson, Dave ??? (Spectrum,
Spectrum 128); Keith Robinson (C64); Stephan Walker
(Amstrad CPC); Steve Wetherill (Enterprise Elan); Robbie
Tinman (BBC Micro - cancelled); George Barns (MSX -
cancelled)
- Graphics: Stuart Fotheringham (Spectrum, etc); Colin
Grunes (Spectrum, etc); Paul Salmon (Spectrum, etc)
- Music: Fred Grey
- Robin of the Wood (Working Title: "Robin o'
the Wood")
- Publisher: Odin Computer Graphics
- Code: Steve Wetherill (Spectrum, Spectrum 128); Marc
Dawson (C64); Laurence ???, Stephan Walker (Amstrad
CPC - cancelled)
- Graphics: Paul Salmon (Spectrum); Stuart Fotheringham
(C64); Paul Salmon (Amstrad CPC)
- Music: Fred Grey
- Arc of Yesod
- Publisher: Thor Computer Software
- Code: Steve Wetherill (Spectrum, Spectrum 128); Robbie
Tinman (C64)
- Graphics: Colin Grunes (Spectrum, C64); Stuart Fotheringham
(C64, Spectrum)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- I.C.C.U.P.S. - International Commision for Universal
Problem Solving
- Publisher: Thor Computer Software (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Tommy Lannigan, Steve Parry (Spectrum); Robbie
Tinman (C64)
- Graphics: Stuart Fotheringham (Spectrum, C64)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Mission A.D. -- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Odin Computer Graphics (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Marc Dawson (C64)
- Graphics: Stuart Fotheringham (C64)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Heartland
- Publisher: Odin Computer Graphics (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Steve Wetherill (Spectrum, Amstrad CPC tape,
Amstrad CPC disc); Keith Robinson (C64)
- Graphics: Colin Grunes (Spectrum, Amstrad, C64)
- Music: Steve Wetherill
- On The Tiles (Working Title: "Black Cat Game")
-- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Odin Computer Graphics (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Robbie Tinman (C64)
- Graphics: Andy R?? (C64)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Sidewize
- Publisher: Odin Computer Graphics (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Steve Wetherill (Spectrum)
- Graphics: Colin Grunes (Spectrum)
- Music: Steve Wetherill
- U.F.O. (Working Title: "Invaders '86")
-- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Unreleased (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Robbie Tinman (C64)
- Graphics: Andy R?? (C64)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Working Title: "Gladiator Fighting Game" --
[unreleased]
- Publisher: Unreleased (Telecomsoft)
- Coded: Derek Rowson (Amstrad CPC)
- Graphics: Paul Salmon (Amstrad CPC)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- The Gunpowder Plot -- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Unreleased (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Derek Rowson (Spectrum)
- Graphics: Paul Salmon (Spectrum)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Working Title: "Tank Game" -- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Unreleased (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Steve Perry (Spectrum)
- Graphics: Colin Grunes (Spectrum)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- P.L.O.D. -- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Unreleased (Telecomsoft)
- Code: Tommy Lannigan (Spectrum)
- Graphics: Andy R?? (Spectrum)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Lusitania (Working Title: "Sunken Ship Game")
-- [unreleased]
- Publisher: Unreleased (Telecomsoft)
- Coded: Robbie Tinman (C64)
- Graphics: Paul Salmon (C64)
- Music: Keith Tinman
- Crosswize
- Publisher: Telecomsoft
- Coded: Steve Wetherill (Spectrum)
- Graphics: Colin Grunes (Spectrum)
- Music: Steve Wetherill
Crosswize came after Odin's demise but was a follow-up to
Sidewize and was published through Telecomsoft.
Why were so many games unreleased?
I.C.C.U.P.S. and Mission A.D. were low on gameplay,
On the Tiles had no gameplay, the unpublished games
were laughably unplayable; in fact they were probably some
of the worst video-games in history but with nice graphics.
I think Telecomsoft was embarrassed about the whole deal.
What went wrong?
Even though we were based in refurbished Bug-Byte offices
(with a nice river scene through the windows, pleasant secretaries
/ receptionists, and a phone system from the future) we were
all so very young (I was sixteen when I joined, and eighteen
when I left). Most of us were naive, innocent of money matters,
just after partying full-time and/or not working too hard.
We were totally unmanaged: there was no proper management
structure in place, the strategy/sense of purpose was vacuous
(it was to make Paul McKenna rich), there was no resourcing
of projects, no proper plans or design, no clear measurable
objectives and milestones (deadlines), no clear roles within
the company (except Paul McKenna was in charge), no responsibilities
or accountabilities, the initial teamwork (that created successes
like Nodes and Robin) died out, there was no communication
from Paul McKenna or between programmers, hardly any input
and no feedback, there was absolutely no respect for others
opinions, everyone took a very short-term perspective, and
when the going got tough everyone left (I admit I was first).
We did produce some colourful game specs through. Thinking
back ten years, I'm surprised the company lasted as long as
it did.
Steve:
Nodes and Arc (in the Spectrum 48k versions)
were somewhat of a team effort. I completely deny any involvement
in [I.C.C.U.P.S., Gunpowder and P.L.O.D.],
and would like to apologise to anyone who might have seen
them - I'm sorry, we didn't mean it and it won't happen again
. . . . !
The Enterprise version of Nodes was interesting. On
the Enterprise you had a copper-list sort of affair. This
made it possible to specify the start address of each pixel
line and its attributes. I was able to set up a Spectrum screen
(with only minor differences in the attributes) and once that
was done the rest was plain sailing!
Most of these titles were also released on C64, but we're
not bothered about that, right? ;-)
Did you try anything off the wall?
Stoo & Colin:
Before the Telecomsoft deal...
We were interested in LaserDisc games so much that we bought
a Space Ace arcade machine (free-play all day), a converter
kit and LDs to play Dragon's Lair, and the first two
commercially available LD players outside Japan (only because
they were shipped from Tokyo) that could be controlled by
an external computer (via an RS-232 interface). One of the
LD players was later sold to Software Projects (with the Dragon's
Lair LDs) to help them develop Dragon's Lair for
the Spectrum, C64, etc.
We commissioned the techie who designed the Psyclapse
and Bandersnatch mega-games' hardware for Imagine to
design an add-on for the Speccy. This enabled every pixel
to be displayed in 8-bit colour from a 24-bit palette, and
to give the Speccy a lot more RAM. You may not be surprised
to learn it was much too expensive to produce commercially.
We tried to talk a major Japanese arcade game manufacturer
into letting us write a game (Robin of the Wood arcade
version) for them. However, they just wanted us to convert
their arcade games to the fledgling console market (Nintendo
Entertainment System and Sega Master System); we believed
there was no future in these systems so we declined.
We tried to get movie licences for the film The Terminator
and Dune (that coincidentally were out at the cinema
then), but both film studios seemed to think video-games were
too trivia and would demean their product; how times change.
We tried for the longest time to get speech in Spectrum Nodes,
but it worked out well in the end (even if it was Mark Butler
speaking). We had calls from many C64 owners asking why there
was no speech in their version; but they did have a Nodes
super-speed re-mix on the flip-side of the cassette.
After the Telecomsoft deal...
We became a warehouse for a while as Telecomsoft didn't have
the storage space for its unsold Rainbird, Firebird, Beyond
or budget ranges of software (the Odin offices had warehouse
space built in), for a fee.
Many thanks to Stoo Fotheringham, Colin Grunes and Steve
Wetherill for providing this information!
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