We Will Ask The Questions, Mr Fox . . .

I was recently interviewed for AuthorsAnon (link in side bar) by the awesome B LLoyd. It was my first interview as an author, but not the first time I’ve ever been interviewed. Over the years, as a games industry professional, I’ve given interviews to such august publications as The Independent, The Coventry Evening Telegraph, and various computer related magazines.

The first time I was interviewed was in 1992. My then partner (that’s business partner) Scott Williams and I had created a video game called Krusty’s Super Fun House, and it was starting to gain attention. A fairly new magazine at the time, N-Force, ran a feature on the game and said nice things about it, so I decided to phone their offices and thank them. They were pretty enthusiastic and asked if they could interview us, so I said yes, after checking with Scott.

On the day of the interview, two journalists arrived at my house. One was from N-Force, and one was from its sister magazine Sega Force. The interview went smoothly. Sensible questions about game development, level design, programming, graphics and animation etc., were asked and answered, photos were taken, and the two journalists went back to Ludlow to write, what we thought were going to be insightful articles about game development for the edification of their readers.

Here is a taste of what the resulting articles were like:

Scott is the sensible chap on the right. I’m the long-haired one on the left, wearing a black leather jacket and cowboy boots. I’ve always been a fashion icon.

“Pat disembowels Scott and feeds his steaming entrails to a passing lion. ‘Listen to other people’s views and be prepared to take criticism!’

Scott disintegrates Pat’s head with a thermonuclear device and shouts to me, ‘And remember, the rewards for coming up with a great game can include interviews with such prestigious magazines as SEGA FORCE!’

What a creep! I leave their dungeon lair with the sounds of the tormented still in my ears and the blood of hapless Nintendo owners on my boots . . .”

Any hopes we had of becoming the go-to-guys for comments on the games industry pretty much died with those two articles. And my dream of Michael Parkinson seeing one of the interviews and immediately booking us for his chat show, died on the day the magazines popped through my letterbox.

The pictures littered around this post were taken from the two magazine articles, and there’s one thing that bothers me about them — I can’t ever remember having a blonde moustache!

Here I am in 1992 aged 36, complete with a mysteriously blonde moustache. Scott was about 10 or 12 at the time. It looks like Aviator shades were the must have fashion accessory of the day.