Glenn Corpes's guest appearances

Glenn Corpes

Dev Game Club

The Retro Hour (Retro Gaming Podcast)

John Romero

David Brevik

Robyn Miller

Julian Gollop

Soren Johnson

Michael Katz

Nathan McCree

David Wise

Nolan Bushnell

Matt Barton

Lara Croft

Scott Miller

Tom Hall

Chris Avellone

Tim Schafer

OwlTail

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Populous with a special guest interview with Glenn Corpes, the original programmer who came up with a little generator for height maps that ended up launching a whole genre; we'll talk about that and tons of other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Interview 1:18:41 Break 1:19:02 Next time Issues covered: how Glenn got in, seeing a computer for the first time, being a computer operator, getting a job for your woodgrain, getting hired as an artist, porting a game without the code, winging it on things like collision detection, being unable to port something and casting about for something else, writing a level generator to avoid writing an editor, having to add the ability to raise and lower land, having the whole world with a pixel per cell, the game on top being all Peter's, working backwards from mouse coordinates, having the original disk, the potential for the landscape to rise up over the interface elements, updating the map every frame, limiting the use of the blitter, size of Bullfrog at the time, the musician/salesman, understanding the "metal-bashing aspect" or not, three man weeks of graphics, blocks vs sprites, one thing per square and no more than 256 total, managing character state, no pathfinding, map steps: the opposite of pheromones, buildings based on the flat space around, people as groups of people, the interaction of weapons multipliers and population, getting an explanation of what all the bars mean, the most significant digits, the strategy for managing population, the strategy for clearing land, a clarifying button on the SNES, near-launch title, sales and the UK Chart, multiplayer only until shortly before ship, communicating through a networked file, writing the game in 7 months, watching two AIs play each other, the ways in which AI difficulty is managed, reimplementing all the gameplay in two weeks, faking out the AI because it will always attack your oldest building, AI speed, responding to flood, the manna rules, going into a manna debt and paying it off, making inroads for the knights, stuck messages, adding a campaign two weeks from the end, having an accountant QA the game, the most difficult level of the game: Biloord, how to beat "Biloord: The Hardest Level in Populous," slowing the game vs arcade-ing it up, faking out a sphere, making the cube without the stickers, flat land as currency, synergy and serendipity, revolutionary gameplay from an unexpected place, last minute additions, fights on Populous: The Beginning, heretical choices in game development. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Bullfrog Productions, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Lost Toys, Moho, Battle Engine Aquila, Kuju, EA, Weirdwood, 22 Cans, Edge, Topia, Fat Owl with a Jet Pack, Ground Effect, powARdup, Commodore PET, ZX-81, Sinclair, Telex, Amiga, Taurus, Peter Molyneux, DPaint, Druid 2: Enlightment, Gauntlet, Spectrum, Fusion, The Ultimate Database, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Alienate, Knight Lore, Spindizzy, Marble Madness, Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, Andrew Bailey, Dene Carter, Big Blue Box, Fable, Lionhead, Kevin Donkin, Powermonger, GDC, SNES, The Sentinel, The Promised Lands, LEGO, Black&amp;White, Godus, Sean Cooper, Civilization, Alan Wright, Alex Trowers, Command &amp; Conquer, Ernő Rubik/Rubik's Cube, X-COM, Wayne Frost, Julian Gollop, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Leonard Boyarsky, Fallout, Tim Cain, The Outer Worlds, Obsidian, Microsoft, Dungeons &amp; Dragons, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. Next time: Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines (up through.... some of Santa Monica) Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Populous with a special guest interview with Glenn Corpes, the original programmer who came up with a little generator for height maps that ended up launching a whole genre; we'll talk about that and tons of other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Interview 1:18:41 Break 1:19:02 Next time Issues covered: how Glenn got in, seeing a computer for the first time, being a computer operator, getting a job for your woodgrain, getting hired as an artist, porting a game without the code, winging it on things like collision detection, being unable to port something and casting about for something else, writing a level generator to avoid writing an editor, having to add the ability to raise and lower land, having the whole world with a pixel per cell, the game on top being all Peter's, working backwards from mouse coordinates, having the original disk, the potential for the landscape to rise up over the interface elements, updating the map every frame, limiting the use of the blitter, size of Bullfrog at the time, the musician/salesman, understanding the "metal-bashing aspect" or not, three man weeks of graphics, blocks vs sprites, one thing per square and no more than 256 total, managing character state, no pathfinding, map steps: the opposite of pheromones, buildings based on the flat space around, people as groups of people, the interaction of weapons multipliers and population, getting an explanation of what all the bars mean, the most significant digits, the strategy for managing population, the strategy for clearing land, a clarifying button on the SNES, near-launch title, sales and the UK Chart, multiplayer only until shortly before ship, communicating through a networked file, writing the game in 7 months, watching two AIs play each other, the ways in which AI difficulty is managed, reimplementing all the gameplay in two weeks, faking out the AI because it will always attack your oldest building, AI speed, responding to flood, the manna rules, going into a manna debt and paying it off, making inroads for the knights, stuck messages, adding a campaign two weeks from the end, having an accountant QA the game, the most difficult level of the game: Biloord, how to beat "Biloord: The Hardest Level in Populous," slowing the game vs arcade-ing it up, faking out a sphere, making the cube without the stickers, flat land as currency, synergy and serendipity, revolutionary gameplay from an unexpected place, last minute additions, fights on Populous: The Beginning, heretical choices in game development. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Bullfrog Productions, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Lost Toys, Moho, Battle Engine Aquila, Kuju, EA, Weirdwood, 22 Cans, Edge, Topia, Fat Owl with a Jet Pack, Ground Effect, powARdup, Commodore PET, ZX-81, Sinclair, Telex, Amiga, Taurus, Peter Molyneux, DPaint, Druid 2: Enlightment, Gauntlet, Spectrum, Fusion, The Ultimate Database, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Alienate, Knight Lore, Spindizzy, Marble Madness, Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, Andrew Bailey, Dene Carter, Big Blue Box, Fable, Lionhead, Kevin Donkin, Powermonger, GDC, SNES, The Sentinel, The Promised Lands, LEGO, Black&amp;White, Godus, Sean Cooper, Civilization, Alan Wright, Alex Trowers, Command &amp; Conquer, Ernő Rubik/Rubik's Cube, X-COM, Wayne Frost, Julian Gollop, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Leonard Boyarsky, Fallout, Tim Cain, The Outer Worlds, Obsidian, Microsoft, Dungeons &amp; Dragons, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. Next time: Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines (up through.... some of Santa Monica) Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 230: Bonus Interview with Glenn Corpes

We get the inside story on Bullfrog and games like Populous, Syndicate and Magic Carpet from Glenn Corpes.  Glenn's blog: http://glenncorpes.blogspot.co.uk/ Thanks to our amazing donators this week: Ramond de Vrede, Craig Marshall, Andrew M Marsh, Stefan Blixth     Join our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/GQw8qp8 Our website: http://theretrohour.com Our Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theretrohour/ Our Twitter: http://twitter.com/retrohouruk Events: Ravi warming up for DJ Yoda: https://bit.ly/2IeusRu PLAY Expo comes to London: https://www.playexpolondon.com/ PLAY Expo Glasgow: https://www.playexpoglasgow.com/ PLAY Expo Blackpool: https://www.playexpoblackpool.com/ Show notes: Amiga Works DVD: https://www.facebook.com/amigaworks/ Billy Mitchell diqualified by Twin Galaxies: https://bit.ly/2HXR10q Myst Anniversary Collection Kickstarter: https://kck.st/2r2Ws4j Nintendo Switch has been hacked: https://bit.ly/2JxHsCs

We get the inside story on Bullfrog and games like Populous, Syndicate and Magic Carpet from Glenn Corpes. Glenn's blog: <a href="http://glenncorpes.blogspot.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://glenncorpes.blogspot.co.uk/</a> Thanks to our amazing donators this week: Ramond de Vrede, Craig Marshall, Andrew M Marsh, Stefan Blixth Join our Discord channel: <a href="https://discord.gg/GQw8qp8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://discord.gg/GQw8qp8</a> Our website: <a href="http://theretrohour.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://theretrohour.com</a> Our Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/theretrohour/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/theretrohour/</a> Our Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/retrohouruk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/retrohouruk</a> Events: Ravi warming up for DJ Yoda: <a href="https://bit.ly/2IeusRu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/2IeusRu</a> PLAY Expo comes to London: <a href="https://www.playexpolondon.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.playexpolondon.com/</a> PLAY Expo Glasgow: <a href="https://www.playexpoglasgow.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.playexpoglasgow.com/</a> PLAY Expo Blackpool: <a href="https://www.playexpoblackpool.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.playexpoblackpool.com/</a> Show notes: Amiga Works DVD: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/amigaworks/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/amigaworks/</a> Billy Mitchell diqualified by Twin Galaxies: <a href="https://bit.ly/2HXR10q" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/2HXR10q</a> Myst Anniversary Collection Kickstarter: <a href="https://kck.st/2r2Ws4j" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://kck.st/2r2Ws4j</a> Nintendo Switch has been hacked: <a href="https://bit.ly/2JxHsCs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/2JxHsCs</a>

Bullfrog: The Inside Story with Glenn Corpes - The Retro Hour EP119