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Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by jacquesm on Thursday June 19, 2014 @02:59PM (#7917712)
Similar story, I got hired by a game development company to make a strategy game involving an aircraft carrier, a ton of aircraft and all kinds of boats and characters. When it was done it was a mini multi-tasking operating system, it taught me more than any project that I'd done up to that point. And the fact that it all played out in real time on a screen made it very easy to see if it wasn't keeping up.

This was on an ST so definitely not a slow machine and yet there were quite a few tricks required to keep it all moving smoothly with close to 100 objects on and off screen.

Good times :)

Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by pkaye on Thursday June 19, 2014 @04:51PM (#7918237)
What is the name of this game?
Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by ChuckMcM on Thursday June 19, 2014 @05:41PM (#7918459)
Well my wrist reflexively ached when he described it and a picture of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Air_Wing_%28video_game%... inserted itself into my head :-)
Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by jacquesm on Thursday June 19, 2014 @05:47PM (#7918484)
Pretty close. The game was called FlightDeck and the publisher was Aackosoft. It was a bit earlier though, 1980s, I'm a bit hazy on the exact date but it would have to be somewhere around 1988 or so.

Here are some shots from the MSX version (which was made a few years earlier by an absolutely awesome programmer called Steve Course).

http://www.generation-msx.nl/software/aackosoft/flight-deck-...

Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by bencollier49 on Friday June 20, 2014 @06:46AM (#7920192)
That looks as though it might have been inspiration for "Carrier Command".
Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by notastartup on Thursday June 19, 2014 @11:24PM (#7919402)
What an amazing feeling it must've been. I absolutely LOVE hearing these developer war stories from 80s and 90s, although 90s more because I am a 90s kid.

It definitely makes me feel that today's average devs are spoiled with all the innovations that have taken place...and still can't roll out a hit.

Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by usr on Friday June 20, 2014 @03:23AM (#7919828)
If you haven't seen it already, you might enjoy reading "It's Behind You" by Bob Pape. It's about how the game R-Type was ported to the ZX Spectrum back in the day.

http://www.bizzley.com/

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6470106

Re:A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game by jacquesm on Friday June 20, 2014 @05:43AM (#7920078)
If you want to read more about that particular gig:

http://jacquesmattheij.com/A+tale+of+two+programmers