Isn't it amazing who you bump into on HN? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Lawlor

TAF, RS and NGG are amongst my childhood favourites. Thanks :-)

Well, I can only take credit for one of those but thanks. It's always great meeting people that played our stuff all those years ago.

Thanks Louis :) I've put so many hours on NGG it's ridiculous. Childhood and current favorite, great full-package game at its best. Set it at a steep pitch with no outlane post and Fire Down Middle on. Full throttle, ignore the wall!

Awesome!

About that last line. It actually has a double meaning. I don't think Pat has ever discussed it.

First one was that Pat is a big NASCAR fan (we were trying to get that license even back in the Williams days). So that's an obvious one. Pedal down and turn left!

The second one was a dig at Williams management. Pat had tried to reason with them to not overproduce games and/or stuff them down the throats of distributors. Forcing weak games on customers and stuffing the pipe was bad for business and things had already taken a serious turn for the worse business-wise (and we were still a full 2 years before shutdown).

IIRC, the conversation with management was "if you don't slow down we're gonna hit the wall" and the reply was "f* it, full throttle!" This is why Pat hid that text in the back loop where nobody would really see it.