Inteview with Sweinstein
found in | Type | Author | Year |
Diskmagazine interviews | New Wave & Pure Metal Coders Cocy - Comajim - Cyberbit - ... | t11/91 added 8/94 |
INTERVIEW WITH THE CODER OF TWINTRIS ------------------------------------ He made the hit 'TWINTRIS'. The game has become one of the most popular arcade games in the Amiga history. Let's us talk with the programmer of this game, Svein Berge...... Which Amiga groups have you been in ? Ok, here comes the boring story: My friends back home and I founded a group with the silly name Action Force some years ago. Later we found out that Action Force was a silly name and changed it to Cult. After a while, Cult disolved and my friends and I joined Network. Have you made any other known productions on the Amiga? I have, of course, made a few demos. But the only thing I've made besides Twintris, which has been spread widely, is a bitplane-ripper called 3rd day. I have actually made much more money on that public domain utility than on Twintris. It was released under my hacker name: SwEinstein. Try to tell the story of Twintris from the start till the end? It all started out the summer of '89 (By Bryan Adams!) when a shop back home got the arcade version of Twintris. I played it a bit with my friends it was great fun. I played with the thought of converting it to the Amiga, and when I brought my Amiga with me for holiday, I began programming. The main routines of the game were finished during that summer and autumn, I was not sure what to do with the game. The most likely possibility would be to release it as a demo. But I thought that if I could make money on it, nothing would be better than that! So at Christmas-times I released a demo, asking for publishers. Nobody responded so I decided to make an almost finished demo with music and send it directly to the software house. So I did. Walkman (Tor B. Gausen) made the music and at spring '90 I sent 15 copies to different software-houses all around the world. I only got 5 replies, and they all said " Your game was great, and we enjoyed playing it, but unfortunately we can not release it, because Mirrorsoft holds the copyrights. " Mirrorsoft replied that" the game does not fit into our current product line". They did not answer to the letter where I asked what they would charge me for a licence. That was about the time Mirrorsoft went bankrupt. Obviously, one of the 15 copies had leaked out of the software-houses and was widely spread. At that time, I was bored with programming that game and didn't bother much what happened to it. But then, one day, I got a letter from an unknown german firm called Digital Marketing. They wrote that they had seen my game and would like to release it. They claimed there was no copyright problem. I talked to the guys and they guaranteed me the game would be released if I finished it. They told me I could expect an income around 10000 - 20000 DM. That sounded interesting, and during the autumn '90 I finished the game. The german release was delayed and delayed. The game was not commercially released before spring 91. That was when I decided to make a try at releasing it myself. I printed 1000 4-color copies of the english instructions and cover. That costed me kr 6000. None of the english firms wanted to distribute tha game, still frightened of copyright-trouble. BJ electronics, the firm which imports nearly all games to Norway offered me 90 kr pr.game, resulting in a price of kr 350 for the customer. That was intolerable so I sent 100 letters to different Norwegian stores. Out of this I got FIFTEEN orders! Not much profit there. How much did you get paid for the game ? As I said, Digital Marketing told me to expect 10 - 20.000 marks. I got 90. Not 90.000 but 90 marks... The norwegian sales together with what I made in Porsgrunn left me with the total balance of MINUS 4000 kr. Walkman was to have 18,5 % of my income from Digital Marketing. I sent him the symbolic sum of kr 100, which was actually more than he was entitled to!Are you satisfied with the pay pr. hour ? All but the Swedish readers should understand that all questions were made before the answers :-) The Norwegian group Razor 1911 cracked your final version. What is your comment to that? Somebody had to crack it. No game has stayed uncrack yet. I have no hard feelings against Razor 1911, because they managed to do it first What will you do now ? I have begun studying at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim (NTH), department of electronics and computer science (specialicing in electronics). The studies take 4 1/2 years. What is the most important part of a game ? Different games have different attractions. Just like in the movies. Nobody goes to see Terminator II because of it's brilliant story. And very few went to see Dances with Wolves because of it's stunning special effects. Why do you think that Twintris became such a hit? Twintris is as popular as it is , because of Brilliant idea (which obviously was not mine). I believe that games that completely lacks one , the qualities which makes a game will be forgotten very soon. Shoot-em-ups are soon forgotten because of their inorginality. Adventure games written in AmigaBasic are forgotten because they lack graphics and sound. Twintris will be forgotten, because it has too little variation. But many games that have been much more expensive to make will be forgotten before Twintris because Twintris has what most games lack: The good idea. How many copies of Twintris are sold worldwide? About 30 How good are you in Twintris yourself, what is your highscore ? Test-playing took at a time a pretty large portion of my time. So of course I can play Twintris pretty well. But I am not as good as many of my friends. I don't know how much I have scored on the current version of Twintris. Besides there are many different highscores as you know. How many levels are there in Twintris? 18 sequencial levels, plus 3 special ones. Will you code some demos in the future or is it just gamecoding? We'll see if I continue programming anything releasable at all. There is too little time up here, and the spare time seems much better spent at other places than before my Amiga (like before some DECstations, SUN workstations (all connected with the schools own CRAY if that should interest anybody), at the student's workshop, or even at student parties) Have you quit the scene completely? I am highly inactive. But I never quit! What is the difference between a black baby and a white baby The black one is darker (The right answer should be 1 minute in the micro oven Ed.) Have you got some friends in the scene Lots of them (Nice answer .Ed) Last words I am no more a poor computer programmer. I am now a poor student. So if you want to support me economically, send me a check, will you! If you feel guilty about your pirate version of Twintris, contact RAW. We will give you the address to Svein Berge and you can buy the game from him for a cheap price.