Talking with Martyn Brown

RG: Now Martyn, first of alla we thank you for allowing us this interview. To begin with, would you tell us how many people is your "Team 17" composed of at present, including regular collaborators, planners and programmers?

Martyn: It's around 55. We are composed of about 15 programmers, 12 artists, 4 producers, 6 designers, a QA team of 8, plus management and support staff.

RG: Retrogaming.it deals mainly with retrogaming, therefore many of the questions we are going to put you will regard the glorious past of Team 17 and the historical importance it has had during the first nineties. Could you tell us briefly how your Software House was born?

Martyn:  Back in the late 80's, I ran an amiga shareware/public-domain library/club called "17Bit Software". Through this I got in touch with a lot of talented artists, musicians and so on. We began to have dreams of setting up our own games company and eventually it happened. Because we'd formed a team from "17Bit" I just called it "Team 17". It seemed natural.

RG: Let's speak about Amiga. In your opinion how important was the Commodore Personal Computer for your artistic growth? Do you think Amiga died young? How much did Amiga's end effect your amusement production?

Martyn: Without the Amiga we could have never made it. The amiga as a platform was perfect since it allowed small, or even one-man teams, to produce quality games in a reasonable development period. I'm not so sure about it "dying young" since it had 10 excellent years, which for one single platform is a long time, technology does march on and I think it got a little left behind, it wasn't helped by the troubles at Commodore itself. The end of the Amiga was fairly devastating to us, since we were our own publisher and we had to adapt to new markets and went through a hard transition period. Developing games on other platforms hasn't been so much fun as it was on the Amiga, although thats also perhaps due to us growing up a little now.

RG: Keeping to the point, has the gradual abandonment of 2D affected your way of conceiving a videogame or was the passage painless? Do you think the massive introduction of 3D to have been forced, or must we consider it a natural technical evolution? Is it by chance that your most successful game is Worms?

Martyn: I'm still not convinced that games need to be 3D. I think the design/idea and inspiration should come first and if it suits 2D or 3D, then so be it. Unfortunately the market is seemingly driven by a desire for greater and more complex visuals and the game is often forgotten. I think Worms was a lucky mix at the right time, it just happened to work as it was.

RG: Speaking about future plans, will we ever see a continuation of X2, or a continuation of Alien Breed on console? Anyway are you presently realizing something new? If yes, would you mind telling us something about it?

Martyn: We've no real plans to further the Project-X line of games since shooters are less fashionable these days and it appears people want more than that. Alien Breed will make a come back at some stage, when we are confident that we can risk the costly development, in a market that is currently totally focused on brand-building and franchises. We have to select the right time to relaunch the brand.

RG: What do you think obout the present situation of the console market, above all the imminent Xbox and Gamecube? As for Dreamcast, have you still some plans for the half-died Sega Console?

Martyn: We will be working on Gamecube, probably X-Box although I haven't been totally impressed with Microsoft's "technology at all costs" attitude. The Dreamcast is history, I'm afraid, which is a shame since we enjoyed working on that platform.

RG: Which is your favourite videogame?

Martyn: I have many, I've been playing for 20 years! It's difficult to pick one out above the others, sorry.

RG: Which videogame, among the ones produced by Team 17, are you most proud of?

Martyn: I think the ones that I got most personal satisfaction from were; Alien Breed Special Edition, Superfrog, Arcade Pool and Worms Armageddon.

RG: And now a mystery we hope you will clear: what has become of "King Of Thieves"? Many famous important newspapers spoke of it ten years ago, but nobody knew anything else...

Martyn: It was in development in 1994, around the time when it was debatable whether we should have still been doing Amiga games. Unfortunately, despite some lovely graphics by Rico Holmes, I had to take the hard decision to cease development since the game wasn't really looking like it would be any good.

RG: Do you have any regret, something you would have realized and that time or the market have denied you to realize?

Martyn: Not so many regrets, since if things don't go wrong then you just don't learn anything. Put it this way, I've learned a lot! ;) We've probably started a few projects that we shouldn't have (and consequently canned) and maybe that (along with the state of today's market) has made us think about things a lot more.

RG: One last question: Do you think technical leadership of consoles will be maintained by Sony and Nintendo, or that Xbox will be able in some way to overthrow such a situation?

Martyn: Consoles suit the mass market. Just plug in and turn on. Nice and simple. I can't see that being challenged, we've moved on from an industry where gamers were hard-core enthusiasts, we're in a mass market where companies challenge for "entertainment slots" - we've just got to ensure we provide that entertainment.

RG: Ok Martyn, it's all. Before leaving you we thank you once more fore the time you allowed us, wishing the maximum prosperity for your Team Seventeen for the present as well for the future.

Martyn: Cheers.