James Sutherland

I didn't really have much to do with that stuff. If I had to guess, I'd imagine high poly levels were taken at some point in order to produce low poly versions, stuff was later updated in the high poly ones but those changes never made it to the low poly stages. Just a guess though.

Don't know about budgets but almost entirely new assets, from what I remember.

In at least one instance (Samba) the console version changed significantly after the DS version was built but we didn't have time to update as DS had to be finished first due to cart manufacturing times.

For tennis on DS the environments were mostly rendered from the full levels, with a few 3D props. For Racing all the levels were rebuilt at low poly.

Code was common between home consoles but the DS versions were written from scratch and shared almost no code. I had to write my own physics and handling for the DS games and also wrote a custom renderer for Racing to keep it at (mostly) 60fps.

Loved working on this one. Though I'm struggling to believe it was nearly 20 years ago.

That's amazing! Please tell me you learned how to do joined up writing from the font in Gribbly's Day Out.

Yeah, I've used it for years and the first I knew it was being removed was a popup at the end of January saying it was being disabled mid January.

Another fact in the same genre: later this year, the video game 1942 will have been released closer to the year 1942 than to the present day.

I remember reading the announcement of the remaster as I was sat up in bed rewriting part of my wedding speech for the next morning. Felt like a bit of a weird coincidence as this was our wedding cake :)

Bicarbonate of soda in the water when you boil them is also good.

Shiny and non-shiny versions of all three Porygon evolutions.

Gone back to Pokemon Violet after the fantastic Switch 2 upgrade. It's taken a bit of work, but I think I now have the perfect team. Go Porygang!

That was the best E3.

There's only one choice for Switch 2 exclusive launch day games, right?

Sorry, only just seen this. I'll DM you. And figure out why my DMs are closed :)

I went there on a school trip about 40 years ago, and filled a roll of film with photos of that police box :)

I went there on a school trip about 40 years ago, and filled a roll of film with photos of that police box :)

The FunKey is definitely the most practical way to play Tetris. Game Boy for scale.

From the Nintendo UK Store, as they didn't put this in the direct.

It's Ridge Racer! RIIIIIIIIDGE RAAAACER!

They could at least have put this on it.

A game I worked on has just been announced for Evercade. I am officially retro.

Wait, it was on my wishlist. Why didn't I get an email?

Oh, I did, but I don't read my emails apparently.

I had no idea - Record of Lodoss War was amazing!

Stop talking about the Switch 2, and start talking about how Kiryu is in our game and Pinky's actor's performance is probably the best performance in any game. I'm serious. When we release some longer gameplay footage of her acting, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND

Everybody getting excited about Switch 2. Meanwhile, I'm learning Game Boy programming. Look, I made a triangle wobble a bit!

That VGA Monkey Island art was so good. And apparently all drawn with a mouse!

Looking forward to Nintendo releasing a trailer for an Alarmo update or a LEGO Virtual Boy at 1pm today.

Another nice thing from my Japan trip 20 years ago is this little magnifier and strip of film from the Ghibli museum. The strips were 1000¥ each and have a few frames from a movie on them.

Just found this retro Gradius phone strap thing that I bought at Tokyo Game Show in 2004. The strap, which I haven't yet got around to opening, is now older than Gradius was when I bought it.