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For those of you visiting this page in search of more
info about Rick that very
few people would know about (and more could care less about), here's
some odd bits of trivia:
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The squashed look of
the characters was inspired by the Spectrum game 'Joe Blade' and the
wondrous art of
Argentinian cartoonist Guillermo Mordillo.
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The screen was 32
characters (256 pixels) wide on all formats, including the Amiga and ST
versions, since we were so tight on time we could not afford to have
different width maps for the different formats.
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Similarly, all sprites
were 24 pixels wide by 21 pixels high on all formats - the restriction
of the hardware sprites on the Commodore 64 - another time-saving
technique.
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Rick's characteristic
'Waaaah!' sound effect was me - recorded on an old tape cassette
machine - the result of myself and Terry spending a half-hour making
ridiculous noises for the game and picking the funniest.
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The cartoon strip that
came boxed with the game was drawn by Ian Gibson - of 2000AD's Robo
Hunter fame. We knew nothing of this until we received boxed copies of
the game and it was a great surprise to think that one of my comic
artist heroes had illustrated a game that I'd worked on. (The 'Fat Guy'
who appeared later in Rick Dangerous 2 was entirely a creation of Mr.
Gibson's and was such a hit with us that we simply had to bring him in
as Rick's nemesis when it came around to doing the sequel.)
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There were 74 different
enemy and trap types in the game, all handled by the same very simple
and very small control routine.
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Rick was designed in
July 1988 and took four months to create, although it was not released
until June of the following year. (Back then it was often the case that
you would finish making a game only for it to be held for a period and
not three seconds after you had made your final build.)
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The game ran to 85
screens in size on the 8-bit formats, with 50 additional screens on the
16-bit formats.
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One feature that was
designed but never implemented was a sequence in which the enemies on a
level could capture Rick. The plan was to show an animated sequence in
which Rick was carried off tied to a stretcher. He would then be placed
in a cell with four exits that the player could choose between. 2 exits
would lead to instant deaths, 1 exit would return Rick to the start of
the level he was on with the final exit that returning our hero to the
last position he was at when captured. Fortunately for us all, this
frustrating little feature never saw the light of day.
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