First-Hand Gaming History, from Mike Dailly

March 24, 2011 12:49 PM

Game programmer and designer Mike Dailly has been making games since he was 14, back in 1984. It was then that he met David Jones, Russell Kay and Steve Hammond at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club, a group that gathered at Kingsway Technical College in Dundee, Scotland. These four chaps would go on to form DMA Design, home to Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto, amongst other games. Dailly has been sharing stories and materials from the archives of DMA, including The Complete History of DMA Design, The Complete History of Lemmings (previously), GTA prototypes, graphics and early game design docs (when it was called "Race 'n' Chase"), and more....

The GTA graphics and design docs are from Dailly's flickr account, where he has also posted more Lemmings material (including the Lemmings 2 comic), and pics from other early DMA Design games as well as early drafts from games that were never made. Dailly also has a YouTube account where he has uploaded old gameplay clips and demos, plus a bunch of clips from Tanktics.


Bonus Bits
* Mike Dailly has a blog that he's updated since 2006, where he posts thoughts and discussions on games and systems, both modern and past.

* According to an wiki page that is short on citations, the name DMA was originally taken from the Amiga programming manuals simply because it sounded cool and did not actually mean anything.

* If all this talk of GTA is getting you looking for your old discs, Rockstar Games offers the original GTA and GTA 2 as a free download (along with a 3rd DMA Design game, Wild Metal). Download links are sent to an email address, and the games have been modified to run on modern systems. GTA 2 is a more recent addition, as the GTA (original) and Wild Metal downloads were posted to the blue before.

* If you're looking to save (or slaughter) some lemming sprites, there are a number of Lemmings games to be found on Home of the Underdogs (prev).

posted by filthy light thief (16 comments total)

Lemmings was the easiest tower defense game ever.
posted by gurple at 12:51 PM on March 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Blood money for the Amiga was awsome.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:02 PM on March 24, 2011

Awsome? C'mon iPhone do your job
posted by Ad hominem at 1:04 PM on March 24, 2011

How did Dan Houser get involved with the GTA franchise?
posted by empath at 2:04 PM on March 24, 2011

It blew my mind when I found out that Lemmings and GTA were by the same company.
When I was a kid I had the demos for GTA 1 and 2. Downloaded off AOL. I never needed the full game. You blew up after 5 minutes so I treated it like a high score game. Perfect stress relief. Bad day? GTA.
haven't had the same love for the 3D GTA games, though Chinatown Wars on the DS is awesome.
Is this the same guy who made Crackdown?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:20 PM on March 24, 2011

Hardcore Gaming on Body Harvest - a proto 3D GTA on the n64
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:23 PM on March 24, 2011

Lovecraft In Brooklyn: It blew my mind when I found out that Lemmings and GTA were by the same company.

Ditto - I was just going to post about old GTA stuff, then I found the same studio that made the GTA franchise made the Lemmings series of games. But reading about the decision to make running down lines of Hare Krishnas (as told there, it wasn't something against the Krishnas, it was about being able to interact with a chain of game elements... who happen to be Hare Krishnas), the mindset seems to match with the Lemmings destruction - weird and "childish" game elements.

More on GTA: on the prior page of that same interview, the original GTA was almost not released, because the early versions were so unstable -- "The designers couldn't test stuff out or try things out, it just kept crashing as simple as that." Oh, and the super aggressive police was possibly a bug that then got fixed and worked into the game in a formal way.)

Is this the same guy who made Crackdown?

Realtime Worlds made Crackdown, and RW was founded in early 2002 by David Jones, who is the same David Jones of DWA Design fame.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:53 PM on March 24, 2011

It blew my mind when I found out that Lemmings and GTA were by the same company.

Yes, exactly. I really only dare to dip my toe into the pool of computer games from time to time (because I know my impulses will be to submerge myself and drown and possibly drown also both my cats and my partner in the process)... But Lemmings is something I fell into decades ago, and loved it, and I find it incredibly odd that that little strategy game would be in any way related to GTA.

Life is strange.
posted by hippybear at 3:03 PM on March 24, 2011

I should add... I end up reading and listening to and watching a lot about video games (like that game development post mortem post earlier this week -- if you haven't watched the video about the development for Pitfall, you're missing out on exactly what software development was like before everything was a giant box you could play around in with impunity)...

So I try to experience video games in a more distanced, intellectual way. Because I find them fascinating, I just don't trust myself around them first-hand.
posted by hippybear at 3:05 PM on March 24, 2011

This is the intro for the Amiga version of Blood Money, which was released in 1989. This was the the entire first disc, 880k.
posted by Ad hominem at 3:22 PM on March 24, 2011

For those of you still on my lawn, here's another example of how we did it back then.
posted by fullerine at 3:30 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ditto - I was just going to post about old GTA stuff, then I found the same studio that made the GTA franchise made the Lemmings series of games. But reading about the decision to make running down lines of Hare Krishnas (as told there, it wasn't something against the Krishnas, it was about being able to interact with a chain of game elements... who happen to be Hare Krishnas), the mindset seems to match with the Lemmings destruction - weird and "childish" game elements.

yeah, the little splash of pixelated blood, the GOURANGA!... the feels a bit like the silly gore of Lemmings

its why i'm weary of GTA4. it's meant to be this amazing, deep experiance... i miss the arcadey stupidity of the early games
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:33 PM on March 24, 2011

This yt is the intro for the Amiga version of Blood Money, which was released in 1989. This was the the entire first disc, 880k.

that still looks fun
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:35 PM on March 24, 2011

GTA London was my favorite. Can't wait for GTA IV, but I am still holding out for a return to the UK one of these days...
posted by Aquaman at 5:58 PM on March 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here is is somewhat crappy video of Menace running on an Amiga 2000 running kickstart 1.3 (check out that original Amiga mouse and Commodore Monitor with the little door that always broke off), an emulator and a PSP.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:01 PM on March 24, 2011

Here is an LP of Walker from 1993, kinda a swan song for the Amiga, check out the reqs, Amiga 500 with 1 Meg of ram so it actually required an internal ram expansion.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:18 PM on March 24, 2011