Sensible Software was two school friends from Essex, Jon Hare and Chris Yates, and for most of its first five years it was hardly more than that. Hare drew and designed, Yates programmed. Working at first from Yates’s house, they made Wizball and MicroProse Soccer for the Commodore 64, then Mega-lo-Mania, Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder for the Amiga. By 1994 AMIGA POWER’s all-time top 100 had Sensible Soccer at number one and Cannon Fodder at number two. The magazines knew the pair by their nicknames: ACE introduced them in 1991 as “the long-haired duo of Jon ‘Jovial Jops’ Hare and Chris ‘Cuddly Crix’ Yates”.
Fast facts
- Founded: March 1986, by Jon Hare and Chris Yates.
- Based: Essex. By 1994 the office was in Saffron Walden.
- Commodore 64 years: Parallax (1986) and Wizball (1987) for Ocean, the Shoot-’Em-Up Construction Kit (1987) for Palace’s Outlaw label, MicroProse Soccer (1988) for MicroProse.
- Amiga years: International 3D Tennis (1990), Mega-lo-Mania (1991), Wizkid (1992), Sensible Soccer (1992), Cannon Fodder (1993), Cannon Fodder 2 (1994), Sensible World of Soccer (1994), Sensible Golf (1995).
- Ended: bought by Codemasters in 1999.
A band first
Hare and Yates met at school. “I knew Jon from the fifth year of school,” Yates told ZZAP! in 1990, “we formed a band.” The band, which Hare said went through names including Zeus, Hamsterfish, Dark Goose and finally Touchstone, formed in Chelmsford and played around Essex. Music stayed part of the company: when Martin Galway wrote the Wizball music, the pair played him the guitar and bass lines.
Their first computer work was for other people. Yates took a job as a Spectrum programmer at LT Software in Basildon, and Hare was brought in to draw the graphics. Between them they converted a game to the ZX Spectrum, drew graphics for System 3’s International Karate, and wrote a game called Twister: Mother of Harlots, which, Hare said, went out under someone else’s name. Then they heard about a government scheme that helped people start small businesses, and in March 1986 Sensible Software became official.
Ocean and the Commodore 64
The first game to carry the Sensible name was Galax-i-birds, released by Firebird in August 1986. The one that mattered was Parallax, a Commodore 64 shoot-‘em-up. Hare remembered driving back from Ocean’s Manchester office with “a £1,000 cheque after just signing up Parallax”. Ocean released it in October 1986 after six months’ work, with music by Ocean’s Martin Galway. Wizball followed in 1987, took nine months, and went on the cover of ZZAP!64 with 96%.
At the end of 1987 Sensible gave Palace Software’s new label, Outlaw, its first release: the Shoot-’Em-Up Construction Kit, sold at £14.95. It began, ZZAP! reported, as “a series of graphic code utilities written by Chris”, and it let anyone with a Commodore 64 design and share their own scrolling shooter. In August 1988 ZZAP! announced that Galway had joined Sensible as its third member, and he was there while they wrote MicroProse Soccer. In 1991 ACE still called it “quite simply, the best 8-bit football game ever”. Getting paid for it was harder. “Writs were involved to get the money out of MicroProse,” ZZAP! reported.
Amiga years
Sensible’s first 16-bit game was International 3D Tennis for Palace in 1990. The Commodore 64 version was theirs, and David Korn wrote the Amiga and ST versions. Mega-lo-Mania (1991), a god game published by Mirrorsoft, was the first Sensible program by Chris Chapman, who later programmed Sensible Soccer. AMIGA POWER gave it 90% and later called it “one of the most accessible, and best, God-sims ever created”. Wizkid, the sequel to Wizball, followed in 1992.
Sensible Soccer, published by Renegade in 1992, was Hare’s answer to Kick Off 2. It topped the charts for four months, and Sensible kept updating it, then built it into Sensible World of Soccer (1994), which AMIGA POWER gave 95%, its highest score. Cannon Fodder (Virgin, 1993) put the same tiny figures into a war game that counted its dead, and drew protests over the poppy on its packaging. By then the team had grown. AMIGA POWER introduced some of them in 1994: Julian “Jools” Jameson, the programmer of Cannon Fodder; the artist Stoo Cambridge; the programmer Chris Chapman; and Richard Joseph, who was writing the music and sound effects for their golf game. Hare’s own entry in that list said his “ultimate ambition is to cut a single and get it into the Gallup Top 10”.
Sensible Golf (Virgin, 1995) was, AMIGA POWER reported, “the last ever Amiga game Sensible intend to release”, and the magazine was disappointed with it.
The last years
The project Hare cared most about in the late 1990s never came out. Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll was, Edge reported, “a labour of love” for Hare. Time Warner first signed it, then found it too risqué, and Sensible took it to around 20 other publishers without an acceptable offer. As early as 1995 Hare had told Amiga Computing that publishers liked the game but feared the media reaction to it.
In 1999 Codemasters bought Sensible Software for an undisclosed sum, with the rights to its back catalogue, and Hare went on to lead new projects for Codemasters. In a list of his top ten moments for Edge the following year, Hare described the sale: “after 13 years, the last two of which had been living hell, Chris and I had managed to emerge unscathed… without ever having had a single argument.” In 2000 PC Zone previewed a Cannon Fodder 3D from Sensible for Codemasters, which was never released, and Codemasters put Cannon Fodder on the Game Boy Color. The Sensible name lived on in re-releases, including a new Sensible Soccer in 2006 with Hare back on board. Hare’s later career is covered in his own entry.
Sources
- ZZAP! issue 61, May 1990, pp. 36–39: feature on Sensible Software by Robin Hogg (the school band, the early work, the 1986 founding, Galax-i-birds, Parallax, Wizball, SEUCK, MicroProse Soccer and the writs).
- The One issue 21, June 1990: “Court in the Act” (LT Software; International 3D Tennis and David Korn).
- Amiga Format Special issue 4, 1992: company history by Jon Hare (March 1986, the government scheme, LT Software of Basildon, the band names and Chelmsford, Parallax at Ocean, Chris Chapman and Mega-lo-Mania).
- ZZAP!64 issue 32, December 1987: Shoot-’Em-Up Construction Kit review (Outlaw, £14.95).
- ZZAP!64 issue 40, August 1988: “Martin Galway goes Sensible”.
- ACE issue 49, October 1991: “A Sensible approach” (the nicknames, MicroProse Soccer); Mega-lo-Mania review (Mirrorsoft).
- AMIGA POWER issue 38, June 1994: “Diary of a Game: Sensible Golf” (the team); the Sensible back catalogue (Mega-lo-Mania, AP5, 90%); the all-time top 100.
- AMIGA POWER issue 40, August 1994: Sensible in Saffron Walden.
- AMIGA POWER issue 44, December 1994: Sensible World of Soccer, 95%.
- AMIGA POWER issue 52, August 1995: Sensible Golf review (Virgin, £30; the last Amiga game).
- Amiga Computing issue 83, February 1995: Jon Hare on the unreleased game.
- Edge issue 72, June 1999: Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll.
- Edge issue 73, July 1999: “Sensible buy for Codemasters”.
- Edge issue 90, November 2000, p. 146: “Codemasters’ Jon Hare counts ten” (the Parallax cheque, the sale).
- PC Zone issue 86, February 2000, p. 31: Cannon Fodder 3D preview.
- Digital Press issue 47, November 2001: Codemasters on buying Sensible and the Game Boy Color Cannon Fodder.
- Retro Gamer issue 19, 2005: Codemasters brings Hare back for Sensible Soccer.