Code Like It's 198x

Ivan Horn

Ocean's Spectrum artist on Operation Wolf, Rambo III and RoboCop 2

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Ivan Horn drew the Spectrum graphics for a run of Ocean and Imagine games from 1987 to 1992, almost always with the programmer Andrew Deakin: Athena, Combat School, Operation Wolf, Rambo III, Renegade III, Operation Thunderbolt, RoboCop 2 and The Addams Family. Before that he had written budget games of his own. In 1989 a CRASH reader ranking Ocean's staff put him third.

When Your Sinclair previewed Ocean’s Spectrum Operation Wolf in July 1988, it singled out the artist: “The graphics, by a very talented young man called Ivan Horn, are frankly stunning, and as true to the original graphics as you can get.” The game was a conversion of Taito’s arcade shooting gallery, and that Christmas it was the best-selling game in Britain. Horn drew it with the programmer Andrew Deakin, and the two worked as a pair for most of six years at Ocean, “Ivan in charge of graphics, and Andrew does all the code”, as Sinclair User put it.

Fast facts

  • Role: Spectrum graphic artist at Ocean and its Imagine label, in Manchester; earlier, author of budget games.
  • Usual partner: Andrew Deakin, programmer.
  • Before Ocean: Labyrinthion (Budgie, 1986, with Deakin); Megabucks (Firebird, 1987).
  • At Ocean: Athena (1987), Combat School (1987), Operation Wolf (1988), Rambo III (1988), Renegade III: The Final Chapter (1989), Operation Thunderbolt (1989), RoboCop 2 (1990), The Addams Family (1992).

Budget games first

Horn’s name first appears in CRASH in August 1986, as joint author with Deakin of Labyrinthion, a £2.99 maze game from the budget label Budgie that the magazine gave 60%. Early in 1987 he was the sole credited author of Megabucks, a £1.99 game in Firebird’s Silver Range. Its hero, Rock Carrington, has to work his way through the trap-filled mansion of his late uncle, Professor Maxbillion III, to claim his inheritance. Sinclair User and CRASH both reviewed it under his name.

By the summer of 1988, Sinclair User reported, Horn and Deakin had been working for Ocean full time for about a year. One of their first jobs there was Athena, an arcade conversion. Ocean’s artist Mark Jones later recalled that he had started on mock-ups for Athena before it had a programmer, and that “Ivan Horn and Andrew Deakin took on that project in the end”. They then joined Mike Lamb on Konami’s Combat School, which CRASH gave 93% at Christmas 1987; Jonathan Dunn and David Whittaker were also on the team.

Operation Wolf and the arcade conversions

Operation Wolf set the pattern for the pair’s work. Ocean shipped an arcade machine over from Japan, and the team played it, videotaped it and drew from it. The game was written on Atari STs and moved to the Spectrum afterwards, which left the whole of the Spectrum’s memory for the game itself. The Spectrum can give each 8×8 block of the screen only two colours, so a busy, moving scene in many colours produces attribute clash. The Spectrum Operation Wolf mostly did without colour in the action. CRASH noted that “the sprites, despite being monochrome, are very well drawn and animated”, and Your Sinclair accepted “a lack of colour in the Speccy version, but we’re used to that, right? What colour there is, is nicely employed and appropriate.” CRASH made it a Smash at 91%, and Operation Wolf and Ocean’s RoboCop were first and second in the Gallup charts that Christmas.

Rambo III, the film licence that followed, was credited in CRASH to “Andrew Deakin, graphics by Ivan Horn, music by Jonathan Dunn”, and disappointed: “After the excellent Operation Wolf and RoboCop this is a bit of a disappointment.” The pair recovered with Renegade III: The Final Chapter, which Sinclair User said they took “from ideas on paper to tapes on high street shelves in only 2½ months”, again developing on STs. CRASH opened its 91% review: “After the disappointment of Rambo III Andrew Deakin and Ivan Horn have returned to form in considerable style.”

Taito’s sequel came next. CRASH reviewed Operation Thunderbolt, credited to Deakin and Horn, at Christmas 1989, and gave it 91% as well: “Again, the detailed monochrome accurately recreates the feel of the coin-op.”

RoboCop 2 and The Addams Family

In 1990 the pair spent most of the year on RoboCop 2. Programming began in June, and CRASH reported that the touches meant to capture the feel of the film were added after “Andrew and graphic artist Ivan Horn had seen the film”. Their last Spectrum game together was The Addams Family in 1992, previewed by CRASH as the work of “your friendly neighbourhood programmer, Andrew Deakin, and his arty sidekick, Ivan Horn”.

Named in the game and in the letters page

Ocean’s staff sometimes hid themselves in their games. The Vindicator (1988) contained a list of names, arranged by floor, that were anagrams of the Ocean team; CRASH and Your Sinclair printed readers’ solutions, among them “Ron H Vain” for Ivan Horn.

In May 1989 a CRASH reader, Richard Dobbs of Humberside, sent in his own top 15 of the people behind the games Ocean and Imagine had published since 1987. At number three, behind Mike Lamb and Andrew Deakin, he put:

3 IVAN HORN – graphic artist for Operation Wolf, Rambo 3 and Combat School.

The magazine called the list “a timely reminder of the work of the programmers, graphic artists and musicians who wrote the games for Ocean”. Horn was one of five graphic artists on it, with Dawn Drake, Mark R. Jones, William Harbison and Alison Jeftha. In 1988 he was photographed with the rest of the Ocean team; the picture appears in The History of Ocean Software.

Sources

  • CRASH issue 31, August 1986, p. 108: Labyrinthion review (Budgie, £2.99, authors Ivan Horn and Andrew Deakin, 60%).
  • Sinclair User issue 60, March 1987, p. 72: Megabucks review (Firebird Silver Range, £1.99, author Ivan Horn). CRASH issue 38, March 1987, p. 113: Megabucks review (Firebird, £1.99, author Ivan Horn; Rock Carrington and Professor Maxbillion III).
  • Sinclair User issue 76, July 1988, pp. 82–83: Operation Wolf development feature (Horn and Deakin at Ocean full time for about a year; “Ivan in charge of graphics”; the arcade machine from Japan and the videotape).
  • Your Sinclair issue 31, July 1988, p. 59: Operation Wolf preview (Horn’s graphics; developing on the ST; the use of colour).
  • CRASH issue 48, Christmas 1987, p. 16: Combat School review (authors Andrew Deakin and Mike Lamb). Retro: Volume 2 (Imagine Publishing, 2008), p. 28: Combat School team (Mike Lamb, Andrew Deakin, Ivan Horn, David Whittaker, Jonathan Dunn).
  • Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean, The History of Ocean Software (Revival Retro Events, 2013): p. 114, Mark Jones on Athena; p. 262, the Ocean team photograph of 1988.
  • CRASH issue 59, Christmas 1988, pp. 18–19: Operation Wolf review (91%, Smash; the monochrome sprites). See the Andrew Deakin entry.
  • CRASH issue 61, February 1989, p. 62: Rambo III review (author Andrew Deakin, graphics by Ivan Horn, music by Jonathan Dunn).
  • CRASH issue 62, March 1989, p. 98: Ocean visit (Operation Wolf and RoboCop first and second in the Gallup charts at Christmas 1988; Renegade III in development).
  • CRASH issue 64, May 1989, pp. 16–17: Renegade III: The Final Chapter review (Imagine, A. Deakin and I. Horn, 91%). P. 20: Richard Dobbs’s “Programmers’ Charts” letter and the reply.
  • Sinclair User issue 86, May 1989, p. 34: Renegade III (two and a half months; developed on STs).
  • CRASH issue 71, December 1989, pp. 62–63: Operation Thunderbolt review (Ocean, £9.99 cassette, £14.99 disk; 91%).
  • CRASH issue 58, November 1988, p. 49, and Your Sinclair issue 37, January 1989, p. 32: The Vindicator clues and anagrams (“Ron H Vain = Ivan Horn”).
  • CRASH issue 80, September 1990, p. 27: RoboCop 2 preview. Your Sinclair issue 59, November 1990, p. 86: RoboCop 2 preview (code by Deakin, graphics by Horn, most of the year’s work).
  • CRASH issue 98, April 1992, p. 15: The Addams Family preview.

See also

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