Tir Na Nog started with a piece of code. “One day after releasing Ad Astra I wrote this routine which showed a character walking in a scrolling background,” Roy Carter told CRASH. His partner Greg Follis thought it “looked nice”, and the two of them went looking for a story to fit the walker. They found the Irish hero Cuchulainn, and the large, smoothly animated figure became the trademark of Gargoyle Games. Carter wrote Gargoyle’s code. “I program, and he does the pictures,” he told Your Sinclair in 1986. “Having seen me draw the pictures we decided that Greg had better do them.”
Fast facts
- Name: Royston Carter, though he was known as Roy.
- Company: Gargoyle Games, Dudley, founded with Greg Follis in 1984, and its arcade label Faster Than Light (1986).
- Role: programmer. Follis drew the graphics and, by his own account, had about two-thirds of the ideas.
- Games: Ad Astra (1984), Tir Na Nog (1984), Dun Darach (1985), Marsport (1985), Sweevo’s World (1985), Heavy on the Magick (1986), Lightforce (1986); programmer of Thundercats (1987) for Elite.
- Later: Carter Follis Software, selling PC software, in 1989.
From the services bureau
Carter and Follis met in business computing. CRASH traced the partnership back about seventeen years, to a computer research department at a large services bureau, and Follis remembered that at first they did not like each other. “You didn’t like me!” Carter shot back during the interview. CRASH found that listening to the two of them was “like watching two stand-up comedians”, and the magazine said Carter’s contributions disproved “the myth that Greg is the only one with an operative larynx”.
By 1984 they had worked together for around fifteen years. Their first game, Ad Astra, took nine months of spare time. “We could put Ad Astra together in a few weeks nowadays,” Follis said at the end of 1985.
Speed
Ted Heathcote, who sold Gargoyle’s games, gave Amstrad Action his view of Carter’s programming in December 1985: “He’s superb. His output is tremendous. He’ll wrap up in days what would take most people weeks or months.”
The magazine had an example. Amstrad did not normally supply machines to software houses, so in the summer of 1985 Gargoyle bought a CPC464, and within two weeks Carter had Dun Darach running on it. He liked the machine. “It’s a very nice machine,” he said. “I like the fact it’s so well documented. You can find quickly what you need. It’s also proved very reliable. We’ve had trouble with the Spectrums we’ve got here, but not with the Amstrad.” For Sweevo’s World, an isometric game in the style of Ultimate’s Knight Lore, Follis said, “Roy developed the techniques for it inside ten days.”
Two years later Sinclair User credited him as the programmer of Thundercats, which Gargoyle made for Elite to Follis’s design, and reported that new staff had joined to help him with the programming.
On the business
Carter had firm views on copy protection. Gargoyle preferred to spend its time finishing a game rather than protecting it, and he told CRASH that they lost about half their potential sales “not through piracy but by not having adequate PR”. “There is no way of stopping tape-to-tape copying,” he said.
He saw nothing temporary in the business. “I don’t think that computer games are a fad, they’re an industry,” he told CRASH at the end of 1985, when, as the magazine put it, the media were spouting “doom and gloom” about the industry after the boom. “The industry may change, for example video shops may become laser holograph lenders, the medium will change but the concept of electronic entertainment will continue because it’s big business and you can be sure that we will be helping it along.” Asked by Amstrad Action about the competition, he said: “This industry needs good products. You must maintain the interest of computer owners.”
Afterwards
In August 1989 The Games Machine reported that Carter and Follis were back after a long break, with a personal organiser for the PC, Executive Knot, sold by their new company, Carter Follis Software, of Tipton in the West Midlands. In 2012 Retro Gamer listed the pair among the developers it had tried and failed to interview: emails, letters and calls had all gone unanswered.
Sources
- CRASH issue 24, Christmas Special 1985, from p. 88: Robin Candy and Roger Kean, “Playing with Grandfather’s Abacus” (Royston’s full name, the services bureau, “like watching two stand-up comedians”, the Tir Na Nog walking routine, Ad Astra’s nine months, PR and piracy, games as an industry). Reprinted in Amtix! issue 3, January 1986, from p. 87.
- Amstrad Action issue 3, December 1985, pp. 74–76: Chris Anderson, “Gargoyle: the men behind Marsport” (the CPC464 bought in summer 1985 and Dun Darach within two weeks; Carter on the Amstrad; Sweevo’s World “inside ten days”; Heathcote on Carter’s output; “This industry needs good products”).
- Your Sinclair issue 7, July 1986, p. 55: Phil South, interview with Greg Follis and Roy Carter (“I program, and he does the pictures”).
- Sinclair User issue 69, December 1987, p. 65: Thundercats review and credits (programmed by Roy Carter; the new staff).
- The Games Machine issue 21, August 1989, p. 51: Carter Follis Software and Executive Knot; issue 24, November 1989, p. 44: Carter Follis Software, Tipton.
- Retro Gamer issue 105, August 2012, p. 38: Follis and Carter among the developers who did not respond to interview requests.