In the spring of 1986 Steve Crow went up to collect the Golden Joystick for Programmer of the Year from Jools Holland, on a boat on the Thames, ahead of Jeff Minter. He had written two games. Both were for a small publisher in Tonbridge, Bubble Bus, and both were Spectrum arcade adventures that CRASH had made Smashes: Wizard’s Lair at 94 per cent and Starquake at 96. When he moved to Hewson later that year, Hewson sold his next game on his name: “Another fast-moving, richly animated scorcher from 1985’s Programmer of the Year, Steve Crow — author of ‘Wizard’s Lair’ and ‘Starquake’.”
Fast facts
- Name: credited as Steve, Steven and Stephen Crow.
- Games: Wizard’s Lair (1985) and Starquake (1985) for Bubble Bus; Firelord (1986) for Hewson.
- Award: Programmer of the Year in Computer & Video Games’ Golden Joystick Awards for 1985.
- As an artist: graphics for Hewson’s Zynaps (1987); Commodore 64 graphics for Probe, including Turbo OutRun (1989) and Golden Axe (1990); lead artist on Shiny Entertainment’s Earthworm Jim (1994).
Starting out
CRASH met Crow at a trade show at Olympia early in 1985 and described him as “a 19 year old freelance programmer”. He had started programming at school, writing his first game about four years earlier on an RM 380Z, the school’s computer, and then a few on a ZX81. “It wasn’t until I got a Spectrum that I started taking it more seriously.” His first published game came out about eighteen months before the interview, from Poppysoft; CRASH reminded its readers that Crow had already written one Smash, Poppysoft’s Factory Breakout.
He planned his games around the memory before he wrote any code. “Before I start I make sure I have everything sorted out so that I know it’ll fit in the memory,” he told the magazine. “When you’re writing 45K of code it’s got to fit.” He allocated a budget to each part of the game: for the map, 7K; for the graphics, 20K.
Wizard’s Lair
Wizard’s Lair (1985), at £6.99, was openly modelled on Ultimate’s Atic Atac, and CRASH’s reviewers said so: accusations of copying were “bound to fly”, but there was “nothing wrong with taking a good idea and developing it, if the result is as good or better”. Pot Hole Pete explores 256 locations on seven levels, linked by trapdoors and lifts, collecting the pieces of the Golden Lion while monsters burst through the doors. Gold could be spent on spells for more weapons, energy, keys or rings. One reviewer thought it “much faster” than Ultimate’s game. CRASH made it a Smash at 94 per cent, and Crow wrote a high-score validating program so that the magazine could catch cheats in its Wizard’s Lair competition.
Starquake
Starquake, which CRASH reviewed in November 1985, was bigger: 512 flick screens of caverns under the surface of an unstable planet that will destroy the universe unless its core is rebuilt. The hero, BLOB (a “Bio-Logically Operated Being”), can walk left and right and fall, but climbs only by laying temporary platforms that crumble away, and a network of six teleports, each with its own password, links the caves for anyone who finds the codes. CRASH gave it 96 per cent. One reviewer rated it “an all time great”, “one of the best Spectrum games to date, both from a gameplay and technical point of view”, and the review praised its colour, which “avoids attribute problems really well”.
The readers agreed. In CRASH’s poll for 1985 Starquake won Best Sound FX, just beating Mirrorsoft’s Dynamite Dan, and came third for Best Game Overall, behind Elite and one percentage point behind The Way of the Exploding Fist: “You don’t have to be big to be beautiful in the eyes of CRASH readers.” The Commodore 64 version was converted by Crow’s partner, Nick Strange, who added touches of his own such as BLOB’s blinking eyelids. When Crow won the Golden Joystick, Commodore User reported, there were no champagne corks at Bubble Bus. “We just went to Macdonalds,” said Strange. “We were pretty busy working on the 64 conversion at the time.”
Firelord
Crow’s third arcade adventure, Firelord, came from Hewson at the end of 1986 for the Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore 64. Its hero, Sir Galaheart, roams the land of Torot to win back the Firestone from a vain and wicked queen by bringing her the ingredients of a spell of eternal youth. The game added a society to the formula: the villagers hide in their houses, and Sir Galaheart has to go in and trade with them through a screen of icons, or steal from them when they turn away, at the risk of being judged by the Reeve. CRASH gave it 91 per cent and counted 500 screens. “Steve Crow does it again!” ran its verdict, though one reviewer noticed how much its layout and graphics resembled Robin of the Wood.
Drawing for other programmers
From 1987 Crow worked mostly as an artist. He drew the graphics for Hewson’s Zynaps with Dominic Robinson, and CRASH thought his graphics might make Hewson’s Eliminator, a shoot-’em-up on a road through space, a rival to LED Storm as the top racing game of 1989. At Probe Software he teamed up with the programmer Mark Kelly on Commodore 64 arcade conversions. ZZAP!64 wrote in 1989 that the pair “must now be counted true stars of the C64 scene” after Mr Heli and Turbo OutRun, and in 1990 it found him, “programmer of numerous Spectrum smashes and now one of the C64’s top graphic artists”, drawing Golden Axe on an Atari ST with Rainbird’s Art Studio and a Genius mouse. Kelly explained why the partnership worked: “With Steve the graphics are usually so good I can’t help but try and get them all in.”
By 1994 Crow was in California at Shiny Entertainment, the studio David Perry had founded, and Edge listed him as senior artist on Earthworm Jim, one of several former Probe staff on the team. In 1997 the Italian magazine Zeta described him as working with the team behind The Neverhood.
How he is remembered
Starquake outlived its publisher. PC Zone wrote in 1999 that “Steve Crow was the first programming superstar as far as I’m concerned”, and that Starquake was “his pièce de résistance, and an all-time classic”. Retro Gamer still introduced him in 2013 as the “Starquake creator” when praising his C64 Turbo OutRun graphics.
Sources
- CRASH issue 14, March 1985, pp. 35–36: Wizard’s Lair review (Bubble Bus, £6.99, author Steven Crow, 256 locations on seven levels, Atic Atac, Factory Breakout, 94%).
- CRASH issue 15, April 1985, pp. 28–29: Graeme Kidd’s interview with Steven Crow at the LET show (age 19, freelance; the RM 380Z, ZX81 and Spectrum; Poppysoft; planning the memory; the high-score validator; Bubble Bus in a converted granary).
- CRASH issue 22, November 1985, pp. 10–11: Starquake review (Bubble Bus, £7.95, 512 screens, the teleports, 96%).
- CRASH issue 27, April 1986, pp. 66–67: the readers’ awards for 1985 (Starquake third for Best Game Overall and winner of Best Sound FX).
- Computer & Video Games issue 55, May 1986, pp. 90–91: the Golden Joystick Awards for 1985 (see the Golden Joystick Awards entry); Bubble Bus advertisements in issues 55 and 56 (“Stephen Crow, Programmer of the Year, C+VG Golden Joysticks”).
- Commodore User, June 1986, p. 19: Crow receives the Golden Joystick from Jools Holland; Nick Strange and the C64 Starquake.
- Computer & Video Games issue 61, November 1986, p. 110: Firelord feature.
- CRASH issue 35, December 1986, pp. 22–23: Firelord review (Hewson, 500 screens, 91%).
- CRASH issue 36, January 1987, p. 11: Hewson’s Firelord advertisement (“1985’s Programmer of the Year”).
- CRASH issue 41, June 1987, p. 124: Zynaps preview (see the Zynaps entry).
- CRASH issue 61, February 1989, p. 98: Eliminator preview (“graphics by Steve Crow”).
- ZZAP!64 issue 56, December 1989, p. 9: Turbo OutRun review (Mark Kelly and Steve Crow).
- ZZAP!64 issue 65, September 1990, pp. 53–54: visit to Probe; Golden Axe; Crow and Kelly.
- ACE issue 39, December 1990, p. 31: Golden Axe on the C64 (“Mark Kelly programmed, Steve Crow designed the graphics”).
- Edge issue 10, July 1994, p. 44, and issue 13, October 1994, p. 90: Earthworm Jim credits (senior artist Steve Crow) and Shiny Entertainment’s former Probe staff.
- Zeta (Italy) issue 26, May 1997, p. 23: Crow working with the Neverhood team.
- PC Zone issue 77, June 1999: “Skool Daze” column on Starquake.
- Retro Gamer issue 113, 2013, p. 77: Turbo OutRun on the C64 (“by Starquake creator Steve Crow”).