Sly Spy Secret Agent

Everything changed with this project. We had a new publisher, Ocean Software. It was also where my role at Software Creations started to expand beyond just writing code.

Cracking the Arcade ROMs

The big challenge was extracting the artwork from the arcade machine Read-Only Memory (ROMs). These weren't just regular image files - they were stored in a specialized format that needed decoding. It took me quite a while to figure out the formatting, a process known as "swizzling" in the industry.

Essentially, arcade hardware stored images in ways optimized for their specific display systems. My job was to work out the patterns and convert them into something the Atari ST and Amiga could actually display. Once I cracked it, we had all the original arcade artwork ready to use.

A Bigger Role

This project marked a shift in my responsibilities. I wasn't just programming anymore - I was managing the other platform versions as well. That meant weekly visits to Ocean's office, which was conveniently just down the street from Software Creations in Manchester.

Those weekly check-ins added a new dimension to the work. I was coordinating between teams, making sure all the Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) stayed on track, and dealing with the kind of organizational challenges I hadn't faced before.

Juggling Act

The game itself was fairly straightforward to program once we had the artwork sorted. But juggling the actual development work with managing multiple platform versions was something new. It was good experience, though. Learning to balance hands-on technical work with coordination and planning turned out to be useful for everything that came after.