Q&A with: Classic game designer Jon Ritman

Ritman created classics like Head over Heels, Batman and the Match Day games.

Game developer Jon Ritman is known for creating some absolute classics on the 8-bit home computers in the eighties. His platform of choice was the ZX Spectrum, on which he created the well loved football games Match Day 1 and 2, as well as the isometric action adventures Batman and Head over Heels. The latter is considered by many one of the great gems of the platform, and a Deluxe edition of that game is currently on its way to the PC and Switch.

A few months ago, we spoke with Ritman about his early days in the games industry. Here’s our Q&A:

How did you get into computers and later game development?

I was a TV engineer working for a TV rental company. At the time they had just started renting out video recorders, and one of the guys had done extra training so he could service them and was getting paid more as a result. The company was also thinking of renting out game consoles, and I thought if I learnt how computers worked I could also get the extra money, so I bought a ZX81. I spent a week learning BASIC from the manual and then bought a book on machine code. I started writing my first game about two weeks after I got the computer.

Can you tell us more about the first BASIC games you created?

As I said I bought a book on machine code a week after I bought the computer so I wrote in that. Here’s a video of the game.

How did you get into the games industry?

I wrote Namtir Raiders and sent a copy off to a few publishers, got a reply within two days and that was that

Match Day 1 and 2 were two popular games during my youth. Could you tell us something about how they were developed?

I was at a games show and talking to a distributer and he was banging on about how well International Soccer was selling on the Commodore 64 and how they really wanted a similar game on the Spectrum. I deliberately didn’t play International Soccer until after I’d finished Match Day so I didn’t do an exact copy.

The biggest milestone during development was creating the AI for the computer opponent as I had no idea how to go about it. I started with 2 rules. 1) If the AI side didn’t have the ball then run towards it 2) If the AI side does have the ball, kick it up the field I ran the game and was crying with laughter after the AI scored within 30 seconds. Of course the AI was developed far beyond that but that moment will stick in my brain forever.

Can you tell us a bit about the process of creating the games Batman and Head over Heels?

I’d long said what I wanted to see in a game was a Disney film you could play, and with the release of Knight Lore I got that. I started trying to make my own version the very next day. Of course 3D games had been around for a while but all we could manage was wire frame, and even then they were pretty clunky.

Knight Lore showed we could do 3D albeit isometric, and have it look fantastic. It took me ages to work out how to mask images and even longer to work out how to sort everything into the right order, for instance you need to draw the things at the back of the room first and then work your way towards the front, but it can get complex.

The above badly demonstrates a problem, 3 objects, which is in front?

I’d recruited Bernie Drummond for the graphics; he’d always drawn, but never on a computer. I had a brain storming session with him about who the hero of our game was going to be, and at some point I suggested Batman, but then dismissed it as an old TV show that kids at the time would not have seen. Bernie told me I was wrong as it was being shown currently and kids were watching it.

Batman sold well and I’d enjoyed creating it. I had the idea of having two heroes and so Head over Heels was born, much of the codebase was directly from Batman but I had to alter it to support two rooms [at the same time, as the game had two playable characters that could move independently of each other]. I have to admit I was worried about coding that, but when there was finally nothing else to do I finally got stuck into it. It only took two hours so I shouldn’t have worried at all.

Which of your early games are you the most proud of, and why?

Difficult question, so hard to choose.

3D Combat Zone – Proud of this because of mastering 3D when there was almost no information available to tell me how it was done.

Match Day 2 – Proud of this because the 2 player gameplay was a lot of fun.

Head over Heels – Proud of this for the innovation of 2 heroes and for a vast range of puzzles.

What made the ZX Spectrum your platform of choice?

As soon as it was released my publisher sent me one. The only other option at the time was a Commodore 64, and I would have had to learn a different machine code

Thanks to Jon Ritman for taking the time to answer our questions.

While Spillhistorie.no is a Norwegian site, we have a number of articles in English. These include features on classic games and interviews with various people from gaming. A couple of examples: