BETA | 20 YEARS OF BLITZ
The Olivers’ Twist Exactly 20 years after the Oliver twins founded Blitz Games, the pair are heading up one of the globe’s most distinct studios. Will Freeman paid a visit to wish the team happy birthday, and learn its secrets…
HISTORY IN THE MAKING CTO Andrew Oliver’s guide to Blitz Games Studios’ early history, and the milestones that defined its first ten years as a company 44 | SEPTEMBER 2010
1984 Winning the Saturday Show game development competition: “It turned a hobby into something more serious.”
1984 The launch of the Amstrad CPC: “It was a quite powerful, very good machine, that helped us get the skills to make games that would sell.”
1984-1986 Selling games to publishers while at college: “The petrol to get to the publisher almost cost more than we got paid, but we were chuffed to be selling games while still at school.”
1985 Meeting Codemasters for the first time: “After we learned how much they might pay, we just went home and did absolutely nothing but code day and night, and we had Super Robin Hood within a month. Then we noticed the small print about the payment being based on predicted royalties, but we still did okay.”