Recently, I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours talking to games designer Eugene Jarvis, the chap responsible for, amongst other titles, Robotron: 2084 and Defender. The guy is one of those genius types who’s about as modest as they come. Handily—what with me interviewing him for various magazine articles—he also happens to be witty and able to provide plenty of insight into gaming’s past, present and future.

One of the things gaming’s typically accused of in the modern era is churning out more of the same, crushing innovation underfoot. Jarvis has a different take:

I’m blown away with how games have gone. Look at Defender side-by-side with Halo or BioShock, and all these modern games, and see where we got in 25 years… It’s amazing how from year-to-year we’re always complaining that everything’s just the same as the last game—sequel upon sequel. But we used to say that in the Space Invaders era! It seems like from year-to-year, we’re always decrying the lack of progress. But then after 25 years of that, it’s like: holy cow! [laughs] 25 years of cloned games and we’ve gone a long way!

I’m usually the first to complain about stagnation within gaming and a lack of innovation, but Jarvis offers a good point. Sometimes, it pays to take a step back and make a more direct comparison between past and present. Evolution isn’t always fast, and like watching a child or plant grow, it often takes juxtaposing things ten years apart to see how much something has changed.

That’s not to say that there aren’t massive problems in the current games industry, because there are. However, this most-talked-about of concerns has clearly been a headache since the very start of gaming (indeed, Jarvis noted that Robotron: 2084 is basically Space Invaders crossed with Berzerk!, and that Defender evolved from a batch of Space Invaders and Asteroids clones), and so perhaps it’s time to get over the cloning issue and just enjoy gaming’s continual—if decidedly inconsistent—evolution on the path to who-knows-where.

Robotron: 2084. If you’re a youngster, this is where your modern console game’s controls first appeared.

Retro Gamer 53 yomped on in a couple of weeks back, containing my six-page feature on Marble Madness (including an utterly gorgeous two-page spread showcasing the game’s six levels). Despite being a slight game (seasoned players can speed through the entire thing in about four minutes), it’s one of the prettiest arcade games ever released, and it no doubt influenced a slew of modern titles, such as the likes of Super Monkey Ball.

Designer Mark Cerny, who now largely works as a consultant in the industry, mostly on console titles, provided a great overview of how the game came to be. However, one of his insights that didn’t see print was the fact that Marble Madness, to his knowledge, has never before received the kind of feature found in this month’s Retro Gamer.

This got me thinking. Most other publications that dare to acknowledge retro gaming do so in a somewhat cursory manner, perhaps grudgingly giving over a couple of pages each month to a single classic title. And even when the results are worth reading (Edge’s coverage of retro titles has been of a typically high standard), you’re still only looking at 13 titles a year. With so many great games out there, created by people who, judging my those I’ve spoken to, are fast forgetting how the games ended up like they did, this just shows how important to gaming a title like Retro Gamer is.

For more on Retro Gamer, check out the brand-new Retro Gamer website. And for more on Marble Madness, check out Bernhard Kirsch’s excellent site.

I’m forever blowing (up) bubbles

I sometimes wonder whether the games industry has some kind of collective amnesia. That’s the only thing that explains how in an age where gamers feast heartily on fast-paced action-puzzlers (Zoo Keeper, Bejeweled, Meteos, the 54-billion Tetris variants), Magical Drop has been absent from consoles since 1999.

If you’re not familiar with the game, Magical Drop is a kind of reverse Columns crossed with a smattering of Bust-a-Move, tasking you with blowing up bubbles—lots of bubbles. They appear from the top of a well, menacingly jolting downwards periodically. The object of the game is to get your strange little clown to grab bubbles and stack lines of three or more like-coloured ones, whereupon they blow up. Like any action-puzzler worth its salt, cunning positioning of exploding bubbles leads to chains, which results in positively elephantine scores and your hapless opponent’s stack descending more rapidly.

Five titles have appeared in the series to date—three in the arcade (two on Neo Geo), and two home ports in 1999: Magical Drop F for PlayStation and the rather duff Magical Drop Pocket for Game Boy Color.

For me, the third game, the imaginatively titled Magical Drop III, remains the series high-point. The graphics are crystal clear, lacking the overdone effects of the later PlayStation game. And like Magical Drop F, it has a single-player story mode, with your little avatar faced with varied wells, offering new traps and features, such as blocks that only vanish when a certain number of chains have been formed.

This being a Japanese arcade title from the 1990s, some of the characters are a little dubiously designed (such as the various Anime-styled, scantily clad girls—although one at least plays atop a flying pig), but the concept and sheer fun of playing the game shines through any suspect presentation.

According to a swift bit of online research, G-mode currently holds the rights to the series, and has even helpfully added a large ‘contact’ button under the slightly ominous ‘Serious about licensing?’ bit on the relevant page of its website (so come on, publishers—what are you waiting for?). That said, this is alongside a chef-like cartoon character that’s either showing you how to press a button or emitting tiny red lasers from his forefinger. If the latter is the case and represents G-mode’s actual stafff, I guess that explains why Magical Drop PSP and Magical Drop DS have yet to appear.

Taking a bow when your clothes are that flimsy = not a good plan.