John M. Phillips - Revision history

Khpjmp60: /* Game Credits for John M. Phillips */

2024-04-23T20:54:30Z

‎Game Credits for John M. Phillips

Amycjgrace: /* Games Credits for John M. Phillips */

2020-10-27T15:16:09Z

‎Games Credits for John M. Phillips

Amycjgrace: /* Star Trap */

2020-05-12T14:52:09Z

‎Star Trap

Amycjgrace: /* Word Radar */

2020-03-27T16:28:57Z

‎Word Radar

Amycjgrace: /* External Links */

2019-08-06T13:06:23Z

‎External Links

Amycjgrace: /* Beyond Parsec */

2018-08-15T14:46:15Z

‎Beyond Parsec

Amycjgrace: /* D-Station I and II */

2018-08-15T14:39:53Z

‎D-Station I and II

Amycjgrace: /* D-Station I and II */

2018-08-15T14:37:00Z

‎D-Station I and II

Amycjgrace: /* Hopper */

2018-08-15T14:36:39Z

‎Hopper

Amycjgrace: /* Moonmine */

2018-08-15T14:33:26Z

‎Moonmine

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 ==Game Credits for John M. Phillips==
 * [[4A Flyer]]
 * [[Beyond Parsec]]
-* [[D-Sation]]
+* [[D-Station]]
 * [[D-Station 2]]
 * [[Face Chase]]
 * [[Hopper]] with [[Mike Archuleta]]
 * [[Moonmine]]
 * [[Star Trap]]
 * [[Strike Three!]]
 ==External Links==

@@ Line 58: / Line 58: @@
 After [[Moonmine]], TI asked me to work on a conversion of a software product by DLM (Developmental Learning Materials) in Allen, Texas. DLM had a successful set of educational software products for the Apple computer and entered into an agreement with TI to convert their titles to the TI-99/4A. One of the titles, "Word Radar" was assigned to me. I did the conversion in 2 weeks and sent it to DLM for QA and final approval. The president of DLM, Andy Bingham, remembered how quickly I had done his conversion. When TI bailed out of the home computer, Andy Bingham called me at home in Lubbock and offered me a job working for DLM, who did none of their own software (it was all 3rd party authoring). I took that job and continued to produce educational software for Apple, IBM, Atari, Commodore and TI for two years before leaving DLM to work for Frito-Lay.
-==Games Credits for John M. Phillips==
+==Game Credits for John M. Phillips==
 * [[4A Flyer]]
 * [[Beyond Parsec]]

@@ Line 48: / Line 48: @@
 ===Star Trap===
 While at TI, I started developing a game at home based on the Star Wars coin-operated arcade game. I created a title screen and complete game, but did not finish it before TI bailed out of the home computer market. I renamed the game "Star Trap" and sent the game to Triton, who was then licensed to produce and distribute TI software and hardware. The development coordinator at Triton was a man by the name of Bruce Jaffe. Together, Bruce and I would create a partnership and I would go on to create and sell other innovative software titles including:
-Star Gazer I, II and III
+* Star Gazer I, II and III
-A Flyer
+* 4A Flyer
-Strike Three!
+* Strike Three!
-The Great Word Race
+* The Great Word Race
-Face Chase
+* Face Chase
-Munchman II
+* Munchman II
 ===Word Radar===

@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 ===Word Radar===
 After [[Moonmine]], TI asked me to work on a conversion of a software product by DLM (Developmental Learning Materials) in Allen, Texas. DLM had a successful set of educational software products for the Apple computer and entered into an agreement with TI to convert their titles to the TI-99/4A. One of the titles, "Word Radar" was assigned to me. I did the conversion in 2 weeks and sent it to DLM for QA and final approval. The president of DLM, Andy Bingham, remembered how quickly I had done his conversion. When TI bailed out of the home computer, Andy Bingham called me at home in Lubbock and offered me a job working for DLM, who did none of their own software (it was all 3rd party authoring). I took that job and continued to produce educational software for Apple, IBM, Atari, Commodore and TI for two years before leaving DLM to work for Frito-Lay.
 ==External Links==

@@ Line 59: / Line 59: @@
 ==External Links==
-* [http://www.99er.net/jphillips.html 99er.net: John Phillips Software]]
+* [http://www.99er.net/jphillips.html 99er.net: John Phillips Software]
 * [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,21916/ Moby Games: John M. Phillips]
 [[Category:Software programmer]]

@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 ===[[Beyond Parsec]]===
 With [[Parsec|Parsec's]] popularity, I felt a 2-player version would be a sure hit. I created a storyboard concept and began coding the software as a submission to TI. The concept was two ships in a moveable asteroid field. The asteroids would move if they were fired upon, so they could be used as both an offensive and defensive weapon. I used the sound effects created for [[Parsec]] and submitted it to TI. They loved it and accepted it as a Class A submission. But TI announced they were killing the home computer. They released the software back to me with the condition that I did not use the [[Parsec]] name. So, I renamed the game "Beyond Space."
 ==External Links==

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 ===[[D-Station I]] and [[D-Station II|II]]===
 I started developing a friendship with Charlie La Fara, who was the president of the IUG. I developed some Extended Basic games for his IUG. He created a contest for the best software submission and, over a weekend, I converted an Extended Basic game I had developed in college to Assembly language. He flew me to Oklahoma City and I showed him the game. It won his contest easily and he said, "let's make a buck on this." He wanted to produce his own cartridge, so I had to get permission from TI to release the code. I renamed the game "Bomb the Aeroflot," which was a political hotspot over the Russian shooting of a passenger plane and submitted the game to TI. They rejected the submission due to its political nature and I submitted it to Charlie as [[D-Station I|D-Station]]. A few months later, I enhanced the game and created [[D-Station II|D-Station II]].
 ==External Links==

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:36, 15 August 2018
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	We coded for weeks and spent several late, late nights cutting code and optimizing code to get it to fit into the Mini Memory. Eventually, we did. I remember calling my parents at 4:00 am because I was so excited that we had finished it. We submitted to TI and they accepted it as a Class A submission. They liked the game so much, though, that they asked us to add more to it because they wanted to produce a standalone cartridge of the game. So, we added title screens, two players, more levels, a surprise level, etc. Hopper was produced and released just before TI announced they were killing the computer and both Mike and I received royalty payments for about a year and a half.		We coded for weeks and spent several late, late nights cutting code and optimizing code to get it to fit into the Mini Memory. Eventually, we did. I remember calling my parents at 4:00 am because I was so excited that we had finished it. We submitted to TI and they accepted it as a Class A submission. They liked the game so much, though, that they asked us to add more to it because they wanted to produce a standalone cartridge of the game. So, we added title screens, two players, more levels, a surprise level, etc. Hopper was produced and released just before TI announced they were killing the computer and both Mike and I received royalty payments for about a year and a half.
		+
		+	===[[D-Station I]] and [[D-Station II\|II]]===
		+	I started developing a friendship with Charlie La Fara, who was the president of the IUG. I developed some Extended Basic games for his IUG. He created a contest for the best software submission and, over a weekend, I converted an Extended Basic game I had developed in college to Assembly language. He flew me to Oklahoma City and I showed him the game. It won his contest easily and he said, "let's make a buck on this." He wanted to produce his own cartridge, so I had to get permission from TI to release the code. I renamed the game "Bomb the Aeroflot," which was a political hotspot over the Russian shooting of a passenger plane and submitted the game to TI. They rejected the submission due to its political nature and I submitted it to Charlie as [[D-Station I\|D-Station]]. A few months later, I enhanced the game and created [[D-Station IID-Station II]].

	==External Links==		==External Links==

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:33, 15 August 2018
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	Bob Hendren and I had a falling out towards the end of the project. He wanted the same girl who did the [[Parsec]] speech (her name was Aubry) to do the [[Moonmine]] speech. I wanted someone else to do it. We ended up getting Aubry to record part of the speech and another TI Lubbock employee to record the voice of the Zygonaut. Bob and my relationship was never the same after that.		Bob Hendren and I had a falling out towards the end of the project. He wanted the same girl who did the [[Parsec]] speech (her name was Aubry) to do the [[Moonmine]] speech. I wanted someone else to do it. We ended up getting Aubry to record part of the speech and another TI Lubbock employee to record the voice of the Zygonaut. Bob and my relationship was never the same after that.
		+
		+	===[[Hopper]]===
		+	While I was working on [[Moonmine]], my wife was working in the documentation group for TI (she wrote part of the [[Moonmine]] manual). There she met a man by the name of [[Mike Archuleta]], who was a Supervisor in the QA group. We all went to a party together and she introduced me to Mike. Mike was brilliant and really wanted to do some programming. He came up with the idea of doing a game together since he needed the technical guidance.
		+
		+	We went out to an arcade and found a coin-operated game called, "Pengo." It had a penguin who pushed big ice blocks around the screen. We liked the concept and decided to use it. Instead of a penguin, we chose a Kangaroo. Instead of ice blocks, we chose crates. We did a storyboard on the game and divided up the programming. We also chose the TI Mini Memory cartridge as our intended platform, since there were no quality games that would fit in the 3.5K of RAM it contained.
		+
		+	We coded for weeks and spent several late, late nights cutting code and optimizing code to get it to fit into the Mini Memory. Eventually, we did. I remember calling my parents at 4:00 am because I was so excited that we had finished it. We submitted to TI and they accepted it as a Class A submission. They liked the game so much, though, that they asked us to add more to it because they wanted to produce a standalone cartridge of the game. So, we added title screens, two players, more levels, a surprise level, etc. Hopper was produced and released just before TI announced they were killing the computer and both Mike and I received royalty payments for about a year and a half.

	==External Links==		==External Links==