THE MAKING OF SUBWAR 2050

MICROPROSE UK'S SUBWAR 2050 WAS A UNIQUE BLEND OF SUBMARINE WARFARE, SIMULATION, AND STRATEGY SET IN THE NOW NOT-TOO-DISTANT FUTURE. MANNING AN ADVANCED FIGHTER SUB AND ACTING AS A MERCENARY, THIS MISSION-BASED 3D UNDERWATER GAME FOR THE PC AND AMIGA SENT THE PLAYER BENEATH THE WAVES...

- WORDS BY RICHARD C HEWISON

In early 1990, MicroProse UK was gathering a talented group of in-house UK developers to convert its US parent company's simulator products to the Amiga and Atari ST platforms for European consumption. Poaching key programmers and artists from other UK developers included head-hunting artist Mark L Scott, to begin working on a conversion of F-19: Stealth Fighter. "It was always more interesting creating new artwork though, instead of adapting art based on someone else's work," says Mark, which was fortuitous for him because MicroProse was also keen to work with the best third-party development teams in the UK, lending its recently formed in-house developers and artists to those projects as and when called upon.

One such development team was Particle Systems. Managing directors Michael Powell and Glyn Williams were also 3D experts. Glyn had already written or co-written several 3D games, including Cholo for Firebird on 8-bit computers, and Warhead for Activision. Michael had previously created the 1988 futuristic 3D racer Powerdrome for EA and had also been working with that publisher on an ultimately abandoned 3D light-sourced and Gouraud-shaded fighting game called Cyber Fight for the PC. "Glyn and I had been friends at school," explains Michael. "We then went to different universities, and he was the first to start in the games industry. Before we started Particle Systems, we worked on our own games but certainly bounced ideas off each other. We knew we were going to join forces, so we labelled our last solo games under the Particle Systems name, to give us a head start."