THE MAKING OF stormbringer

THE FOURTH MAGIC KNIGHT GAME TOOK INSPIRATION FROM A FOLK ROCK ALBUM AND A STAR TREK EPISODE, AND FOR SO MANY YEARS IT SERVED AS THE BUDGET GAME HERO'S SWAN SONG. DAUTD JONES RECALLS HOW HE CREATED STORMBRINGER AND TEASES ITS SUCCESSOR

- WORDS BY RORY MILNE

In early 1985 the UK home-computer boom was widely reported to be over; it was also when David Jones debuted his 8-bit protagonist the Magic Knight in the budget platformer Finders Keepers. Two arcade adventure sequels followed: firstly Spellbound, which was later expanded for the Spectrum 128K, and then Knight Tyme, which was designed for the 128K system and then squeezed into its 48K namesake.

David subsequently used his maturing tech, active imagination and the experience he had gained from making Knight Tyme to make a sequel that ultimately became known as Stormbringer. "I had an engine and lots of ideas for more Magic Knight games," David reflects. "I had designed a system to be very flexible so that I could add all sorts of concepts, puzzles and storytelling into it. When I did Knight Tyme the idea was that I was writing a brand-new game for the 128K Spectrum and then I would see how much of it I could cram into 48K. But then, because I had done that, I had things set up to write Stormbringer for the Spectrum 128K, and I had some idea of how I would reduce things down to get as much as I could into 48K."

With the design for his new game on a sound technical footing, David thought about names for the latest