TONY POMFRET

Tony does not mince his words. Whether it’s shenanigans at Ocean Software in the Eighties or how his Special FX adventure was sabotaged, he’ll tell you how he sees things in broad, profanity-heavy Mancunian tones. And he has a lot to say, having worked at many big-name British developers including Software Projects, Rage, Acclaim and the aforementioned Ocean. His work stretches from the Commodore PET right through to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and he has twice graced the cover of the world’s premier Commodore 64 fanzine FREEZE64. “People keep telling me I’m a C64 legend,” Tony grins. “30 years on, I’m starting to believe it.”

Some of us will remember you from the Commercial Breaks documentary, screened in 1984, which featured both Ocean and Imagine Software. You look about 15 years old in it. Shouldn’t you have been in school?

[Laughs]. I was 18 but yeah I did look young. It was a shock when the TV crew turned up, and I seem to remember my family thought it was a big deal. I think one of them videoed it.

In the programme, you are shown working on Hunchback II, and in one scene, the whole team is sitting around a table, discussing the game’s design. Is that actually how it worked?

That was utter bollocks. It was all staged. I did that game on my own.

Dave Ward, cofounder of Ocean, is in that scene, apparently being very hands-on with game design.

[Laughs loudly]. That is utter bullshit, too. He didn’t have a clue how you actually coded a game. Not a bag of glue. You didn’t see him that much, to be honest.

Now you’re going to tell us the lovely scene where you take Hunchback II to a computer club and get school children to give you feedback is faked, too.

Yup. Our PR department, which was basically one woman, thought it’d look good to go into a school and get filmed. That never normally happened.

At least tell us you actually worked at Ocean.

[Laughs]. Yeah and getting the job there was surprisingly