ey and
start an online service, then a search engine, then a social network.
Hell, I could have moved to Silicon Valley in 1985... duh! But then I
could have bought Apple for fruppence in the 90s. You can't look back,
(as) we are all entombed in space-time for eternity....until one day....
:)

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Do you feel CRL were innovative?

Yes, possibly way too much

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. What machine did you see at CRL and thought "WOW," this is truly
special?

You were always in a state of wonder. But you were thinking of making
payroll, so the wow factor was chilled by that. The Z88 was amazing.
Still is.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. What fills your time now?

Well I run ADVFN. The stock markets are the biggest massively multi-player game in the world. The points are real. I like that.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. You mentioned writing, and some of your books have been published. Can
you let our readers know what types of books you have written, and how our reader would purchase one, should they feel inclined to do so?

You can get all my fiction on Amazon. Just type my name. Kusanagi is free
so that will give you a taste of the rest. I think you will find a strong computer game aesthetic in them.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Do you have any comments you would like to add?

Nope, thank you for taking the time to remember CRL, and a big thanks to
the readers that bought the games.

Now out on Kindle, my thrillers and a new investment book.

Clem on Amazon UK:
www.advfn.com/ct.php?ct=NDI0NTM

Clem on Amazon US:
www.advfn.com/ct.php?ct=NDI0NTQ

Forex Scope - Easily spot spiking
currency pairs - A new tool
exclusively on ADVFN bit.ly/1eleouB

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Clem, thank you. Just one question that is bugging me: How did CRL
get the rights to distribute International Soccer on disk and cassette from Commodore? Who released it on Cartridge?

We asked Commodore if we could license it for disk and cassette and they
said yes.... they weren't into software, they were into hardware - so
software languished....we got a pirate copy of it on disc, which was
everywhere at the time, and we hacked off the warez stuff, put new loaders on... and voilà! That was a nice win... I had actually forgotten about that....



*************************************
INTERVIEW WITH JEFF LEE
CRL Programmer
By Commodore Free
*************************************

While the number of CRL's title releases was impressive, the quality of
those releases left a lot to be desired. The company can't be criticized
for boring its audience with a formulaic, in-house style as the games
varied as much in style as they did in quality, from TV tie-ins to sport simulations. Why have most people forgotten about CRL despite them
covering so many bases with games that were sometimes very playable?
Duster in hand, I decided to brush away the cobwebs and uncover some of the history about the company through one of its prolific programmers, Jeff
Lee, who after striking up a conversation with Commodore Free, helped out
with some editing for the magazine. (Some people never learn do they?)

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Can you give our readers a little history on CRL?

In 1981-82 CRL rented out computers under the cryptic name of Computer
Rentals Ltd. I also have a vague memory that there was some involvement in importing optical equipment for opticians. It was quickly found though
that the rentals market was negligible given the low and diminishing costs
of personal ownership. So the company switched its attention to games and
went on to put out hundreds of titles between 1983 and 1990. Most gamers
from this time remember Tau Ceti. And then there were Rod Pike's Gothic
horror adventures, such as Dracula. Most titles, as you say in your intro, aren't exactly a hissing and a byword among the retro-ati.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. How did you manage to get a job there, and what did you do?

Paul Stoddart, who started working there in 1984, was a friend of mine. He showed me some designs for a children's educational product that Paul Mee, CRL's then development manager, was working on. I coded up a demo and got
a contract to work it up while doing my A-Levels. Shortly afterwards I got
an in-house job, and the product was dropped so I could start on The Rocky Horror Show for the Spectrum.

Although I worked on a few games in my four years there, my main
contribution was as a production assistant for the escalating output. Clem Chambers, the owner and MD, had big ambitions for CRL. These culminated in
a distribution deal with Electronic Arts in 1987. Even before this the
release schedule ran at a breakneck pace. My main contribution was
twofold. Firstly, I made production masters from developers' data.
Secondly, I provided packaging and promotional photography. Taking
screenshots required me to be a gamer of sorts. However, there was only
time for completing a few levels: the exposed film had to be biked to a
photo finisher and then returned to Mike Hodges (development manager 1987-)
so that he could pick the best shots for the inlay cards.

CRL also had a budget label, Alpha Omega, and a label for more unusual
stuff, Nu Wave, so the output was huge. I got to work with a lot of
different people. I also got to do some weird things. A couple of sales
guys took me to a city farm to photograph a pig for the launch of Oink!
Happy days.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. You are mostly known for your creation of The Rocky Horror Show on the spectrum. What was the brief for this game? Were you told what should be
in or out, or did they just let you watch the film and decide yourself?

Ian Ellery (development manager 1985-7) designed the game. He gave me a drawing of each room, told me what the characters should do, what the
player's objective was, and what smaller things to add later.

- - - - - - - - - -

Q. Two versions came out - one for the C64 and an enhanced version for the C128. Did you have any involvement in coding these on the Commodore
machines, and were you involved in other products?

Paul Stoddart coded the C64 version in tandem, so he'd ask how I did
something on the Spectrum, and then usually coded it differently for the
C64. My only other off-Spectrum Rocky Horror involvement was supplying
Richard Taylor with my original Z80 game code for his Amstrad conversion.
Paul did the enhanced Commodore version with some new graphics by Jon Law.
But The Rocky Horror Show struggled to sell. The later versions tried to
boost sales, but you'd never think from the saturation advertising that the product had a tough time. Even the orders on my Speccy 128 version that
was shipped with the newly launched machine were nothing like anyone
expected. I checked today and found, weirdly, that Rocky Horror was voted
8.19 by 91 reviewers on World of Spectrum. I'll concede that it got OK-ish reviews back in the day. And CRL visitors used to play the C64 version for ages. But the endorsement surely had mesmerising powers? The market was
the real judge.

You'd be surprised if you knew which titles really sold. We often were.
We'd sometimes compare our sales figures with the charts and play 'spot the similarity'. We'd either wonder 'how did that get in the charts?' or
'where's that game then?' We'd half-jokingly theorise that reviewers moonlighted for Micro Dealer, The Daily Mirror or whoever.

There was of course some correlation between charts and sales. For example
Tau Ceti and the Gothic horror adventures. Yet few people remember titles
like Derby Day or Showjumping. Even Highway Code, something that would now fall to the wayside like a book on an operating system, was still selling
when I was on my way out after four years. These early titles quietly sold under the radar of the charts. Their creators have surely retired to the Cayman Islands.

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