Hey Robert,

Sorry for the tardy reply - I'm in Louisiana right now, performing at an
outdoor festival near New Orleans, and I don't have easy email access.
But I did want to reply, as best I could.

To be honest, I wrote the game about ten years ago (!), so I don't
remember a lot of the specifics. But I'll do the best I can with your
questions.

> I have really hit the jackpot here. I hardly believe it. You were
> responsible for Maelstrom. That’s just incredible. I was sooo addicted to
> Maelstrom for years. As well as the game itself, I printed out the
Planetary
> Compendium from the manual and the Who’s Who thing and I read them over and
> over and over. I was sooo hooked.

I'm really pleased. I think that's all an author, performer, creator ever
wants, to know that someone's enjoying his work. So I'm glad you're
digging it.


> You asked who I was and things. My name is Robert Kingston. I am 19 years
> old, and I live in Tasmania, Australia. Yes, I’m from Aussie, which would
> explain some of my strange turns of phrase.

Enough of your culture has leaked over here that you haven't said anything
yet that's confused me. But I'll let you know.


> I got my copy in a set of CDs that Dad bought when we first got a CDrom.
> There were a few good CDs, including my two favourite games of all
> time, Maelstrom and Dune2. Apart from that, I have only found very few
> people who know anything about the game. There are only a very few websites
> that mention it, mainly www.the-underdogs.org (I think that’s the right
> address) and www.mobygames.com. Moby games has reviews by people who go to
> the site, and through that I got in contact with a dude from New York who
> also loved the game. I have seen the game for sale twice on Ebay (the
> American version, not the Australian one I use). Apart from that, no one
> knows anything about it. That’s why I want to make a website about it.

I think that's pretty cool. And I didn't even know there was an
Australian version - I wonder what's different in that version? I
remember it was being translated into Japanese, and the translators were
having a hell of a time with the 'cheat' section at the end because I
wrote it all in 'Skave-speak'.

It was never a *huge*, all-time hit like Doom or something like that, but
we were all pretty pleased with how it did in the market.


> So are you a programmer? I am studying to become a programmer. Have you made
> any other games, or was this a one-off?

I'm not a programmer - not even close. I know the concepts and basics of
object-oriented programming, and when I designed the game I kept those
concepts in mind to keep things easy for the programmer, but I'm really
just a game designer.

We also put out a slightly modified version of the old arcade laser-disc
game "Dragon's Lair", but there wasn't really a lot of designing needed
for that. And there were two other games I wrote that never were created
- I think there was lack of funding.

> Where did the ideas come from? Did you just make them all up?

I read a *lot*, and at the time I was reading a lot of science fiction.

The idea of having to harvest resources to keep your planet going came
from an old strategy game called 'Command&Conquer' that I was enjoying at
the time. In general, though, I was tired of really linear games - you
know, you have to find the sword to kill the dragon to get the key to open
the lock...and so on. If you don't do everything in the right order, you
can't win the game.

Maelstrom is different because there are different ways to win - you can
sink your resources into research and just build the best ships, but just
a few, and win. Or build a lot of ships, and win. Or devote resources to
your spy network, and find the hidden stuff.

The other feature that's different (or at least, was from other games at
the time) was that there was an internal timeline, and stories kept
happening in the background regardless of what you did or not. Plus, I
wanted there to be a *lot* stories - I wanted a really rich game so that
it could be played over and over again.


> Did you make much money from the game?

Er...I'm trying to recall. I was only about 21 or 22 at the time, and I
think I made a few thousand, which probably seemed like an awful lot at
the time.

> Is it still for sale anywhere - or is
> it ok to do what underdogs did and put it on a site for download?

It's probably a copyright violation, but it's old enough that I don't
think anyone's going to complain. You could possibly find copies in the
'dollar-bin' at your local computer store, but other than that I don't
think you can really buy it anywhere.


> How long did it take to make?

I think about four to six months, from end to end.

> Was it a full-time job, or just sort of like a project?
>
> Did you fund it, or did a company hire you to make it?

My best friend at the time, a very ambitious fellow
(http://www.markvange.com) came to me one day and said he wanted to create
a game, and would I write it? That's really how it started. It was just
him running things, me creating it, a programmer from another province
that Mark knew and brought in, an artist we found down in Texas and a
musician from Colorado (I think).

There wasn't really a lot of 'funding', per se - I mean, I already owned a
computer and my contribution was all writing, so it's not like I really
needed a lot of resources. I think I might have gotten a little start-up
money, but really all I recall being promised was residuals from sales.

Of course, I never really handled the business side, either - that was all
Mark's part. I suppose there must have been money for creating the game,
printing copies, distribution, etc., but it wasn't really my problem.


> Apart from me, have you heard much from the fans of the game? Was it ever
> very popular?

At the time it did pretty well - won a few awards from a few gaming
magazines and so forth.

As for fans - at the time there wasn't anything like the internet, so it
wasn't really easy for fans to contact someone. I remember being in a
computer store one day, about a month after it came out and overhearing a
few people talking about it, and I told them I was the creator, and they
took me out to lunch and talked with me about it. That's about it.
Really, I haven't thought about the game in years which is why it's pretty
cool to have you writing now.


> And I did do a google search on Skave McGlade, and all I found was the
> manual at underdogs and a page from Zoltan’s website. You're Zoltan right?
> And if you are Zoltan, you owe me a shirt - lol, just kidding.

I am Zoltan, of course - that's why I'm down here performing.

Only one person ever claimed a shirt. They sent me a short note saying
the name came from a character in Maelstrom, and giving their address.
That's all I ever heard.


> By the way, all these questions are partly for my website, but more because
> I just really want to know.

That's fine.

> Where abouts are you from? I assume you are from the USA, but I don’t know.

Actually, I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

> Did you ever write a book or anything about Maelstrom, or was the plot only
> ever intended for a computer game?

It was only for a computer game. I don't think I have the discipline to
write a whole book.

> I found the Alice May, and I rescued the ship from the Soraya Nebula. Were
> there any other hidden ships or anything to discover?

Gah - this is one of those places I have to beg off - I don't recall!

But I think those were the only two. The "Alice May", BTW, comes from an
old poem by Robert Service (whom I was reading a lot at the time).
'Soraya' was the name of a girl I was dating when I was writing the game
(and she just got married).

I think I said before, a lot of the names in the game come from things in
my life at the time. The three planets, Emo, Raryl, and Cylur are of
course a reference to the three stooges, Moe, Larry and Curly.


> I didn’t read the hint section of the manual for years, and I didn’t
> actually contact Skave in the game until after I had read the manual, so I
> discovered both ships without help. I did get a hint that there was a
> cloaked planet somewhere between two planets though, but I couldn’t find
it.
> Was there a planet and how do you find it?

I don't remember a whole cloaked planet. The planet Rimble, where Skave
lives is pretty difficult to get to, so that might have been what I was
referring to.


> What was the eyeball? I reconed it and things, but it never seemed to tell
> me what it was, and I never got anything useful from it. A floating
computer
> in space bigger than the death star, it just seemed to me that there should
> be a way to reactivate it and use it. Maybe that was a bit much to ask, but
> I was always dreaming about getting it going again.

Again, I don't recall! I think the artist created it and it looked neat,
but I didn't have a use for it since he created it after the most of the
game was written. It might have just been a 'non-agression' device. At
the time I was playing a lot of Dungeons&Dragons, and there were always
people who just beat the crap out of everything they encountered, so I
might have left it in as something you were just supposed to look at, and
not particularly muck with.


> How on earth did you manage to come up with so many cool weapons for the
> ships? That’s one of the things I have heard from the few people who know
> the game, they thought the weapons were really cool.

Just thunk 'em all up. Again, I was reading a lot of science fiction at
the time, but I was also in univeristy working on my engineering degree,
so my brain was in a lot of science.

The 'Frapp' ray, though, was taken from the old comic strip
'Calvin&Hobbes'. If you're familiar with the strip, you know that one of
Calvin's alter-egos was SpaceMan Spiff, and from time to time he used a
Frapp Ray.

The drawings were all from the artist. Sometimes I'd give him
descriptions and he'd draw it, sometimes he'd draw something and I had to
think about what it might be.


> The ships were cool, but so was everything else. I spent ages just reconing
> planets and reading through their history and stats. There were a couple of
> planets that were supposed to be uninhabited, but they were.

This was the idea that it was to be a really full game, with lots to do,
that you could keep playing over and over again.

> The only
> problem was that when I got their leaders in my list and my agents game
they
> communications devices, it didn’t work. Every time I tried to call them it
> said they were busy.

Some leaders had specific 'windows' that you had to call them to get
information out of them. Everyone had some little bit of information.
Also, I think sometimes you had to sway the population to your cause
before they would talk to you - that's what 'insurgence' was for.


> I expect there was a lot of depth that I never found. A lot of sub plots
and
> things that I only skimmed the surface on.
It's possible. I might have to dig around and see if I can find all my
old notes.


> I managed to win the game eventually, with a huge fleet of Harmony Dragon
> ships armed with the best my research teams could manage. It took my
> absolutely ages though, and I well and truly ran out of free people though.
> I could still hire captains, engineers, and computer operators, but I
didn’t
> have any spare crewmen, so I ended up using mainly the little fighter craft
> that didn’t need the extra people.

As I said, the intent was that there would be other ways to do it. But
you know, in truth, I never actually played the game end to end! Sure, I
tested it and so forth but I never really sat down and went through it. I
think I'll have to do that, now. See how much I recall.


> I found the supply of the strange mineral, but I always sold it because my
> research gurus couldn’t find anything to use it for.
I seem to recall that if you sold it to Tool (BTW, the mascot of the
engineering university I was attending was called 'Tool'...but now I'm
thinking the planet may have been called 'Dice'...something was Dice,
anyway), that there were new weapons available. You may not have
specifically noticed it, but I think if you never discover the mineral you
will never get some of the weapons.

> I did a dossier on Mr Fredericks, and my agent found something in his past,
> but I never could read his file because it was top secret. Was there a way
> to read it, or was it always that way?

I'm pretty sure it was always that way. That was just a little joke, just
like him having sunglasses so you never saw him blink.


> Did you enjoy making the game, and would you like to see anyone else make a
> new version with current technology?

I remember having fun making it


> Who holds the copyright?

I guess Mark's company does, if anyone. The original company that created
it no longer exists.


> If I was looking for interesting stuff for my website, would you have
> anything from when you were creating the game, or any promotional stuff
that
> you think would be interesting, or was it soo long ago that you’ve thrown
> all that sort of stuff away?

Probably. I can check with Mark when I get home and see - he might have
some old ads, or something like that.


> Do you own a copy of the game?

Yep, one on floppy and one on CD. But as I said, I don't think they'll
run properly on my new system. But I am thinking of downloading it now,
and trying to play it through.

Of course, I'm sort of worried that I'll go back and play it and think,
"Oh man - what was I thinking? It would have been better if I only..."


> Do you still play games much? What would be your favourite?

I do play games, but I like thinking/strategy games more than anything
else, even if they're older arcade style. I don't play any of the current
'driving' or 'fighting' games.

I've been enjoying the StarCraft (and earlier WarCraft) series. And just
before I came down here I downloaded an old (but very popular) game called
"Prince of Persia". I loved it a few years ago and just suddenly wanted
to try it again. It was tough to find because "Prince of Persia - Sands
of Time" just came out for SuperNES and pages for that game clog all the
search engines. But if you've ever played it, you know what a great
little arcade game it is. Simple, elegant, but it still requires a
certain amount of timing and thought to play it.


> Do you like most Sci-Fi? I would guess that you do, or at least did because
> of the game you made. What sort of Sci-Fi do you prefer? Things like Star
> Wars?

I do read a lot of sf, though the authors I tend to read call it
'speculative fiction' rather than sci-fi. Sci-fi tends to have a real
emphasis on the 'science', whereas I like a good plot and good characters.
Some favorite authors include Robert Heinlein, Spider Robinson (the
earlier stuff), Ian M. Banks, Leo Frankowski, RR Martin, Orson Scott Card,
Jim Gardiner...uh, probably others, but that's off the top of my head.


> Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. If you aren’t too busy,
I’d
> love a reply with some of these questions answered. I will probably put
some
> of them up on my website, but I just cant help but jump at the chance to
> talk to you about it. It’s almost like talking to George Lucas or
something.

Almost like George Lucas, but no-one's heard of me and I don't have the
money. At least I'm not planning on selling out and creating a couple of
lousy, badly-targetted, disappointing prequels.


Sorry for the delay sending this, but as I said, email access can be
difficult when I'm on the road. But I do thank you for sending it - it's
nice to know that someone really enjoyed the game, and may still be doing
so. It's almost like a little science fiction, like I'm emailing back
into a time warp. If you have any more questions, you can send 'em along.
And if you ever get that website up, you know I want to see it.


Hope all's generally groovy,

-AB, aka SMcG

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