Interview with Jack Lockerby of River Software

River Software, based near Canterbury, Kent, have been producing
text adventure games since the mid-80s, first on the Commodore and
Spectrum and more recently on the ST. I've always enjoyed their
games so I decided to ask Jack, who with his son-in-law Roger
Betts make up River Software, a few questions on your behalf.

@~How did you first get interested in computers?

It all started when my wife bought me a 16K Spectrum for Christmas
shortly after my former employers made me an offer I couldn't
refuse - early retirement! I had always been involved with
mathematics during my career as a mining official and had
frequently talked about computers with her. I bought many books on
programming and soon became fairly proficient in basic. Machine
code, however, was a different kettle of fish and I started
playing arcade games but the novelty soon wore off.

@~How did your interest in writing adventures start?

I saw a game called Mountains of Ket on the shelf of a local
computer shop, took it home and started playing it. I had by now
upgraded to a 48K machine. The bug had bitten and by this time
Roger, my son-in-law, would come around and we would try and solve
the various puzzles. It took us a few months and we only solved it
by breaking into the program to discover some of its secrets. I
then started to subscribe to an adventure magazine and started
copying out listings that they published from time to time. Then
came the Quill and my great adventure began!

@~Which River Software game is your favourite? And why?

I suppose most adventure creators would say that their latest
adventure was their favourite! But to be honest I must plump for
"The Hammer of Grimmold". Every mother loves her first-born the
most and though I'm no lady I feel that way about "The Hammer". It
was my first incursion into the exciting world of make-believe. By


this time I had joined "The Adventurers Club" run by Henry Mueller
and sent him my first attempt. Now at that time, early in 1983, I
didn't realise that the game should have been playtested first. As
it turned out the game was riddled with bugs, mostly due to my
inexperience in the use of the Quill. However, Henry said that
there was the making of a good game, once all the errors had been
rectified. To cut a long story short, ACL finally agreed to sell
the game to other members of the club and River Software was on
the move!

@~Which adventure do you wish you had written? And why?

That's a tough one to answer because there are so many. But if I
have to pick just one then it has to be Dungeon Adventure by Level
9. It had everything, excellent descriptions, plenty of devious
puzzles and I played it non-stop for weeks until I finally
finished it, with the help of the hint sheet, I must add.


@~Do you split the programming of each game with Roger or are some
@~games solely yours and some Roger's?

Counting the latest game, Treasure Island (soon available for the
Spectrum), we have produced 16 adventures. Of these, Roger has
designed 5. We confer a lot and often suggest ideas for each other
but the actual programming is done separately. Roger is the one
who comes up with the programming routines that help us overcome
specific problems. I generally get the idea and start the ball
rolling. Roger has to be pushed. He's still working on the
conversion of Bounty Hunter for the Atari (18 months) and hopes to
have it ready for the convention this coming October.

@~What do you think of STAC as an adventure writing utility and will
@~you be changing over to PAW when it finally comes out for the ST?

STAC is a very powerful utility and neither of us has fully
utilised its full potential and I don't suppose we ever will. It
also has some very peculiar quirks which must be guarded against
but this is not the place to deal with them. I might try out PAW
when it comes on the market but only out of curiosity. Home grown
adventures on the Atari do NOT sell! With the exception of a few
stalwarts, the buying public much prefer high priced games that
use the full memory of the machine. And who can blame them?
Certainly not me!

@~Your next game, as you've mentioned, will be Treasure Island. Can
@~you tell us about it, when it will be out, the storyline etc?

It is ready now, but only on the Spectrum and at present I have no
plans for producing either a Commodore version or an Atari
version.

I have tried to make the adventure follow the original story as
much as I could and I have divided the game into 2 parts. You take
the part of Jim Hawkins and in part 1 you must escape the wrath of
the pirates when Blind Pew leads them into an attack on the
Admiral Benbow Inn in their search for the map, find your way to
Bristol and sail off to Treasure Island. Part 1 ends once you have
discovered Long John Silver's plan to take over the ship.  Part 2
takes place mainly on the island although you have to find a way
of recapturing the Hispaniola towards the end of the game.
Preparations for this have to be laid in part 1. It is possible to
complete part 1 without doing this. Ben Gunn and Israel Hands play
important roles in part 2 and in order to make the game more
enjoyable I have had to introduce various puzzles that are not
mentioned in the book.

@~What other plans have you made for the future?

I'm always on the look out for another idea. The whole ball game
is just a hobby for me and the actual monetary side of things is
insignificant, although I do like to keep the plusses on my side
of the ledger.  I will certainly have a new Spectrum adventure
ready to launch at the convention and I hope to keep it a secret
if I can.

@~Thanks for talking to us, Jack. Good luck with the new games and
@~on behalf of text-adventure fans everywhere, I'm sorry we may not
@~be seeing them on the ST. It's lucky I still have my Spectrum!