Sep 18, 2015
Cathryn Mataga: Shamus, Zeppelin, Mindwheel
Cathryn Mataga wrote several games that were published by Synapse software: Shamus, Shamus Case II, and Zeppelin, then three electronic novels: Brimstone, Essex, and Mindwheel.
In this interview we discuss Ihor Wolosenko, whom I previously interviewed for this podcast.
This interview took place on May 17, 2015.
Teaser quotes:
“These games were pretty hard. It was quite a bit of work, actually, to make a game by yourself. And it was all assembly language. And I was doing all the art and all the stuff. They were pretty involved projects for me, personally.”
“There was a tragic bug in the music driver in all of the Synapse 8-bit titles ... When they went to the new Atari XLs, when they upgraded the operating system, all these games crashed. And they all came back.”
Link:
I *loved* Shamus. I never finished it but I did manage to get really far. In the years since, I've had a go at it again but I'm now absolute crap at it. :)
There was something terribly satisfying about shooting enemies in that game.
Willam (Cathryn) Matega and everyone else at Synapse were my Atari idols back in the day.