![]() It's fun, educational, and highly addictive. Mike has spent years refining this product, and there is no better word game on the market. Recently, my friend Mike Crick asked me to create some new interface graphics for his game WordZap. Olympic Cycling Team use it for their indoor training. People ranging from Robin Williams to the U.S. I spent over 3 years on this, but the results were worth it. In 1995, I began the biggest project of my career, the creation of 3D software for a bicycle training device called the CompuTrainer. At least I am now able to use a few of the techniques I developed in the Aquarium. I developed a storyline, and did many test scenes, but could never reach an agreement with Disney. Sadly, Commodore went out of business before it could go into worldwide release.įor years I dreamed of doing the ultimate computer game based on Disney's version of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". I even managed to put translations of the game in 5 languages on the same CD. I spent two years programming it, writing a new musical score, and adding new graphics. I did the internal graphics and user interfaces.Ĭommodore commisioned me to do a new version of Defender of the Crown just for CDTV, sort of a Director's cut. Their CDTV system was based on the Amiga, and beat the competition by nearly a year. Most people don't realize that Commodore was the first company to release a CD-ROM game machine. In the late '80s, I did some magazine covers, book covers, and travelled around the country giving seminars on Amiga graphics. The experiments I did on the Amiga led to a job doing the graphics for the first Cinemaware game, Defender of the Crown. I spent a few months experimenting with the Amiga, the first real graphics computer for the consumer market, using the primitive drawing programs that were available at the time (does anyone remember Graphicraft?) Rampant piracy drove me out of the Commodore 64 market, and I switched to the Amiga as soon as it was released. My second effort, Time Crystal, never made it past the demo stage. Got some great reviews in the C-64 magazines. I marketed it by mail-order, and had fairly good success with it. Saucer Attack for the Commodore 64 was the first game I wrote. My current plan is to create a series of 4 screensavers in the SereneScreen series over the next 4 years, then start making movies before I'm too old :) I've had no actual training in programming, and though I've been forced to do quite a lot of it, the artistic side of computers is what has always captivated me. In the early '80s, I got into computers with the Commodore 64, bought some books on 6502 machine language, and began writing games. After college, I went into the Air Force for 6 years as a pilot, flying c-141 Starlifters. In college, I concentrated mainly on architecture. The Game Boy version is done by a small production staff at Realtime: which was programmed by Steve Ettinger, graphics by Connie Goldman, music by George Sanger, and produced by David Warhol, founder of Realtime Associates.I was born in California in 1949, and grew up in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. All types of skill levels are accommodated in this game from novice players to experts. Only the "WordZap" mode is available for two-player play. ![]() Two players can compete against other using a Game Link. There is a built-in dictionary using a complete list of ten thousand English language words. There are cutscenes that are split into four pieces at the end of each WordHai level, completing the piece at the end of the round, to represent where the locations are. Removing a tile from the screen requires using it opening up options for building new words. They also have a choice between the conventional "WordZap" mode and the "WordHai" mode which permits players to create 3-letter words from a set of 21 tiles. Players have a limited time to solve each round before it ends. Each round has a different theme attached to it (e.g., "Any Letter"). They can also enable or disable hints, allow or disallow plural forms of words and even choose the level of vocabulary used in the game. In the Game Boy version, players can choose between 3, 4, or 5 letter words. Each round ends when either one player fills the word rack, or time runs out without either player being able to make another word. The game has been compared with Scrabble and Boggle in WordZap, players race to make words proper English words to fill their rack of words, but when one player makes a word already found by the other player, the word is "zapped" from both player's racks. An updated version for newer editions of Microsoft Windows is available on the game's official website as shareware. In 1991, it was included with Volume 3 of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack and was later released by Jaleco for the Game Boy in 1992. WordZap is a puzzle video game designed by Michael F.C.
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