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Mike Singleton

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Mike Singleton
Mike Singleton in San Diego, California in 2005
Born21 February 1951
Died10 October 2012 (aged 61)
Switzerland[1]
OccupationVideo game designer
Employer(s)Cheshire Education Authority
Postern Software
PetSoft
Beyond Software
Melbourne House
Rainbird Software
Simon & Schuster Interactive
Mirage Software
Microprose
Known forThe Lords of Midnight
Doomdark's Revenge
Midwinter

Mike Singleton (21 February 1951 – 10 October 2012) was an influential British video game designer who wrote a number of well-regarded titles in the 1980s, as well as being a contributor to games in the 21st century. His titles include The Lords of Midnight, Doomdark's Revenge, Dark Sceptre, War in Middle Earth and Midwinter. Before developing video games, Singleton was an English teacher in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England.

Early work

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Singleton was originally a teacher[2] and started programming in the late 1970s, and writing Computer Race, a horse racing game he designed for a betting shop on the Commodore PET.[3] Moving on from this, he began working on arcade games for the Pet, working with PetSoft, where he wrote Space Ace entirely in 6502 machine code. The game broke sales records of the day by selling three hundred copies.[4]

Singleton's association with PetSoft turned out to be short-lived, as PetSoft, who had been due to enter into a contract with Sinclair Research in Cambridge to write software for the new ZX80, lost out on the deal to Psion. Singleton contacted British inventor and entrepreneur Clive Sinclair and was asked to send his games along.[4] He was then asked to visit the site in Cambridge, and invited to work on software for their brand new ZX81 micro.[3]

Singleton used this as the platform for his GamesPack1 project. GamesPack1 was a series of games, each fitting into just 1 kilobyte of memory. It was one of the first commercial software programs written for the ZX81, and something of a runaway success, selling a massive 90,000 copies, earning Singleton £6,000 for his efforts,[4] having taken him just two weeks over the Christmas holidays to complete.[3]

Golden age of the home microcomputer

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Whilst the arcade game writing business was making him a living, Singleton, who retired from teaching completely in 1982 to become a full-time freelance games designer, was always an old school war gamer at heart,[5] hooked from an early age on war board games and play-by-mail (PBM) strategy gaming, working for a time on Seventh Empire, a PBM game he put together for Computer and Video Games magazine (C&VG),[5] which eventually led to Beyond Software when C&VG editor Terry Pratt moved to run Beyond.[3]

In March 1984, Singleton's spy-themed board game, Treachery, which had its complicated game logic controlled by a computer program, was featured in C&VG, with a type-in listing for the Spectrum, together with a keyboard overlay (a common feature of his games), centre-spread board and a set of counters. The game was so popular among the readers that the editor asked for conversions for the Commodore 64 and BBC Micro to be produced, and each of them featured in C&VG's 1985 yearbook.

Having progressed to the ZX Spectrum, he wrote what are widely regarded as some of the best strategy adventure games ever to be seen on those early home microcomputers,[6] the Midnight series: Lords of Midnight (released in 1984) and Doomdark's Revenge, which were originally intended to form the first two episodes in a trilogy of which, the final episode, Eye of the Moon, never came about. Each of the two games played out on a scale never seen before back in the mid-eighties, at a time when many games were boasting 50 or even 100 locations, Lords of Midnight's groundbreaking gameplay featured over 4,000 locations, and Doomdark's Revenge, 6,000, plus well in excess of 100 player controllable characters. Had Eye of the Moon come to fruition, it was to have had around 24,000 locations, in a map featuring twelve distinct regions, each with a local sub-quest completely separate from the main objective of the game.[4]

In addition to his development work, Singleton contributed to the gaming community through his regular column, "Fifth Column," in Computer & Video Games.[7]

Moving on from the Midnight series, Singleton worked on several games of a more arcade-like nature, the first of which, Throne of Fire,[6] a side viewed live action game, featured a multiplayer option where each player used the same computer to explore simultaneously, each trying to complete a set of objectives which lead to the overall completion of the game. Dark Sceptre,[6] released later the same year, was also in essence a sideways viewed live action game, but returned to a more adventure-like feel, with a long, drawn out challenge awaiting the player who would need to build up their forces to consolidate their position before seizing on the opportunity to actually complete the game.

Two years later, War in Middle-earth,[6] whilst essentially an adventure game on a similar scale to the Midnight series, represented a switch from the adventure to an action philosophy, requiring the player to interact with the characters under their control directly, moving them individually in each of the battles,[4] giving the game much more of an arcade/adventure feel. The game was developed by Maelstrom Games, which had originally been created by Singleton to run the PBM version of Dark Sceptre.[4]

Later work

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In the late 1980s, Singleton moved onto the 16-bit machines that were making an appearance, and worked on the classic Midwinter games, also producing a third game in the Lords of Midnight series in 1995, Lords of Midnight: The Citadel.

In the 21st century, Singleton continued working in games design, making him one of a few developers to have made the transition to more modern consoles from the early days of home computing. Singleton worked for Midas Interactive and LucasArts on several games for the Xbox and PlayStation consoles, such as the action games HyperSonic Xtreme and Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. Singleton worked on the strategy game Wrath Unleashed, with his latest productions being Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, a continuation of the 1980s arcade classic Gauntlet series of games, and Race Driver: Grid, a racing game developed by Codemasters.[8] At the time of his death after suffering from cancer,[9] Singleton was working on an iPhone port of Lords of Midnight.[10]

Personal life

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A short biography published in the February 1985 issue of Computer & Video Games magazine highlighted Mike Singleton's passion for playing games, particularly the board game Go. The article also noted that Singleton enjoyed steak and chips and preferred drinking lager. He was a fan of the television program Doctor Who and appreciated music from rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. In the interview, Singleton expressed his ambition to create a timeless classic game, comparable to chess in its enduring appeal.[7]

Games

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8-bit home computers

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Title Distributor Year Platform
Space Ace PetSoft 1981 PET
GamesPack1 Sinclair Research Ltd 1981 ZX81
Shadowfax Postern 1982 BBC, C64/VIC-20, Spectrum
Siege Postern 1983 PET/C64/VIC-20, Spectrum
Snake Pit Postern 1983 C64/PET/VIC-20, Spectrum
3-Deep Space Postern 1983 C64/VIC-20, Spectrum
The Lords of Midnight Beyond Software 1984 Amstrad CPC, C64, Spectrum
Doomdark's Revenge Beyond 1985 Amstrad CPC, C64, Spectrum
Quake Minus One Beyond Software 1985 C64
Dark Sceptre Beyond Software 1986 Spectrum
Throne of Fire Melbourne House 1987 Amstrad CPC, C64, Spectrum
War in Middle Earth Melbourne House 1988 Spectrum
Star Trek: The Rebel Universe Firebird Software 1988 C64

Later computers

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Title Distributor Year Platform
Star Trek: The Rebel Universe Simon & Schuster Interactive 1987 Atari ST, PC
Space Cutter Melbourne House 1987 Amiga
War in Middle Earth Melbourne House 1988 Atari ST, Amiga, PC
Whirligig Firebird Software 1988 Atari ST, Amiga
Midwinter Rainbird Software 1989 Atari ST, Amiga, PC
Flames of Freedom MicroProse 1990 Atari ST, Amiga, PC
Grimblood Virgin Interactive 1990 Atari ST, Amiga
Ashes of Empire/Fallen Empire Mirage 1991 Amiga, PC
Starlord MicroProse 1993 Amiga, PC
Lords of Midnight: The Citadel Domark 1995 PC
The Ring Cycle Psygnosis 1995 PC

Consoles

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Title Distributor Year Platform
HSX: HyperSonic Xtreme Midas Interactive Entertainment 2002 PlayStation
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb LucasArts 2003 Mac, PC, PS2, Xbox
Wrath Unleashed LucasArts 2004 PS2, Xbox
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows Midway Home Entertainment 2005 PS2, Xbox
Race Driver: Grid Codemasters 2008 PC, PS3, Xbox 360

References

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  1. ^ Rossignol, Jim (16 October 2012). "Farewell To British Game Design Legend Mike Singleton". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  2. ^ Stuart, Keith (16 October 2012). "RIP Mike Singleton, the RPG visionary who revolutionised the genre". The Guardian.
  3. ^ a b c d "I BET TOLKIEN DID THE SAME". Crash. No. 14. March 1985.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "MAELSTROM IN A TEACUP". Crash. No. 41. June 1987.
  5. ^ a b "Chapter 4: Hit Squad". The 1985 Sinclair User Annual. Sinclair User. 1985. pp. 39–42.
  6. ^ a b c d "Planet Sinclair: The Sinclair Industry: Programmers: Mike Singleton". Nvg.ntnu.no. Retrieved 27 June 2016.
  7. ^ a b "Designer of the Month". Computer & Video Games (40): 21.
  8. ^ Singleton's profile at MobyGames
  9. ^ Stuart, Keith (16 October 2012), RIP Mike Singleton, the RPG visionary who revolutionised the genre, theguardian.com, retrieved 30 November 2019
  10. ^ Wild, Jon (16 October 2012). "Night has fallen..." Icemark.com.
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