In it's day, Exolon made young school boys salivate over their computer magazines at it's amazing graphics and critical acclaim, much in the same way as we have been salivating at the latest beta releases of Graham Goring's amazing remake. The soon-to-be-released remake is looking like it'll be one of the best remakes this year, so we've grabbed Graham by the gorings and beaten this interview out of him...
REWIND: Straight to the meat and potatoes... What made you want to remake Exolon?
GRAHAM: Ah, well it was really just to test the engine I was working on. There were all these Exolon graphics hanging around Retrospec going begging and so I thought I may as well put them to good use. Plus it doesn't hurt that I really enjoyed the game on the Spectrum despite it being rock hard.
REWIND: How long have you been working on this?
GRAHAM: Er, since late last year by my reckoning. It's been a bit on and off for a lot of that time.
REWIND: And it will be released when...?
GRAHAM: I always say "in two weeks time" when asked that question, although I might actually mean it this time. I'm kinda' waiting on music at the moment as that's the last big thing that needs to go in. That and the completion effect.
REWIND: Can you complete the original without cheating?
GRAHAM: Hell no! I think I've got past the first level a fair few times but until I put in the old ZORBA cheat I never saw the later levels.
REWIND: And you're remaking the game using your own C/OpenGL engine, Retrengine TM R BSc? Can you tell us anything about it?
GRAHAM: It's basically something I wrote so that I wouldn't have to write another 2D engine again. In theory I can make just about any 2D game with it, but of course I've yet to put that into practise as Exolon, while a fun game, hardly stretches the boundaries of 2D games. It doesn't even scroll or anything. The main thing about the engine is that it requires no additional coding to make a game as it's all done with little scripts which control all the bits and bobs in the game, they're kinda' like a game-centric version of BASIC only, I'm reliably informed, more object oriented. Not sure what that last bit means, though. ;)
REWIND: Is this something we're all going to be able to tinker with in the future for the use in future remakes?
GRAHAM: Hopefully, yes. The main obstacle to that is that I really, really, reeeaaally can't be arsed writing any instructions. Anyone with a grasp of BASIC should be able to understand the syntax, but it's all the special properties that you have to set which makes things tricky. However I am re-writing the editor in Blitz Plus at the moment so that it's a far nicer standardised windowsy looking thing, which should help a bit, but even then there's a fairly bewildering array of properties which you can alter within that. I have no problem with anyone having access to the engine, though, and I'll even chuck in the Exolon scripts for free!