Pete Lyon

Written by grams88

An older picture of Pete, straight out of the st-news.com archives...

Together with Steve Bak, Pete created some of the most memorable fast scrolling shooters on the ST. And with the release of such classics as Goldrunner, Return to Genesis and Leatherneck, the duo was nicknamed 'The Dream Team' by the paper media.

The bizar, sci-fi inspired background imagery of Goldrunner.

Pete not only did the graphics in Airball, he also helped with the actual concept of the game.

The title screen to Zynaps. A furiously difficult horizontal shooter with an amazing intro tune.

At TEAM17, Steve had more of a supervisory role, but he never really felt fitted in. He was eventually fired ... by email.

One of Pete's favorite's, the Mike Nichols classic Who's affraid of Virginia Wolf.

Battleship ... Based on the classic board game. however, these days Chess is the big favourite in Steve's family.

1) Hi Pete, to start things off, would you be able to give us a quick introduction about yourself and a little bit about your atari st or amiga history?

I was a book illustrator and SF fan with a degree in Fine Art and so the emergence of home computers naturally caught my attention and enthusiasm. It so happened that I saw an advert in a magazine for an artist and thought I’d try it out. I remember I’d never even used a mouse before, and so I drew my own hand holding the mouse as my initial trial piece, which was used for the very first game I did with Steve Bak.


2) I really like the game, The Killing Game Show, the water looks really nice and the levels as well, were you responsible for the graphics of the atari st version?

Mostly, yes


3) I bet you got to play test this game a lot as well, I like asking these types of questions as the people behind the game, were you a gamer yourself and how far into the game did you get?

I mostly played the very early games and helped design them but as the workload increased so, perforce, my interest in hands on game playing waned.


4) Sorry if I'm going back a long time ago, do you remember working on the graphics for the game Zynaps, a kind of shoot em up type game. It looks good. Could you tell us how you got on with the graphics in this one?

I was approached to do the work and provided lots of pixels that were never used. I was enthusiastic about doing animations but memory restrictions and whatnot precluded their inclusion. I put together some of the level layouts, but mostly concentrated on drawing the elements so that they fitted with maximum flexibility the other tiles.


5) How did you get on with the graphics for the very popular game Airball for the atari st? If I remember this was quite a tough game, I think you had a set number of lives and you could lose them quickly. What did you think of the game itself?

I helped develop the concept and designed some levels. So many games started with a programming quirk or shortcut to be exploited, and my role was partly to exploit this to produce a performance game with a bit of originality. I liked the idea of the quasi 3D approach and got along with Eddy Scio pretty well. In truth, the gameplay was largely put together by others and, as ever, I just concentrated on producing graphics that fitted the programmers needs. Having a background in simple coding helped me understand the logic of the restrictions on colours, bit depth and resolution that were required.


6) Do you remember working on the Goldrunner games? I think these were shoot em up type games where you had to avoid the baddies. I think they were three Goldrunner games for the Atari ST. Could you tell us more about your experience working on these games?

I would regularly travel down to Steve’s office and with my latest efforts. He had some fiendishly complex methods of combining graphics using bit logic which meant I could not draw exactly what I wanted and had a whole set of rules which dictated how one background tile combined with those adjacent. We were quite different types of people but I guess that helped when putting a game together as we played to each others strengths.


7) I bet you got to work with many different individuals, do you still keep in touch with old friends or colleagues? I think you worked with Steve Bak who has sadly passed on? (R I P)

No, I don’t keep in touch with anyone I’ve worked with, partly because I avoid social media, and partly because I always was much older and culturally divergent from them. On the other hand I don’t feel I’ve fallen out or am in dispute with anybody. Sadly, In some cases the people I felt closest to have now died. My real socialising within the game industry came much later, and involved some very hard partying indeed. I eventually backed off from all that for health and sanity.


8) Do you remember working on a game called Starray, I think this was another shoot 'em up type game, are you able to tell us what the objective of the game is? I don't think I've played this one before but it sure looks like something I would enjoy.

So many games were done in a blur of effort - long hours and little actual creative satisfaction. I can barely remember the circumstances of the production. In some cases I was doing two or three games at once, and frankly burning out. It was as if I was cheating in a relationship, different companies were not to know of my attempts to juggle deadlines. Coming from a very poor background, there was a certain amount of expediency in making as much money as I could, quickly, as I feared the income would all just evaporate as quickly as it started.


9) The Eliminator game was very fun to play and I remember it being quite a difficult game but that's what we love. Could you tell us more about the work you did on this game and what did you think of the game itself?

Again, the project as presented to me and I discussed the technical aspects of the graphics and the way the game was put together… then it was just a case of letting me loose to see what I could get away with. There was a cat and mouse element in my relationship with the programmer, as I regularly exceeded my brief, to their justifiable exasperation and my frustration.


10) I quite like the battleships game, it looks like a bigger version of the original or I could be wrong. Do you remember working on this game? It gets you into the board games.

I do remember working on it but it was very routine. Steve always had a very pragmatic, no nonsense approach, and I took my cue from him.


11) I know there were many more games you worked on but were you a fan of the Atari ST or AMIGA games in general and if you were to pick some of your favourites what would they be?

I mourn for the games that I wanted to do, but proved impractical or ahead of their time or just downright eccentric. So much politics seemed to be involved in getting one’s ideas realised. So much manouvering or self promotion… and I’m rubbish at that. I supose if I’m honest, I wasn’t passionate enough about the game industry, not commited enough, and eventually quite jaded.


12) Was it Team17 you got to work with, did you do some graphical work for the great company of Team17?

I had more of a supervisory role there, but never really felt fitted in. The feeling was mutual, there was antagonism from the outset, I was eventually fired by email.


13) Could you tell us more about any recent work you did before you retired or semi retired? I hear you did many different things and were involved with lots of projects.

There was an awful lot of freelance work, once I’d given up any pretense of a managerial role. Lucrative but demanding as I always seemed to be commissioned when schedules or production was going awry. Beamed in to an unfamiliar work environment and utilities, I had to hit the ground running to come up with the goods. The age gap was becoming more and more apparent, leading to a vague sense of displacement. I yearned for the simpler days of the games that bleeped and screeched off the cassette tape and down the wire to the console. I mostly just wanted to work at developing my abilities as an artist and produce stuff of my own inclination. I have done a lot of things since but mostly in seclusion and of little commercial value.


14) Do you play video games as of recent times and if so what would your favourites be? You can mention old ones as well if you want.

I don’t play any games at all really. I’ve obviously aquired a sort of unjustified antipathy over the years. I developed a whole suite of work and posture related injuries to my tendons, eyes and spine causing considerable pain, not to mention the effects on my carcass of the unhealthy lifestyle.
I’m thawing somewhat, partly due to the enthusiasm of my grandchildren.


15) I'm into my board games and like playing them on the computer these days, I was wondering if you are fan of board games, I bet you were a fan of battleships as that was a game you worked on the Atari ST version. What would your favourite board games be?

I grew up playing board games, after all there was nothing else really and illustrated many of the text based fantasy D&D style games. I played all the usual suspects: Backgammon, Scrabble, Monopoly, Sorry!, Othello and Risk amongst many others. Chess is now the big favourite in my family.
Battleships was played so often in our jotters enduring long lessons at school.


16) I like collecting DVDs and have a few collections of my favourite TV shows and some films as well, are you into your TV shows and films and if you are what would your top picks be?

There are so many really really great films out there, and the ease of downloading high resolution films from all eras is a huge pleasure for me. I’d hesitate to name any, since either you’d be very familiar with them, or they might just be totally obscure. I love to watch movies and box sets though, not just to enjoy the acting, photography or plot but to gain an insight into the time and place of their making. Of particular interest is in looking at old or foreign films and how they deal with war or social upheaval. Engaging with the assumptions, propaganda or prejudices behind the production.
Two oldish flics watched recently would be Forbidden Planet ... basically the template for a whole slew of SiFi franchises. I also enjoyed re-seeing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?… the classic depiction of a dysfunctional marriage. Although they might appear klunky now, what will our contemporary popular hits look like many decades in the future?


17) Keeping to ST Graveyard's style, he usually asks this at the end of the previous interviews so here I go. If you could have a drink with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you ask?

All the people I’d like to share a drink with would be just too intimidating. Too clever, too sexy, too violent, too saintly, too mad.