the challenge with remakes is to retain the feel of the original whilst tweaking the gameplay to remove any annoyances, like slow or jerky movement caused by performance issues. Also, updated graphics and sound are a must, but not too modern of course!” Jordan says he’d like to make a little money from his efforts, but since he’s always drawn to remakes and reimaginings, monetisation is usually off the table. “When I realised the project
was gaining momentum I sent an email to Rare and its response was, in summary, love the idea, fan projects are fine as long as there’s no intent to make a profit, don’t use the name Atic Atac, and best of luck.” Rare has yet to
provide any feedback on what it thinks of Melkhior’s Mansion, but we like to think the Sea of Thieves developer would be quietly impressed, which would be
There were no real bottlenecks during the development of Melkhior’s Mansion, only “life things getting in the way.” Such are the pitfalls of working without crunching deadlines or financial reward.
consistent with what most seem to think of the game. “We’ve had around five thousand downloads in six months, which I feel is pretty good for a quirky little retro game” says Jordan. “There was some guy who hit me with some bizarre feedback, I don’t think he understood what we were trying to do, but you always get those sorts. I’m older and wiser these days, so it’s like water off a duck’s back. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, the game doesn’t hold your hand, and that was mentioned by some people, but that’s cool, I get that.”
WURLDE’S END As well as the current PC and Mac versions of Melkhior’s Mansion, fans are porting the game to run on Sinclair
machines, specifically the Spectrum 128k (1985) and the Spectrum Next (2017). Meanwhile, Jordan is busy with yet another remake of a classic Rare gem, Underwurlde, which was as close to being a prototypical metroidvania as any you’ll find from 1984. “Yes, a scrolling Underwurlde-like game called Undrium. Most of the basic game play is done and I’ve been labouring
over the game map for a few months. I’ll be glad to get that done so that I can get back onto adding more game features, in order to make it more than just an Underwurlde remake.” Jordan is without his Melkhior’s Mansion graphics collaborator for his latest remake, so has been working on the audio, visuals and code himself. “Strangely enough, completing a 3.5 year project has given me more drive to carry on with new projects. I did think it might put me off for life, but that’s not the case.”
Getting the feel of 2D Atic Atic working in an isometric environment is no mean feat. Trial and error was the order of many days and nights.
56 | MCV/DEVELOP September 2022
After spending more years remaking the games of the 1980s than any game maker at the time ever could, we get the impression that it will take more than a protracted development period to put Jordan off his current or any future project. Our only hope is that one of them will give me an excuse to break out the spacesuits once again. An open world Jetpac (with a nod to Superior Software’s Exile - if anyone remembers that one) is there for the making.
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