Tell us about R.International. Who are you? What do you do for a living?
R.International & Ebony at Retromadrid 2013
I am a 42 year old very young looking Spaniard, lifelong amateur to Scalextric collectibles (English, French and Spanish), very fond of antique toys, table soccer, building dioramas and 8 bit systems. I am known in such scenes, having organized a table soccer tournament which scored for the national ranking. I use to organize Scalextric races, also worked for two years with Retro Game Systems in the 8 bit world; and I’m very well known in the antique toy world from many many years ago… I’m a butcher by trade and work as such, which is not little given the actual situation.
What was your first experience with a computer?
The usual gang of 16 year old kids from the neighborhood spending time together, one friend had an Amstrad CPC 464, another a Spectrum 48 and another a Commodore 64, fortunatelly this gave me the opportunity to test the systems and make my mind, I choosed the Commodore because its graphics resembled more those of an Arcade. We used to spend whole afternoons playing at the Arcades.
Empire – Los Burros del Soft
What led you to program and draw for these old computers?
Three years ago I wanted to retake those days and soon started to collect computers, you can imagine my surprise 20 years later, I founded Retro Game Systems and took part of antique toy fairs raising awareness about the 8 bit systems. But I wanted something more, something was missing, now the feeling was different, I realized that maybe now the emotions were inside the machine (programming) and not outside (playing) as it was 20 years ago, so I started to hit the metal.
What do you miss about the golden age of 8-bit systems?
I can assure you that absolutely nothing! .. I’m not a nostalgic in this regard, those who long for that era is because today they don’t enjoy their computers, I would say today I have a better time programming than on those days. The “golden age” for me is nothing more than an event natural of the time of origin of these machines, it is the beginning, but nothing else, to miss those days, label it, etc, do not benefit the 8-bit world in general and it’s just self lounging, .. current developments open incredible doors to us, now we are in the 21st century of 8 bits and we are fortunate to live them, not to talk about the tools and technology advancement that will make our work easier.
What are your next projects?
After closing Retro Game Systems I started my passion for the graphics seeing that today there are very good tools in this regard, it was a quick way to calm my hunger and see results, then I switched to BASIC and soon made great progress, starting with a Retro Game Systems demo. I founded Los Burros del Soft and released a few amateur but serious projects such as MKII, Empire and Robot Nation, after which I closed Los Burros and Lobo Griz founded the group Revive to which I devote myself exclusively now since I’ve left H-B not forgetting my playpen that is Sputnik World.
Caligula
And here comes best, at Revive we have created our range of “handheld games” and the first title is Labyrinth, the game is already prefinished, I guess that within a month it will be fully completed, we want to show it to distributors in case any were interested in it . Labyrinth will feature the following credits: I as Design, Coder and Graphic, Lobogris as Design and SubCoder, Yogi Bear as Music and Pagantipaco as Cover Draw, it is a very dynamic graphic-textual adventure with a very original technique, though the important thing of the game is that is my first project in assembly I will not get into another game project inmediatly after Labyrinth, I want to dedicate the rest of the year to learn assembler, there are many things still have to learn if I want to undertake an Arcade game that is my goal, all the learning will go to a testbed called Caligula (which already has some progress) I’ll gradually show it at Commodore Mania forum. During that time I’ll take some rest from programming with a graphic here and there, such as the title screen for El Castillo del Dragón having Bieno as project director, and some graphic presented for Retrospectiva 2013. By the end of the year hope to have learned a lot with Caligula and I expect it will look almost like a real arcade game. At the beginning of 2014 will be taking up the second title in the Revive’s pocket game series and it will be a title very expected and known by people, but say no more, I guess I will be able to do it in three months, taking into account that it’ll use many routines written for Labyrinth which I wrote in three months.
Any advice for those who want to start programming or drawing?
Usually people are hiding behind the typical “I have no time”, just think of the time normally wasted with blogs, forums, social networks, games and ethereal amusements , etc, etc. .. I know I can only say. Their loss …!
Thank you very much!
Habemus Pappo is Alakran’s entry to the graphics category.