![\"Ocean](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/selfpublished\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/oceanbig-228x300.jpg?resize=228%2C300\" "\\"Ocean")
Author<\/p>\nAuthor<\/p>\n
Chris Wilkins<\/p>\n
Chris Wilkins lives in Kenilworth in the heart of central England with his wife and 3 children. He has a tortoise and 3 small aquariums full of Sea Monkeys.<\/p>\n
He specialises in writing about the golden era of video gaming – the 80s and 90s.<\/p>\n
Chris has always been involved gaming since he was a child – his first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum which he received one Christmas Eve back in the 80’s. Since that snow laden festive time he’s had an affiliation with most consoles and computers released in the UK since and fondly remember the other distractions of the time – the toys, the adverts, the American TV shows, the sweets to name but a few.<\/p>\n
A good few years ago, when there were a few less grey hairs, Chris organised a retro gaming event for charity – this involved him taking over a large cricket club venue down the road from where he lived and filling it with arcade machines, pinball tables and every console and computer he could get his hands on. He announced the event, sold some tickets and hoped people would turn up on the day which they thankfully did. As a memento he produced a 28 page magazine he called Retro Fusion and gave it to those who came along. The response to his magazine was incredibly positive and he received many requests to release a fully featured edition of the magazine – to which he duly obliged eventually releasing three highly sort after issues in both print and digital format.<\/p>\n
After realising that not only was there still a great demand for all things retro gaming, he found he also had a knack for writing interesting and engaging articles on the subject. Using the many contacts he had met over the years Chris put his first big writing project into action – a book about Ocean Games – the UK company that released some of the greatest games of the 80s and 90s. Putting his project on Kickstarter to see if there was any demand he was overwhelmed with the response, the project quickly hitting its target and beyond. A few months later the book, written by Chris alongside 80s games magazine editor Roger Kean and illustrated by world famous gaming artist Oliver Frey, and featuring interviews, memorabilia and never before seen photographs from within Ocean Games, released to excellent critical acclaim.<\/p>\n
Chris is now working on two new books – the first is a biography of the famous Software House US Gold and following this The Story of the ZX Spectrum in Pixels will be released next year.<\/p>\n
Classic Retro Gaming book \u201cOcean The History\u201d comes to iPad.<\/p>\n
Remember Daley Thompson\u2019s Decathlon on the Commodore 64? How about Robocop and Terminator 2 on the Amiga or Jurassic Park on the Super Nintendo?<\/p>\n
\u2018Ocean The History\u2019 tells the story of Ocean Software – the company behind these classic games; exploring the company’s origins, its employees, their games, their music and the iconic artwork that placed the company at the forefront of the games industry for over a decade.<\/p>\n
Charting the company\u2019s incredible rise throughout the 1980 and 1990’s the iBook is littered with anecdotes from those that contributed to the company’s success and features never before seen photographs, concept graphics, sprites and Ocean memorabilia.<\/p>\n
Written by Chris Wilkins and Roger Kean of Newsfield Publishing, the company that gave us the seminal Crash, ZZap 64 and Amtix magazines, and illustrated by Newsfield cover artist Oliver Frey.<\/p>\n
After the hugely successful kickstarter campaign and paperback release, now for the first time comes the the all new multimedia iBook edition featuring many extras and enhancements including full screen images, audio, vintage TV commercials and in-game videos.<\/p>\n
Ocean The History is a fascinating tale of one of the most influential UK software houses of the 80’s and 90’s.<\/p>\n
The iBook of Ocean The History is out now on Apple iBooks store.<\/p>\n
\u2018By a mixture of luck and design,\u2019<\/p>\n
Paul Patterson says, \u2018most of the Ocean staff from top to bottom had the same passion, personality, loyalty, work ethic and most importantly was a party animal! Ocean was known for working hard and playing hard, and this went right up to the Chairman, David Ward.\u2019<\/p>\n
Those magazine journalists who were invited to an Ocean \u2018do\u2019 knew they were in for a good time.<\/p>\n
\u2018The parties were great,\u2019 David reminisces with a grin that can only be described as sly. \u2018We spent a lot of ill- gotten gains on them.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018There was the riverboat on the Thames in 1989…\u2019 Jon adds.<\/p>\n
\u2018Some of the artists we had… We had a couple of the hottest Tamla Motown groups. We had a great party once with an Abba group. It wasn\u2019t Abba themselves, it was Abbalike.\u2019 David turns to Jon. \u2018Do you remember the party when we had Bob Monkhouse? He was the filthiest… he had a line of blue conversation, as blue as you could imagine.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The sharpest guy I ever met.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yes, very sharp.\u2019<\/p>\n
Gary Bracey remembers it well, as if anyone could ever forget. \u2018It was at a London hotel during the annual ECTS [European Computer Trade Show]. Bob Monkhouse was brilliant, a legend. About three hours before the party we met with him and he had a load of questions about the games, the staff, who our competitors were, and so on. So he stands up and comes out talking about people. I\u2019ll never forget one industry joke that just cracked us all up. \u201cYou have Ocean, who are a sixteen- bit company and then you have US Gold, which is a two-bit company!\u201d And he had this running joke. One of the girls in PR was Danielle Woodyatt, who everyone in the whole business new as \u201cWoody\u201d, and Bob was briefed about this and… well, you can imagine the amount of \u201cwoody\u201d running jokes, you know Woody this and Woody that. Then about six months later I was flying to the States, and I was in the lounge and Bob Monkhouse was there, I think he was flying out to Barbados. I went up to him and I said, \u201cBob, I just got to say I haven\u2019t seen you since you did that thing for Ocean Software.\u201d And he said, \u201cOh yeah.\u201d \u201cI just wanted to say it\u2019s legendary now, it really is.\u201d And he comes back, \u201cIs Woody still there?\u201d We\u2019re six months later and with all the people he\u2019s met in between, he still remembers Woody. Amazing guy.\u2019<\/p>\n
Paul Patterson remembers a party at which the hired entertainer caused Ocean embarrassment with some of its invited foreign guests. \u2018It was in London and we\u2019d invited UK and European retailers, distributors and journalists. We booked the Drifters to play and for some obscure reason we decided the evening needed a comedian. Quite why we decided that Liverpool comedian Stan Boardman would fit the bill when we were mostly entertaining Europeans and UK people from the south of England, I have no idea. A short way into his performance Stan asked if there were any Germans in the room and would they put their hand up and they did. He immediately asked them to put their other hand up and promptly said, \u201cNow I recognise you.\u201d There was a deathly silence before he added, \u201cYou lot bombed our chippy!\u201d It wasn\u2019t the best way for us to endear ourselves to our representatives and journalists from Germany.\u2019<\/p>\n
Not all the humour came from the hired entertainers. Among the Ocean party animals, boss-man David Ward was infamous. \u2018I remember making a speech once at one of those conferences that Newsfield started. It was in the mid-1980s. The night before I\u2019d gone to a nightclub and got so drunk that I couldn\u2019t stand up. And there was a kind a large muddy hill behind the hotel, which I rolled down. I remember Gary Bracey waking me up in the morning and I\u2019m in bed in a suit covered in mud, and I\u2019m being told there\u2019s an audience downstairs waiting for this speech\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018It was Computer Arena,\u2019 Gary takes up the tale. \u2018They happened every year in a different country… really it was just an industry piss-up and to justify it they had one day of presentations and speeches. And David was scheduled to speak, and everyone turned up, and we\u2019re talking to people from every major computer company in the industry and they are sitting down in this big hall waiting, and ten o\u2019clock comes and, \u201cMr. Ward?\u201d No one. So I rushed to his room and banged on his door, and I hear all these groans. And I say, \u201cDavid!\u201d And eventually the door opens. More moans. \u201cOh my God. I\u2019m covered in mud!\u201d He got so pissed the night before.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018So, quick shower, with the suit on!\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018…while I had to go downstairs and make all sorts of apologies for twenty minutes. And then he bounces down, freshened up, a bit the worse for wear.\u2019<\/p>\n
David shoots imaginary cuffs. \u2018And I predicted that one day our industry would be bigger than the movie industry and bigger than the music industry, and Nick Alexander of Virgin just laughed outright at me.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I can remember one night we all met up in Liverpool,\u2019 Paul Finnegan recalls. \u2018I was with my wife Joan and a few other friends. And one was staying in the same hotel as David, and I told him this, and he said, \u201cCome on, let\u2019s go to his room.\u201d And we barged in, and David was ordering vintage port and drinking it out of a teapot. I remember him driving about town in his Porsche \u2013 he always had a Porsche \u2013 and he was absolutely legless then!\u2019<\/p>\n
Gary reckons the worst of David\u2019s party faux-pas occurred at the Summer CES (Consumer Electronics Show) the forerunner of E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). \u2018One was in Las Vegas in January and in Chicago in June. And we always used to stay at the Hyatt Regency, which is a very nice hotel in the centre of Chicago.\u2019<\/p>\n
Paul Patterson takes up the story. \u2018I arrived back at the hotel in the early hours of the morning to find David prostrate and fast asleep in the revolving door of the hotel. It took seven of us to push the door around and get him onto a couch in the lobby where we left him for the rest of the night.\u2019<\/p>\n
Back to Gary… \u2018I come down in the morning, about nine o\u2019clock, and I\u2019m walking out for a ciggie \u2013 we used to smoke then \u2013 and in this massive ornate lobby they have these sofas, and there lying on a sofa was David, who\u2019d spent the night crashed out, pissed out of his head. \u201cDavid, wake up!\u201d \u201cMmmmmrrr…\u201d was all I got out of him.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018There was also a time,\u2019 Paul Patterson recalls with a wry grin, \u2018when I was with David Ward and a couple of other people having dinner coincidently in the same restaurant as Jon Woods and Gary Bracey who were attempting to tie up a deal for Jurassic Park. It was during the meal that David noticed that Jon had started to nod off and it would be very difficult for Gary to wake him up without making it more than obvious. David asked me to march over and give him a hearty slap on the back and a hug as though I hadn\u2019t seen him in many years, which of course I duly did and they both managed to tie up the deal that same evening.\u2019<\/p>\n
And thus are the big deals done.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.fizzypopdigital.com<\/a><\/p>\nBest place to buy your book<\/h2>\n