THE MAKING OF Booty

YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM! RETRO GAMER FINALLY CATCHES UP WITH JOHN F CAIN, CREATOR OF THE FINEST PIRATE BUDGET GAME ON THE ZX SPECTRUM. FROM THE ISLE OF MAN TO THE HIGH SEAS, THIS IS THE ENTERTAINING STORY OF BOOTY. ARRR!

- Graeme Mason

Like many of his peers, John F Cain drifted into game development, intrigued by the emergent home computer market. "I was working as an architect, doing technical drawings for houses and so on," he begins. "Then someone offered me a job working with electronic equipment, doing engineering drawings - for double the salary." John's new company soon folded, but working there gave him an insight into machine code programming. "So I was out of a job and, by coincidence, I'd got myself a ZX80, built it, then got a ZX81 and Spectrum." Having dabbled with magazine type-ins, he eventually looked to create his own programs. "I was completely self-taught, usually by trial and error. I started moving a dot around the Spectrum screen and seeing what else I could get it to do."

Meanwhile, London-based Rabbit Software, sprung from the Harrow computer shop, Cream Computers, was making its name as an early software house, primarily on the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. Having discovered a bug in one of its C64 games, John contacted Rabbit to help it prevent a PR disaster. "I got talking to the boss and asked if he'd be interested if I converted some of its games to the Spectrum. He was quite interested so that's what I did."

DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS

THUNDERBIRDS PLATFORM: ZX SPECTRUM, C64 RELEASED: 1985

MOONLIGHT MADNESS (PICTURED) PLATFORM: ZX SPECTRUM RELEASED: 1986

MARBLE MADNESS PLATFORM: ZX SPECTRUM, AMSTRAD CPC RELEASED: 1987

John's first task was to convert the VIC-20 game Quackers. "I mean, looking back, it was absolutely dreadful," he laughs. "But it was my first program, and [Rabbit] was quite happy with it." Rabbit employed John, ostensibly to convert its other games to the Spectrum.