PAW PATROL

The strange Dog's Life is unforgettable for many - Andrew Gillett tells Lex Luddy just what was going on with Frontier's bizarre platformer

From the pioneering tech of Elite to the enduring timelessness of RollerCoaster Tycoon, Cambridge studio Frontier Developments has carved out an indelible mark on the industry. The studio was founded back in 1994, and almost 30 years later it is still working on games like F1 Manager, Planet Zoo and Coaster, and more. However, there was a time, around the release of PlayStation 2, when a lot of British studios were struggling. Companies were grappling with the leap from PC to console games, all while budgets grew exponentially.

A lot of UK studios shuttered during this turbulent period. However Frontier survived, partly thanks to the continued success of sequels to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Andrew Gillett joined Frontier during this tumultuous time; he moved across the country to join as a QA, but during his time with the company he’s worn just about every hat from self-taught programmer to script writer.

As part of his job application he was brought in to look at Infestation, a PS1 game which didn’t inspire a great deal of awe when he first saw it. “But I also remember seeing on someone else’s screen this dog running around,” says Gillett. “It was the last thing you’d expect at Frontier.” That game was the long-gestating Dog’s Life. It’s a platformer released in 2003 where you play as Jake the dog. The catch was that Jake wasn’t an anthropomorphic mascot platformer like Crash or Sonic. He was just a dog. He didn’t walk on two legs, he didn’t talk, and he definitely didn’t spend his time saving the world. Instead he just did dog stuff in a sleepy American town.

DOING THE DOG