Jonathan Smith (games programmer)
Jonathan M. "Joffa" Smith (1 February 1967 – 26 June 2010)[1] was a British games programmer, best known for his titles for the ZX Spectrum. His games[2] were notable for containing a large number of sprites and parallax scrolling, features which were largely unknown on the Spectrum at the time.
His most notable games include Cobra,[3] (which was a license extremely loosely based on a Sylvester Stallone film) one of the first Spectrum games to exhibit full-colour parallax scrolling and his conversion of the arcade game Green Beret.[4] A notable "trademark" of Smith's was his habit of writing his name (with "Jonathan" and "Smith" spelled various ways) as a mirror-image in his games.
Notable releases
Title | Developer | Publisher | Year | Platform |
---|---|---|---|---|
Airlock | Rage Software | Orange Multimedia | 2000 | WAP |
All Star Baseball 2004 | Acclaim Studios Manchester | Acclaim Entertainment | 2004 | Game Boy Advance |
Apprentise aka Fluffy | Software Creations | unfinished and unpublished | 2001 | Game Boy Advance |
Batman: The Caped Crusader | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1988 | ZX Spectrum |
Cluster Bluster | ? | ? | ? | SNES |
Cobra | Ocean Software | Ocean Software | 1986 | ZX Spectrum |
Daley Thompson's Supertest | Ocean Software | Ocean Software | 1985 | ZX Spectrum |
Firefly | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1988 | ZX Spectrum |
Green Beret | Imagine Software | Ocean Software | 1986 | ZX Spectrum |
Hudson Hawk | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1991 | Atari ST |
Hyper Active | Special FX Software | Sinclair User | 1988 | ZX Spectrum |
Hyper Sports | Imagine Software | Ocean Software | 1985 | ZX Spectrum |
Hysteria | Special FX Software | Software Projects | 1987 | ZX Spectrum |
Ping Pong | Imagine Software | Ocean Software | 1986 | ZX Spectrum |
Kong Strikes Back! | Ocean Software | Ocean Software | 1984 | ZX Spectrum |
Looney Tunes Back in Action | Warthog_Games | Electronic Arts | 2003 | Game Boy Advance |
Momma Can I Mow The Lawn? | Gizmondo Studios | Gizmondo Studios | 2005 | Gizmondo |
Midnight Resistance | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1990 | Atari ST |
Mikie | Imagine Software | Ocean Software | 1986 | ZX Spectrum |
Mr. Do! | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1992 | Game Boy |
Power Drive | Rage Software | US Gold | 1994 | Sega Genesis |
Pud Pud | Ocean Software | Ocean Software | 1984 | ZX Spectrum |
Red Heat | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1989–90 | Amiga Atari ST |
Recoil | Special FX Software | Ocean Software | 1989 | Atari ST |
Retaliot | Video Hazard | Video Hazard | 2009 | MSX |
Ripping Friends | Software Creations | THQ | 2002 | Game Boy Advance |
Saucer | Shorten Suite Software | unfinished and unpublished | 2006 | ZX Spectrum |
Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge | Software Creations | Acclaim Entertainment | 1992 | SNES |
Street Hawk | Ocean Software | Ocean Software | 1985 | ZX Spectrum |
Terra Cresta | Imagine Software | Ocean Software | 1986 | ZX Spectrum |
gollark: Thanks to someone my computer just ran out of RAM and froze!
gollark: But nobody could *entirely* dislike potatOS, surely?
gollark: So, `yes` and `maybe`?
gollark: We could go for better options though, like `yes`, `certainly` and `absolutely`.
gollark: Yes, a terrible "oversight".
References
- World of Spectrum: Jonathan M Smith
- van der Heide, Martijn. "Sinclair Infoseek: Jonathan Smith [1]". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 12 August 2006.
- "Cobra". CRASH (35): 140–141. December 1986. Retrieved 12 August 2006.
- Smith, Rachael (June 1986). "Green Beret". Your Sinclair (6): 30. Archived from the original on 5 July 2006. Retrieved 12 August 2006.
External links
- An interview conducted by ZX Specticle
- An interview at The Spectrum Golden Years
- Another interview
- Smith's Homepage at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
- Obituary on World of Spectrum
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