Pickford Brothers Website is now open

Now we have a product (almost) done, we've opened up our website.

Retro fans might like the look at our old games. Over 20 years of history there.

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/index.php

"Ste"? What kind of name is that. How do you pronounce it?

It's pronounced 'Stee' short for Steven.

I'm clearly not worthy ... bow.

Now all you need are screenshots for each of your past games :-)

Lost for words...20 years ago I was talked out of a career in programming by a so called "careers officer" and went to a career in business instead - glad to see you guys stuck with your dream :)

With such vasts amount of programming knowledge on many various languages and platforms, why did you choose to do your own games with blitz?

What's wrong with Blitz?

Ah, so that's why you're doing so well!
I dunno, from what I'm seeing you do, you've managed to get into programming anyway, and in a very successful way.



John:
Wow.
The fact that you use Blitz should be noted as a major selling point for it :)

Little typo on your main page... looks a bit Engrish-ish:

Forgot to pluralize "video game"s.

I still remember renting and enjoying Plok when I was a kid. I always thought it was very original and ahead of its time. I never realized we had such a celebrity amongst us!

* edit *
You had a hand in IronSword as well?! Wow...

For those that remember our old stuff, you can vote for your favourite here:

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/friends/join.php

(donations optional)

Here's the current list:

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/friends/favourites.php

I was just wondering why you chose to use it? over a more platform compatable pipeline?

Because I like it. What do you mean by platform compatible? I'm not sure there were any cross platform options when I started using B3D.

I mean, like being able to run on more platforms than just windows. I would havethought it would have made more sence to write a game, such as naked war, in a language that would allow you to sell it on Mac (and maybe the indie portals on the new consoles) as well.

Anyway, I was reading someof your games stories, and read about the nice artbook for solstice 2.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/afterworkgamers/107550423/

It's a nice site and a very impressive list of games you've worked on!

What Foppy said. There's games on there I never realised you had anything to do with.

Naked Warriors.......methinks you may want to get a new title for that. ;P

Regarding yer list, Wetrix got to be my fav there, only thing i wish about it was that the PC version was as good looking/feature-rich the N64 edition was.

The site looks good btw, nice & clean, only thing that bugs me a little bit is the chosen color scheme for the navigation menu, but that's just me.

Actually, "JP" is not the only former commercial games programmer to use Blitz - there is good old "Barnabius" and a few others hanging around the site. I wonder about "John Phillips" too - my mate sold him a synth when he was working on Nebulus 2 and we were using Amiga Blitz back then.

John, not at all what I imagined you would look like. :)

The guilt trip about donating a pint of money if you felt guilty about pirating one of your games made me laff.

I had to vote for "I haven't played any". If you'd listed games you were involved in, I'd have voted G&G C64 :-)

Nice site. Should probably come with an adults only warning though, what with all that nakedness and all. And don't you think the name "De-Flower" might be taking the punning one step too far?

Whoa you guys made Cabal on NES! You're now my heros even more so than before!

My fave's zub. I loved that, especially the perverse ending :)
For some reason I became completely hooked on that game, and had to clock it.

Feud was great. Seem to recall it having a nasty bug in the CPC464 version where the Sprite Spell crashed the game every time.

There was another bug in the CPC464 version, that sodding purple wizard could walk thru walls, fun but I swear it's totally impossible to win that game. :)
Nice music by Dave too.

cool site. it's nice to see these old games archived
by the people who made them. i bought feud on c64
a long time ago so it was funny to read that was
the version that worked out wrong, i never could get
into it because of that reason, still liked the game
and it's overall concept though.

Wetrix. Best game ever. Come to think of it, I should probably sue you guys for lost earnings.

pah! I take it all back ... unbow ;-)

You know, I'd kill for a new iteration of Wetrix for the PC........or better yet, the DS.
(all the DS version needs is Online Wi-Fi play and it'll sell like hot-cakes)

[EDIT] Or what Pickle said down below, the DS is really lacking on well polished TBS (turn based stratedgy) games.

I'd kill for Naked War on the DS -- I bet you could get an official dev kit from Nintendo pretty easily... maybe even the ability to use WFC in interesting ways.

I bet it could be altered a bit to work on there, and it would then be quite quickly classified as more than just an independent game :)


Just dreaming here, of course.

Woah!

Wow, you guys have an impressive history! And that's a big, informative website. Good job!

Cool - and good luck to you in your quest for... ummm... whatever that might be?

Just one whining, my usual one if someone posts "here's my website, what do you think about it?":

"Sorry, website not available"

- arggh, I hate links like that. Either there is content or there isn't. In your case it's bit more complicated matter because the page is not totally blank, but still...

Mario eat your heart out - lol

@John and Ste Pickford,
I wish you all the best for your incoming game projects.

:)

By the way, that's a nice done website.

Sergio.

What are you talking about Mustang?

I think he's implying that your site doesn't work... or something... or maybe he's just having a general rant about sites that dont work... who knows... OMG I'm turning into Red October... ... ...

It works here, anyway.

> OMG I'm turning into Red October

I think you've got be much older than that in order to qualify :)

Mustang is drunk :D

yeah it totally works. His browser must be having a funny 5 minutes (or he is ...) hmm ... Red's way of typing is addictive ... see ...

Some of you may have already seen this but there's an entire article in a recent copy of "Retro Gamer" devoted to the Pickford brothers.

Those articles are on the site. Press section.

I can't find this section.

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/press/index.php

Duh! I was looking in articles. Ta dude.

Never played one of your games but this indeed is a looong list.

I have at least 3 games in my room right now from that list.

Although... Solar Jetman on the NES was a real pain in the ass... but fun, most of the time... when it wasn't being cheap and gravity bashing my face into the wall a million times....



Er.. I know its a long shot, but you did work on the same game(s) as Dave Wise, so if by any chance you know him, I'd love the chance to talk to him.

If You have no idea who I am talking about then don't mind my silly game-music-fandom. I've wanted to ask him about the choices he made musically with about 20 games in his past for a very long time... Since I first played Marble Madness. And the music in Solar Jetman is just friggin genius too. I haven't played the game in years and thinking about the music from the space warp sceen brings back the entire part, graphics and all... Swirling stars and junk.


EDIT

I searched for solar jetman... and you should totally go make this guys day

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=9588560

Rare's musician? I've met him a couple of times but I can't say I know him.

I knew it was a long shot, I couldn't NOT ask.

I wish... could use a beer or two right now - remodeling kitchen is hell! :)

http://www.zee-3.com/nakedwar/index2.php

Well the Naked War website only open to beta testers at the moment. This thread was about the Pickford Bros site. Yes I know there's a link.

Very impressive history and lovely web site!

Congratulations on your success!

Great website. I think I still have my copy of Ghost Town somewhere. I seem to remember the inlay has a pic of you as a 15 year old? Maybe I'll dig it out and post a scan! :P

this has got to be seen :-D

That's one terrible picture!

Nice site there fellas. Brings back a lot of memories too :)

Cheers. Don't forget to sign the friends of list. No need to donate - just choose the 'thumbs up' option.

I guess I'm the only person to use the 'cassette' option then :)

I remember buying Feud from Micro Fun on Peel Street in Barnsley. It was £1.99 iirc.

I also bought Glider Rider from the Home Computer Club (they basically sold you a bunch of games cheap, then made you buy half a dozen more at the normal shop price plus over-priced postage).

It's much appreciated ENAY.

Sadly no eccentric millionaires have spotted the site yet.

Oh, I wouldn't say that.

heh, I remember them. I nearly signed up but saw throught the hype :-)

Bloody hell! We *did* get an eccentric Millionaire donation!

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/friends/friends.php

Left Field is run by an old mate. My best man in fact.

Haha, nice one. Is that order in relation to the amount of money people donated? Ie, all the thumbs up people get to sit dead last :)

I think Ste sorted it by the icon rather than the amount. But yeah, perhaps we should make it user selectable (sort by date/icon/alphabet or something?)

The donation thing was just a bit of fun - I'm blown away that people are actually donating. Not complaining of course - we're pretty skint at the minute.

He's tweaked it now. It sorts by icon THEN by date so you can bump yourself up by changing your comment\vote\donation any time. Comments are now compulsory.

Hey you never know. An old friend from Nintendo just posted on the site & forum. (Ninten-Dano). He's the guy that wrote the English text for a lot of the Zelda games.

Why can't one upload or at least link his own avatar for the forums?

Because they are themed.

Aha, so it's: "Take what we have pre-made or don't use an avatar."

If you put it like that.

We see it as a forum with a theme.

Does a forum really have to come alive by what silly picture you have next to your name? I prefer to read all the writing myself, but then again I'm such a craaazy person.

We're using the same avatars in Naked War as well. They get downloaded into the games address book & they'll appear in-game too. We didn't want any potentially objectionable stuff in there. In spite of the name its a PG kind of game - no blood or even death - the last thing we need is jokers with goatse.x avatars.

But also we thought it would be cool if everyone entered into the spirit of the site an chose avatars from our old games. We plan to skin the forum at some point too.

Ste's updated the Friends List again. You can filter by icon and add a link to your own website.

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/friends/friends.php

If you've already yourself you can update your entry - even changing the game you vote for if you like.

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/friends/favourites.php

Wow! Nice in-depth website. A nice two fingers to all those snotty over-bearing publishers too eh? Hope you make a killing with this game - lead the way!

Hey, someone has given the thumbs up *and* a pint. People are starting to overtake me :)

I didn't know that was possible. Cool. Collect the full set!

Damn, I've been looking all over and I can't figure out how to get my extra thumb up.

I think you just go through the process again - this time choosing the thumb. Your entry will be updated.

Of course the Top Hat is the one to have.

Is it possible to get a Top Hat option by donating 1 cent? I seem to recall that option had a price option (cos I checked)
I think that loop hole could soon be exploited :)

Yeah, well you can donate the minimum amount that the credit card company will allow. Probably about $1