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Patrick Buckland | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Video game programmer, designer |
| Known for | Carmageddon Duels of the Planeswalkers |
Patrick Buckland is a British video game programmer, designer and chief executive officer of Stainless Games, which he co-founded with Neil Barnden in 1994.
Buckland is a video games pioneer, having been in the industry since 1982. [1]
In 1985 Buckland developed one of the first Macintosh games, the shareware title Crystal Raider. A year after the game's release, Buckland decided to work on a follow-up, Crystal Quest, which would take the gameplay of its predecessor, and add new features. The game ended up ported to numerous other platforms, including the Apple IIgs, Amiga, Game Boy, Palm and much later, PC and Xbox 360.
In 1993, Along with Neil Barnden, Buckland started up Stainless Software "in order to concentrate on games". Among their first clients was Argonaut Games, who contracted the team to work on 3D engine development. Two years later, in 1995, the company landed their first games contract, with British publisher SCi, after pitching a title called "3D Destruction Derby" in 1994. Originally, the game was intended by the publisher to be a licensed Mad Max title, but SCi couldn't get their hands on the licence. Next, in anticipation of a sequel to the cult 1975 film Death Race 2000 , the game was titled Death Race 2020.
The film sequel fell through, and it was decided to just do it without the license. Carmageddon was released in mid 1997 – using the BRender engine – and immediately topped the UK games charts, with other charts worldwide following suit soon after.
In 1999 the company was absorbed into Scottish based developer VIS Entertainment. Most notable among the many projects that Buckland worked on as part of VIS was 2001's State of Emergency, which saw him attached to the game midway through development as executive director and design consultant. In 2001 a rally project at VIS for Electronic Arts was cancelled, and VIS began restructuring itself. As part of this process, Patrick Buckland spun-off Stainless Games as an independent company again, which was financed by Les Edgar, founder of Bullfrog and ex-chairman of VIS.
Stainless Games remains independent to this day, and is based in Newport on the Isle of Wight. The company has released a number of titles, including a port of Crystal Quest, Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm, Warlords, Tempest, Battlezone, Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede & Millipede, Novadrome, RISK: Factions, Carmageddon: Max Damage and most notable Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers.
He was wholly or partly responsible for the production of videogames such as Crystal Quest , Carmageddon , Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now , Carmageddon: Reincarnation and Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers . He also produced a range of non-game software over the years, including AME, a security system used by (amongst others) the CIA and NASA, Crash Barrier, a crash recovery utility for the Macintosh, a Teletext authoring system, CAD software for the marine industry, retail packaging CAD systems, LeLisp for the French government, Structured BASIC or the Apple // and various other software packages.
Games and other major products produced by or including code written by Buckland include
The above list excludes a number of cancelled projects (some of which were major and near completion), minor contract work, and confidential projects.
Crystal Quest received a number of awards when released on the Mac in 1987, as did Carmageddon and Carmageddon II in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers broke all sales records on the XBLA platform when it was released in June 2009, although these records were broken again by other titles shortly afterward.
In 2013, Buckland was one of a consortium of British individuals who bought the rights back to the sports car manufacturer TVR, from Nikolay Smolensky. [4] [5] The new company, TVR Manufacturing Ltd, is already taking deposits for an all-new vehicle developed in conjunction with Gordon Murray and Cosworth. [6]
He was born in London and moved to the Isle of Wight at the age of 2. Buckland still lives on the Isle of Wight with his wife and two children and is a direct descendant of renowned geologist/palaeontologist William Buckland and his son, renowned zoologist Frank Buckland. [7]
Carmageddon is a vehicular combat video game released for personal computers in 1997. It was produced by Stainless Games and published by Interplay Productions and Sales Curve Interactive. It was ported to other platforms, and spawned a series.
Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now is a vehicular combat video game, the sequel to Carmageddon, and released in 1998 for Microsoft Windows. The game was developed by Stainless Games and published by Sales Curve Interactive in Europe and Interplay Entertainment in North America. Ports for Mac OS, PlayStation and Nintendo 64 were released in 1999. A 2D version for the Game Boy Color was released in Europe in 1999, and in North America in 2000 as Carmageddon.
The Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) is a game engine developed by Sierra On-Line. The company originally developed the engine for King's Quest (1984), an adventure game that Sierra and IBM wished to market in order to attract consumers to IBM's lower-cost home computer, the IBM PCjr.
Several video games based on the Magic: The Gathering franchise exist for multiple systems. Some have attempted to translate the card game to electronic play nearly exactly; others have taken more liberties and drawn more from the setting than the actual rules of the card game. Benefits of successful video game versions of the card game include convenience, practice, and challenge. However, artificial intelligence for a game such as Magic is an extremely hard problem, and such software usually must be continuously updated to stay current with recently released card sets. Video game versions often expand on artwork, and may include unique cards that rely on randomness, effects which would be difficult or annoying to duplicate in real life.
Casady & Greene was a software publisher and developer active from 1988 to 2003. The company primarily released software for Macintosh, but also released software for Windows and Newton. Casady & Greene was formed in 1988 when Greene, Inc. acquired CasadyWare, a company owned by Robin Casady.
Magic: The Gathering – Battlegrounds is a real time strategy video game developed by Secret Level, Inc. and published by Atari It is based on Magic: The Gathering collectible card game, with many fundamental differences. The game is based on the creation of heroes and mages that summon forth powerful monsters, spells, and abilities to defeat the enemy duelist. Duelists learn new magical spells by completing the campaign, with more and more spell books becoming available as the player progresses. Each spell is separated into one of 5 colors, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Crystal Quest is an action game written by Patrick Buckland for the Macintosh and published by Casady & Greene in 1987. It was ported to the Apple IIGS in 1989 by Rebecca Heineman. Ports were also made to the Amiga, Game Boy, iOS, and Palm. It was the first game to support the color displays of the Macintosh II.
Atari: 80 Classic Games in One!, known as Atari Anthology on consoles, is a video game collection developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Atari Interactive. The title is a compilation of 80 video games previously published by Atari, Inc. and Atari Corporation, reproducing Atari's games from its arcade and Atari 2600 game console platforms. Many games permit one to play each title at varying speeds, with time limits, or with a shifting color palette.
Stainless Games is an independent British video game developer based in Newport, Isle of Wight, that is best known for the creation of the Carmageddon franchise.
Magic: The Gathering is a video game published by MicroProse in March 1997 based on the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. It is often referred to as Shandalar after the plane of Shandalar, where the game takes place. The player must travel the land and fight random enemies to gain cards, and defeat five wizards representing the five colors. The player must prevent one color from gaining too much power, and defeat the planeswalker Arzakon, who has a deck of all five colors. Adventure and role-playing elements are present, including inventory, gold, towns, dungeons, random battles, and character progression in the form of new abilities and a higher life point total. An oversized version of Aswan Jaguar was included in the game box.
Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers is a video game based on the popular collectible card game of the same name, published by Wizards of the Coast. It was released on June 17, 2009.
N+ is the console and handheld version of the Adobe Flash game N, which was developed by Metanet Software. N+ for Xbox Live Arcade was developed by Slick Entertainment and published by Metanet Software. Unique versions of the game were also ported separately to the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS by developers SilverBirch Studios and Atari. Metanet Software licensed their N IP for this deal, provided single player level design for both versions, and consulted on the project.
Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 is a video game based on the popular collectible card game of the same name, published by Wizards of the Coast. It was released on June 15, 2011. The game is a follow-up to the highly popular Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers, which was released in 2009. An expansion for the game, called Ascend into Darkness, was released on September 14, 2011. The sequel, Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, was released in 2012.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation is a vehicular combat game, the fourth in the Carmageddon series. The game was developed by Stainless Games.
Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is a video game based on the popular collectible card game of the same name, first published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game was released on June 20, 2012, via Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStation Network, and iPad, and is the third game in the Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers series. The gameplay follows that of the original card game, however within a more restrained framework. It received mainly positive reviews and was number one in the PlayStation Network sales for June. The sequel, Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014, was released in 2013.
Fergus McNeill is a Scottish author and interactive entertainment developer. He has designed and created games since the early 1980s, working with companies such as CRL, Silversoft, Macmillan Group, Activision, SCi Eidos and EA. He was a founder member of TIGA and is a member of the Crime Writers' Association and BAFTA. He is the author of a series of contemporary crime thrillers published by Hodder & Stoughton.
Magic Duels is a video game based on the popular collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. Magic Duels is a successor to Stainless Games' Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers and its annual sequels, released from 2009 through 2014. The free-to-play title was released on July 29, 2015, shortly following the physical release of the Magic Origins core set.