A Definite Blast From The Past
A long time ago, I found a job in the games industry thanks to an advert in the Glasgow Herald. It took me up to Dundee, affectionately known as Scumdee by many people, the home of Oor Wullie, the Broons, and DMA Design. I worked at DMA for a little over 4 years, effectively served my ‘apprenticeship’ in the games industry by shipping two games, and learned a whole bunch about how to give teams enough rope to hang themselves. When it worked, the teams at DMA were fantastic, turning out Lemmings, GTA & more. However, there were plenty of bum projects at DMA that either shouldn’t have shipped or got cancelled after long protracted development periods.
It was a really odd exciting time – DMA gave bunch of fresh faced graduates & a handful of veterans the time they wanted to experiment & figure out what sort of game to make, leveraging the tech of Mike Dailly & the other guys upstairs, resulting in Grand Theft Auto, Tanktics & Silicon Valley.
Mike Dailly’s now doing a fantastic job of recording the history of DMA & has put a bunch of photos online as you can see here. It really was an odd work environment that I’ve never been in the likes of since – at times it was like high school again, at other times it was utterly creative pushing the boundaries of what is “fun”. Some of those guys have gone on to great things. Those photos really take me back. Good times.
