Phil Hackney

General Information

I first acquired the computer games bug when my parents bought my brothers and I a Grandslam home entertainment system. This consisted of various interpretations of Pong, masquerading as Tennis, Football, and Squash. From there we went on to the Atari 400 (many hours spent on Donkey Kong and BASIC programming) which was succeeded by the Atari 130xe. It was with this machine that I started to seriously create pictures in 1988. That Christmas I became the proud owner of an Atari ST and an art package called Neochrome.

I soon realised that my work was of a decent standard and in 1989, whilst studying A Level Art I began to consider Computer Games as a career prospect. Until then I'd set my heart on becoming a cartoonist (my ink work was later used in adverts for the Krisalis game Soccer Kid), but the bottom had just dropped out of kids comic market due to the success of Viz. In the spring of 1990 I sent out a demo disk to Rotherham firm Krisalis Software who invited me for an interview. That summer I was offered a trial and subsequently a job as trainee artist. Six months later, with a couple of published games featuring my work, I was offered a full contract. Many thanks go to Tony Kavanagh, Pete Harrap, and Shaun Hollingworth for giving me the chance.

I stayed at Krisalis for almost nine years building up a large body of work. The industry was changing at that stage and I was offered a fresh challenge at Sheffield based Distinctive Developments, which I decided to take up. After just one published title the company ran into financial problems and I was made redundant. I joined Runecraft in March 2001 but the travelling became increasingly difficult so I joined Fluid Studios in September of the same year, a company much closer to home.

The industry has changed a hell of a lot during the last twelve years. It's very volatile and companies seem to set up and then fold all the time. Job security has certainly diminished and development costs are incredible. This has resulted in many publishers going for the safe option but I hope that originality will come back into the industry once again.

You may find this site interesting, (a rock band I formed with my brother!): "www.declipse.f9.co.uk/".

Game Credits

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