I wish to document the following, so that it should be so noted that the
events did happen as written here - I don't have exact dates but to the
best of my memory these events did happen thus:

I met Andrew Bradfield sometime around December 1982 when I returned back
to Dunedin, New Zealand from living about 10 months in England in October.
I did see him again sometime around in February
or thereabouts. At that time, I only knew that he was the brother of
Gaynor Bradfield who attended the local Science Fiction club, that I
supported.
It's hard to recount or remember how we first met - I seem to recall that
I was running some computer games at the science fiction club meeting,
and Andrew was there, specifically for that.

I was receiving some computer games from England, and Andrew was keen to
see and play those same games - these were copied games, and it
was surprising the amazing quality and diversity of the Atari home computer
games at that time.

It was in 1983 that I was flatting - and I got a hold of a program that
allowed anyone to put together their own arcade game - via a complex
and confusing program. It was called, The Arcade Machine.
Anyway Andrew spent the better part of an afternoon trying to use this
program on my computer (He did not have a disk drive then) and he was
unsatisfied with the result, and the program.

Andrew went from an Atari 400, buying very expensive Atari game cartridges
(courtesy of Dick Smith/Ozisoft) that cost well over $100 each -
to buying an Atari 800 (with normal keyboard) and a 1050 disk drive.

Working backwards to get the dates right here:
Laser Hawk was originally named 'Hot Copter' {Andrew's choice of name}
and were sent out to what was then prospective companies, including
Red Rat Software - who wanted it retitled to "Laser Hawk", which Andrew
duly done. This required a major change to the title screen.
The completion date of Laser Hawk was in 1986, which took a year to
complete. So it was started sometime in 1985.
[Red Rat Software agreed to distribute Laser Hawk in October 1986]
Andrew wrote about 2-3
routines before this, in the way of very simple machine code programmes
to learn to program in 6502 assembler.
Previously he did try some BASIC programming but soon learnt that the
type of games he wanted to program, couldn't be done in BASIC -
ie. the fast-action, graphics intensive videogames.
He probably started learning 6502 assembler around 1984, taking around a
year to start from scratch - out of a Compute! learning to program in
6502 assembler book. Prior to that he was an avid computer arcade games
player enjoying Defender, Star Raiders and others.
Andrew played the home computer versions of Galaxian, Defender, etc
and didn't play the coin-operated arcade games at all. He bought the
cartridge versions for his Atari 400.
Todd Gramstrup (of Dunedin) was of great help to Andrew because of his 
detailed knowledge about the Atari Operating System, having bought 
the manual(s) for it.
Also Todd was knowledgable about 6502 assembler, and Andrew would be able
to ask Todd almost any question - and get a reasonable answer in return.
Unlike others, like me, who would have no idea of the complexity
of programming involved - not only of how 6502 assembler worked but also
of how the Atari 800 computer hardware worked?
Although having an interest in computers - one gets to know in layman's
terms about the various aspects of computers, as over time it slowly but
surely sinks in.

Andrew was responsible for the program design of Laser Hawk, which was his
version/clone of "Tail of Beta Lyrae" which was a Scramble clone.
I merely designed the graphics he required. I can't recall how we ended up
with bombing the headquarters of the rival computer companies of the time,
as being the game's premise. The companies, being Apple, Amstrad, BBC,
Commodore and Spectrum.
We always had a discussion about how the game might be played and what
elements were present, discussing the graphics details precisely.
I would design the graphics precisely to his specification and have them
ready, when he wanted them by.
We definitely wanted to reward the player for beating the game, so there is
a nice graphic animation at the very end before you advance to the next harder
level.

When we started work on "HawkQuest" we had no idea how long it would take
to complete it. The work was done on a spare time / part-time basis.
I'm to be credited with the overall game design, insisting upon a 2 game,
multi-layered scenario. Basically we went all out, knowing this would be
a last chance to do something worthy for the aging Atari 800/etc computers
of that time. It took 3 years work, and the game took up 4 disk sides of
90K each, which at that time was huge, for an arcade game.
The game was started sometime in 1986 and completed in 1989.
Sound effects was not Andrew's forte, so he took sounds from BASIC routines
in magazines or using a sound editor tried creating his own by trial and
error, converting them over to machine code.
There was a player-missile animator that proved useful. Also the BASIC
utility Fontbyter was very useful, which allowed me to design landscapes
with. I did put together a demo game landscape using Fontbyter, which
Todd Gramstrup scrolled via a BASIC / machine code program, in which the
landscapes were inspired by Xevious, Espial and Time Pilot 2001.
What Todd did especially of note in the demo program, was that different
redefined character sets were scrolled down the screen, and the join was
invisible.
The use of Graphics 9 and 10 screens in HawkQuest was possible using
Paul Lay's utilities which allowed me to use this graphics mode.
Paul Lay lives in England - I decided that maybe I could work with him
on some games - designing graphics for him? Paul Lay had many games published
in the English Atari user magazine - Page 6.
The main game of HawkQuest was very demanding technically because of the
limitation of the Atari 8-bit computers limited player-missile graphics.
You cannot have enough of them available to use - this was seen to be overcome
via the technique that Stewart Lees used in his unfinished game program.
It was fortunate that I had contact with Stewart at that appropriate time -
I never met or talked with Stewart, who lived in Wellington, New Zealand
and only had written correspondence with him.
Once Andrew knew how it was done, he could write his code to achieve the
same result - make one player into many (which cannot overlap each other).
(Because the vertical blank timing was critical - this meant that this
 technique could only work in the PAL computers, and couldn't work for
 NTSC machines. Sorry guys, you lucked out. USA machines have less of a
 vertical blank time period available for such routines.)
Once Andrew knew something was possible he could work on his routine to do
the same thing. eg. Have a loading screen while Laser Hawk loads, have a
countdown loading counter in HawkQuest.
Another person being very helpful in the development of these games 
was Graeme Wheeler - at which place we met regularly on a Friday
evening - Andrew would take his work-in-progress along to an informal
gathering of Atari User Group members, and the development of his
game in progress could be seen - as we discussed and looked at different
games and routines.

3 years is an awful long time to work on a single game - but there was a
lot of graphics and routines used in HawkQuest, and essentially we were
working on 2 games here - doing it on a part-time basis.

Example of dates, regarding HawkQuest:
15-9-86   Working on green planet - 1st Planet designs
20-9-86   Working on helicopter leaving shuttle - this was originally in
          the main game, but was removed (was taking up too much memory)
          and incorporated into the end-of-game animation.
20-11-86  Finished map screen design
28-11-86  Working on explosions in main game
 2-12-87 } Working on
13-12-87 } secondary game
17-1-87    working on secondary game
15-6-88    working on Generator end of game animation
A demo [unfinished but playable] version of HawkQuest was ready at the end
of March 1989.  The demo only shows 4 variations out of the 20 possible
in the final version. {ie. 2 levels of 10 game variations,
1 level = 5 planets}

At the end of September 1989 Red Rat Software agreed to distribute HawkQuest

With the above dates, they are just an example of some of the work
being carried out.  Of course, we didn't completely finish the main game,
then worked exclusively on the second game - I would have been alternating
between the two games often enough, although Andrew would probably have
been working on one exclusively before starting the other.


I was not aware of anyone else in New Zealand, who were able to complete
and to have marketed their computer game, at this time -  1986-1989,
so I like to think that we achieved a definite, but obscure place in
history. The financial return wasn't all that much, because the Atari 8-bit
computers were in their decline in terms of market share and popularity.
We would have received a much, much bigger financial return, had we been
able to have written/developed a C64 game instead --- but that was never an
option. The limited colour palette of the C64 would have looked very drab
in comparison, and it was never an option for us to work on the C64 computer.
Mainly because at that time, in comparing the two computers, the Atari Computers
generally had the better version/games - though with the decline of the
Atari, the C64 games were getting better and better, eventually eclipsing them.

The main purpose of this text is to give due credit to Andrew Bradfield
who passed away on the 21st September 2001, at age 35.
He was diagnosed with Luekemenia 2 years ago and would have passed away
about a year ago - had it not been for the new drug treatment, that was
being trialed - Gleevec did not cure him as hoped, but extended his life
a little.

Special modified versions of Laser Hawk and HawkQuest - courtesy of Paul Lay,
are downloadable from:

members.tripod.com/~socialvolleyball/atari/
{These are not available elsewehre}

Harvey A. Kong Tin

kiwilove@paradise.net.nz


I expect to be away for a while, I can be reached here:
kiwilove100@yahoo.co.nz


More information
----------------

What happened after HawkQuest

Andrew moved onto the Amiga and learnt 68000 assembly language.
I purchased a Atari 1040ST specifically to work on a game with Paul Lay.
I eventually purchased an Amiga 500 (like andrew) when the price was right.
Andrew proceeded to work on a game project which was to be a platform
shoot 'em up with a man. He designed his own editor but because it was
written in assembler it took a long time to write.
This project was never completed nor did it progress all that far.

With the arrival of Doom on the PC, Andrew was becoming more and more
interested in PCs because of the quality of games being developed for it.
He liked the adventure action RPGs, 3D simulation games and especially
the strategy games. He was impressed by all the games produced by Looking
Glass. He was especially keen on 3D driving games because he drove a
Suburu sports coupe for many years, then moved onto a really fast Japanese
import sports coupe, and in the last month of his life, purchased a
Porsche Boxster.
Andrew was a keen arcade games player, turned games programmer, back to
games player, but this time towards strategy and simulations - he lost
interest in the arcade games, because they get rather samey quickly.

Andrew was a skeptic in his belief system, and acknowledged this, although
he tended towards agnostic, if there was proof available, he would have
been more than happy to embrace this.
I always had an interest in the paranormal and unexplained since my late
teens - and I didn't really discuss this with Andrew until in recent years.
With him being treated with Luekemenia, and the real possibility that there
would be no cure for him - I discussed with him about death and dying.
Specifically what to expect in passing over - my view - is that we all
survive death, and that life goes on for everyone (in the afterlife),
no matter what their belief system is --- but if you have extreme views,
this is what you receive, have made for you.
Meaning a fantasy world is created for you, if you have strong views on what
you should expect. But over time there - you will wake up to what is real
or that which is but a creation of your own mind and expectations.
A correct expectation would not create the same reception.
What I said to him, was in essence, that departed family and friends would
be there to greet him - and that death is not the end.

I didn't have any solid proof to back up what I said - but there was
extensive knowledge and information about things not accepted by science
and the public at large today, that would be accepted in future.
Though being able to differeniate between what is true and what is false,
is not that easy - in things unproven.

It was a pleasure and a privilege to have known and worked with Andrew.
He was a very rare sort of person.
We didn't have any real experience with designing and working on computer
videogames, we just went ahead and did it.
Just by using common sense and looking around us, we planned what we could,
and let intution guide us.
Note: Although Andrew and I were not die-hard arcade coin-op players -
Andrew didn't visit videogames arcades --- I think he didn't visit the
arcades because if he did start playing, he might be a regular visitor/player
and he didn't want to spend his money there.
I visited arcades often enough, to see what the new games were like, and
tried them out. I don't play them for long because I didn't have the money
to be a regular player. However I did get a Xevious expert player -
Peter Boston to play various arcade games of the time, and had it videotaped,
which we used as a reference for HawkQuest.
I felt this was necessary - Xevious was a special game, which we had to pay
special attention to - because HawkQuest is modelled somewhat upon Xevious -
having hidden targets within the scrolling landscape.

The reason for me writing this text, and making the files available  -
is to show that you can do what you really want to do. Whatever it may be.
If you have a worthwhile passion - pursue it - and you'll get some
worthwhile results from what you love doing or that which you love to do.
And it doesn't matter where you are - and working with friends is great.
Or making friends with whom you can work with.

Harvey A. Kong Tin