Retro Gamer is a British magazine devoted entirely to classic video games, first launched in January 2004 1. Over the past 20+ years it has grown from a niche quarterly into a monthly archive of gaming history, publishing high-quality retrospectives, developer interviews, and reader-favorite features on titles from the 1970s through early 2000s .
The magazine’s content and structure have continually evolved – from its early format under Live Publishing (complete with cover CD-ROMs of emulators) to later expansions under Imagine and Future plc 2.
One of Retro Gamer’s hallmarks is its extensive interviews with the creators of classic video games. Nearly every issue features conversations with veteran developers, offering first-hand insights into the making of beloved games and the industry’s early days.
These interviews often explore how iconic titles were designed under the technical constraints along with creative tricks used to overcome the hardware limitations.
| Issue Number | Interview Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Andy Hewitt | Hewitt discusses his work with the game developer group Ovine by Design, including the group’s history and their use of game development tools like Jamagic. The interview mentions that Ovine by Design’s latest game, Imogen, is a platform game for the ZX Spectrum. |
| 3 | Simon Ullyatt & Jonathan Cauldwell | Ullyatt and Cauldwell are members of Cronosoft, a group that develops new games for older platforms. The interview mentions several of Cronosoft’s games, including Egghead in Space (for the ZX Spectrum) and Plan 9 Channel 7, More Tea, Vicar?, and Reaxion (all for the Commodore 64). The interview also mentions that Cronosoft was considering making a BBC Micro version of Egghead in Space. |
| 5 | Protovision | The members of Protovision discuss their work developing games for the Commodore 64. The interview mentions several of their games, including Metal Dust, Tanks 3000, and Pac It. |
| 5 | Stuart Fotheringham | Fotheringham discusses his work on games like Mega-tree, Heartland, and Nodes of Yesod. Mega-Tree was in development for the Commodore 64, but never released. The interview mentions that the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 versions of Heartland shared the same map data. Nodes of Yesod was released for the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64. The interview also discusses Fotheringham’s work on an unreleased version of Star Raiders for the Commodore 64. |
| 6 | Nick Harlow | Harlow discusses the history of 1632 Systems, which started as a Public Domain library for the Atari ST. |
| 7 | Matthew Smith | This issue contains an interview with Matthew Smith, creator of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, for the ZX Spectrum. |
| 8 | Nolan Bushnell | Bushnell is known for his work on games like Pac-Man, Breakout, and for founding Atari. |
| 9 | David Doak | Doak is known for his work on GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. |
| 10 | Steve Meretzky | Meretzky is known for his work on text adventures such as Planetfall, Sorcerer, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The interview does not specify which platforms these games were developed for. |
| 11 | Malcolm Evans | Evans is known for his work on games such as 3D Monster Maze (for the ZX81), Trashman, and The Ishar trilogy. |
| 11 | Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree | This interview features developers from Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree, discussing their unlicensed, religious-themed NES games. |
| 11 | Francois Lionet | Lionet discusses his work on the game development tools AMOS (for the Amiga) and Klik & Play (for the PC). |
| 12 | Vicky Carne | Vicky Carne was the founder of 8-bit software house Mosaic Publishing. Mosaic Publishing was responsible for bringing the “amazingly original titles” [Hover Bovver and Revenge of the Mutant Camels] to the Commodore 64. One of the company’s more notable releases was Battle Command, a tank game for the Commodore 64 that was lauded for its “fast-filled 3D graphics”. |
| 12 | Jeff Minter | Jeff Minter is a game developer known for his work with Llamasoft. Some of his more popular games, such as Gridrunner++ for PC and Mac, are known for their “diversity and humour”, containing enemies that range from “footballs to giant Mutley heads”. |
| 12 | Albert Yarusso | Albert Yarusso was the chief maintainer of the AtariAge website in 2005. |
| 13 | Jamie Fenton | Jamie Fenton was one half of the duo, with partner Dennis Koble, who created the game Sea Wolf, released in 1976. |
| 13 | Julian Golop | Julian Golop was a game developer who worked on games such as Lords of Chaos and X-Com. Lords of Chaos was released on an unspecified platform, but was designed to be a combination of “the best bits of Chaos and Laser Squad”, with additional RPG elements. The first X-Com game was programmed for the PC because it was “the most popular platform for strategy games” at the time. |
| 13 | Jeff Kunkel | Jeff Kunkel was a game developer who worked on arcade games, including Dragon’s Lair. One of his personal projects was adding a “freeplay mode” to his copy of the arcade game Frogger. |
| 13 | Ben Heckendorn | Ben Heckendorn was a console modder who, by 2004, had created portable versions of the Virtual Boy, PlayStation, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 2600, and PlayStation 2. His “dream project” was to create a laptop that could play Atari 800 games. |
| 13 | Steve Wilcox | Steve Wilcox was a game developer who worked with Elite. One of the company’s notable releases was Battle Command for the Commodore 64, a game that impressed with its use of 3D graphics despite the technical limitations of the Commodore 64. |
| 14 | Jon Ritman | This issue contains an interview with Jon Ritman, the developer behind Match Day and Head Over Heels for the ZX Spectrum. The article also touches on his work on Batman. |
| 14 | Dino Dini | This issue features an interview with Dino Dini, creator of Kick Off and Goal!. Kick Off was originally developed for the Atari ST and later ported to the Amiga. Goal! was released on the Sega Megadrive as Dino Dini’s Soccer. |
| 15 | Walter Ginner | Walter Ginner was a competitive gamer in the 1980s. |
| 15 | Fergus McNeil | Fergus McNeil was the founder of the software company Delta 4. One of the company’s games, Quest for the Holy Joystick, was a text-based adventure game that parodied the software industry and contained references to contemporary gaming magazines. |
| 15 | Keith Hughes | Keith Hughes was a game developer who, as of 2005, worked at Kuju. |
| 16 | Mr Biffo and Mr Hairs | Mr Biffo and Mr Hairs were the pseudonyms of the creators of Digitiser, a Teletext gaming section that ran on Channel 4. |
| 16 | The guys behind Gilsoft | Gilsoft was a company best known for their game creation software The Quill, which allowed users to create text-based adventure games. |
| 17 | Paul Carruthers | Paul Carruthers is a programmer best known for his work on the game Xor, which was originally released in 1987 for the BBC Micro. Xor was later ported to the Electron, Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad, Amiga, and Atari ST. |
| 17 | Dave Reidy and Keith Warrington | Dave Reidy and Keith Warrington were the creators of the game Skool Daze. Skool Daze was programmed for the ZX Spectrum. |
| 18 | Tim Skelly | Tim Skelly was a programmer best known for his work on the arcade game Reactor. Reactor was the first arcade game to include the programmer’s name on-screen. |
| 18 | Dave Needle and R.J. Mical | Dave Needle and R.J. Mical were the engineers behind the Atari Lynx, released in 1989. The Lynx was notable for being the world’s first colour handheld games console. |
| 18 | David Crane | David Crane was the programmer behind Little Computer People. Little Computer People allowed the player to interact with a virtual person who lived in their computer. |
| 18 | Mark Cale | Mark Cale was the co-founder of System 3, the company that developed the Last Ninja series. The first Last Ninja was released for the Commodore 64 and a few other platforms. The second game in the series was released for almost every gaming platform available at the time. |
| 18 | John Twiddy | John Twiddy was a programmer who worked on all three of the Last Ninja games. The first Last Ninja game was programmed for the Commodore 64. The second game in the series introduced a new setting (New York) because it allowed for more varied environments compared to the first game, which took place in a garden. The Atari ST and Amiga versions of Last Ninja 2 were outsourced to external programmers. |
| 19 | John and Ste Pickford | John and Ste Pickford were brothers who worked together in the games industry for many years. Their first game together was the Spectrum game Zub. They later worked on the NES at Rare. One of the games they worked on at Rare was a Game Boy wrestling game that won a “Best Game Boy Game” award at CES, despite only featuring four frames of animation per wrestler. |
| 20 | Chris Roper | Chris Roper won the Oliver Twins’ remake competition at Retro Ball 2005. The game he created for the competition was a remake of the ZX Spectrum game Horace and the Spiders. |
| 20 | Stephen Robertson | Stephen Robertson was a graphic artist best known for creating loading screens for the Commodore 64. One of the games he worked on was Cybernoid, a game known for its side-scrolling shoot ‘em up gameplay. |
| 20 | Staff at Technos Japan and American Technos | Technos Japan was a company best known for their work on the Kunio-Kun series of games. Double Dragon was one of their most commercially successful games. WWF Superstars (1989) and WWF Wrestlefest (1991) were two of their licensed games. |
| 21 | Nolan Bushnell | The interview is about Bushnell bringing gaming to the masses. He is the creator of electronic gaming, designer of Pong, and founder of Atari. |
| 22 | Tim Schafer | In this interview, Schafer discusses how he got his start in the gaming industry. He worked on games such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and the Sam & Max series, across platforms like PC, Amiga, Mac, and Sega CD. |
| 22 | Gary Liddon | In this interview, Liddon discusses his career and games such as Delta, the sequel to Sanxion. |
| 23 | Andy Davidson | This interview focuses on Davidson and how his game Total Wormage turned into Team 17’s successful franchise, Worms. |
| 24 | Trip Hawkins | Hawkins discusses the forming of EA, one of gaming’s biggest empires. He also talks about M.U.L.E, a game whose origins can be traced to Strategic Simulations Inc., for the Atari 800. He shares his thoughts on the gaming industry. |
| 24 | Eugene Jarvis | The source mentions that Jarvis is the creator of several arcade games. |
| 26 | Yuji Naka | Naka avoids answering most questions in this interview. He is asked about his time working for Sonic Team and about his work on an emulator that allows Famicom games to be played on the Mega Drive. |
| 27 | Dale DeSharone | In this interview, DeSharone discusses his work on games such as Below the Root for the Commodore 64 and the Zelda games for the CD-i. |
| 28 | Dave Grossman | This interview focuses on Grossman’s work on the Monkey Island series. He has also worked on Sam & Max Hit the Road, the Pajama Sam series, Freddi Fish 4, Ollo, Moop and Dreadly, and other games for Humongous Entertainment and Tell Tale Games. |
| 30 | Steve Ellis | Ellis discusses his work as Director of Free Radical Design, where he develops games for the PlayStation 3. |
| 32 | Mark Cale | Discusses the development of Impossible Mission for DS and PSP, noting the effective use of the touch screen in the DS version and the superior visuals of the PSP version. |
| 32 | Martyn Brown | Known for co-founding Team 17, creators of the Worms series and other Amiga classics |
| 33 | Satoshi Tajiri | Discusses the development of Pokémon for the Game Boy, mentioning his mentorship under Shigeru Miyamoto and the naming of characters Ash and Shigeru after himself and Miyamoto. |
| 33 | Dr Peter Favaro | Discusses the development of Alter Ego, a ‘life simulator’ released by Activision in 1986. |
| 34 | Jon Ritman | Discusses his isometric adventure game Head Over Heels. |
| 34 | Ron Gilbert | Discusses the creation of Monkey Island, including the game’s development process and his collaboration with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman |
| 34 | Mark Cale | Discusses the history of System 3, including their past titles and plans for the future. The company is known for titles like Impossible Mission and The Last Ninja |
| 35 | Steve Wright | Discusses his time at Atari |
| 35 | John Wilson | Discusses his work at Zenobi, a company he founded to create text-based adventure games, including Arrival on the Atari ST, An Everyday Tale Of A Seeker Of Gold, and Fuddo And Slam. |
| 36 | Jonathan Thompson | Discusses a new retro game competition he is involved in, seeking new ideas inspired by classic titles like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Tank Wars. |
| 37 | David Crane | Discusses the making of Pitfall II: Lost Caverns |
| 38 | Developers at System 3 | Discuss their updated version of California Games, which includes Summer Games 1 and 2 |
| 39 | Developers of Lemmings | Discuss the creation of Lemmings |
| 39 | Developers at Rare | Discuss the making of Jetpac Refuelled for Xbox Live Arcade |
| 40 | Developers of Libble Rabble | Discuss the development of Libble Rabble |
| 40 | John Romero | Discusses his time at id Software and the development of Quake, including his design philosophy and his eventual departure from the company to form Ion Storm. |
| 41 | Andy Walker | Discusses his work on Cad Cam Warrior and Super Pipeline 2 |
| 41 | Kelvin Aston | Discusses his entry into the gaming industry as a QA tester for Team17 on Worms, and his eventual role as lead producer on Worms: Open Warfare 2 |
| 42 | Alexey Pajitnov | Discusses the creation of Tetris |
| 42 | Developers at NG:DEV.TEAM | Discuss what inspired them to create a shoot ‘em up game like Söldner-X for the PlayStation 3 |
| 42 | Jeff Minter and Giles Williams | Discuss their work at Llamasoft, including the development of Space Giraffe for Xbox Live Arcade and their plans for future titles like Sheep in Space and Ancipital |
| 43 | Jon Hare | Discusses the creation of Sensible Soccer for the Amiga |
| 44 | Developers of Fort Apocalypse | Discuss the development of Fort Apocalypse |
| 45 | Philip Oliver | Discusses the creation of Treasure Island Dizzy |
| 45 | Yuji Naka and Takashi Izuka | Discuss the making of NiGHTS into Dreams and its sequel, Journey of Dreams for the Wii |
| 46 | Developers of California Games | Discuss the creation of California Games |
| 46 | Brian Moriarty | Discusses his adventure game Loom |
| 47 | Will Wright | Discusses his contributions to the gaming industry, including his work on simulation games like SimCity and The Sims |
| 48 | Matthew Smith | Discusses the making of his seminal platformer Manic Miner |
| 48 | Matthew Smith | Discusses his type-in game, Andre’s Night Off, which he coded in BASIC for Computer & Video Games magazine, and mentions his work on Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, and Styx |
| 49 | Developers at Vectordean | Discuss their game Tavern RPG |
| 50 | Martyn Carroll | Discusses the creation of Retro Gamer magazine |
| 50 | Various Developers | Discuss the games that changed their lives, including Tir Na Nog and Jet Set Willy |
| 51 | Developers of R-Type Delta | Discuss the making of R-Type Delta for the original PlayStation |
| 52 | Chris Wilkins | Discusses the upcoming Retro Fusion event and the guests who will be in attendance, including Archer MacLean, Andy Nuttal, Jon Hare, Martin Hollis, Alex Trowers, Simon Goodwin, and Ste Pickford. |
| 55 | Chris Gibbs | Chris Gibbs was one of the founding members of Attention To Detail, a game development company. He worked with Jon Steele and Martin on a conversion of Super Sprint for the Atari ST. After this project, they were commisioned by LucasArts to make PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64, Spectrum, and Amstrad versions of Night Shift. |
| 55 | Jon Dean | Jon Dean was a producer for Activision. While there, he met Chris Gibbs, Fred Gill, and Jon Steele. They created a conversion of Super Sprint for the Atari ST. Dean proposed the group start a company called Attention To Detail that would work exclusively with PMC. |
| 55 | Fred Gill | Fred Gill was one of the founding members of Attention To Detail. Before forming the company with Chris Gibbs, Jon Steele, and Jon Dean, his Spectrum shooter Octan was published by Firebird. |
| 55 | Jon Steele | Jon Steele was one of the founding members of Attention To Detail. He worked with Chris Gibbs and Martin on a conversion of Super Sprint for the Atari ST. |
| 56 | Hideo Kojima | Hideo Kojima is a game designer known for his work on the Metal Gear series. He has stated a desire to direct a film. |
| 57 | Eugene Lacey | Eugene Lacey was involved with Computer & Video Games magazine during the 1980s. |
| 58 | Jim Levy | Jim Levy was involved with the founding of Activision. He understood the desire among developers to receive credit for their work. |
| 59 | Jon Hare | Jon Hare co-founded Sensible Software, the company behind Sensible Soccer. He has also worked at Argonaut Games. |
| 60 | Trevor Storey | Issue 60 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with Trevor Storey. |
| 61 | Toru Iwatani | Toru Iwatani is the creator of Pac-Man. In this issue, he discusses rebooting the franchise for Xbox Live Arcade. |
| 61 | Tony Crowther | Tony Crowther developed the games Blagger and Burnout Paradise. |
| 61 | Matthew Smith | Matthew Smith was a game developer. |
| 61 | Jeff Minter | Jeff Minter is a game developer. |
| 62 | Trip Hawkins | Trip Hawkins is the founder Electronic Arts (EA). He discusses EA’s role in the success of the Sega Mega Drive. |
| 62 | Tomohiro Nishikado | Tomohiro Nishikado is the creator of Space Invaders. |
| 63 | Charles Cecil | Charles Cecil co-founded Revolution Software. He discusses the founding of the studio and how the Wii and DS were revitalizing point-and-click games. |
| 63 | Archer MacLean | Archer Maclean developed Dropzone, which he showed to Atari UK in 1982. |
| 63 | Harri Tikkanen | Harri Tikkanen created the Super Stardust series, including Super Stardust HD for the PS3. |
| 63 | Kevin Toms | Kevin Toms created the Football Manager series. |
| 64 | Ally Noble | Ally Noble worked at Denton Designs on a game about the pop band Frankie Goes To Hollywood. |
| 64 | Simon Goodwin | Simon Goodwin worked at Ocean, Denton Designs, and Beyond Software. |
| 64 | John Twiddy | John Twiddy developed Last Ninja and Putty Squad. He also worked on the Konix Multisystem. |
| 64 | Mev Dinc | Mev Dinc created the Spectrum version of The Last Ninja. |
| 64 | Jamie Woodhouse | Jamie Woodhouse is a game developer who worked on Qwak for Team 17 and Nitro for Psygnosis. |
| 66 | Trip Hawkins | Issue 66 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with Trip Hawkins. He talked about his game Crazy Penguin Catapult. |
| 67 | Charles Cecil | Charles Cecil co-founded Revolution Software and talked about their work on Lure Of The Temptress and Broken Sword: Director’s Cut. |
| 67 | Jon Hare | Jon Hare co-founded Sensible Software. He discussed the development of Shoot-‘Em-Up Construction Kit for the C64. |
| 68 | Hideo Kojima | Issue 68 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with Hideo Kojima. |
| 68 | Gary Bracey | Gary Bracey worked at Ocean Software, where he oversaw more than 104 games. Notable releases he worked on include Batman: The Movie and Head Over Heels. |
| 69 | Takeshi Arakawa | Takeshi Arakawa is the game director of Dissidia: Final Fantasy. |
| 69 | Simon Pick | Simon Pick worked at The Sales Curve, Probe Entertainment, and Digital Integration. He developed the Die Hard Trilogy game, which was released for Playstation, Saturn, and PC. |
| 69 | James | James worked at Digital Integration and NovaLogic. He developed the Die Hard Trilogy game, which was released for Playstation, Saturn, and PC. This was his first published game. |
| 69 | Geoff Crammond | Geoff Crammond developed Super Invaders, Aviator, Revs, The Sentinel, and Stunt Car Racer. His Grand Prix series is his most notable work. |
| 70 | Jon Hare | Issue 70 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with Jon Hare of Sensible Software. |
| 71 | Jeff Minter | Jeff Minter discussed his work on games including Defender 2000, Revenge Of The Mutant Camels, and Trip-A-Tron. He also mentioned disliking working on Defender 2000. |
| 71 | N/A | Issue 71 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with an unnamed developer who converted After Burner to the Commodore 64. |
| 71 | Peter Molyneux | Peter Molyneux worked on Castle Crashers and Braid. |
| 72 | Philip Oliver | Philip Oliver is the co-creator of the Dizzy series. |
| 72 | Tony Oakden | Tony Oakden worked as the lead programmer on Driver. |
| 72 | John Gibson | John Gibson worked at Imagine, where he was involved with the Bandersnatch project. |
| 72 | Stephen Crow | Stephen Crow created the game Starquake. |
| 73 | Martin Hollis | Issue 73 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with Martin Hollis, the director and producer of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. |
| 74 | Jon Hare | Jon Hare co-founded Sensible Software, the company that developed Sensible World of Soccer, Cannon Fodder, Mega Lo Mania, Wizball, and Wizkid. |
| 74 | Jon Burton | Jon Burton designed and programmed the game Leander. He was also involved in the development of the LEGO games, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Crash Bandicoot. |
| 75 | Dave Grossman | Dave Grossman co-created The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle. |
| 75 | Robert Weatherby | Robert Weatherby was involved with the development of RoadBlasters. |
| 75 | Steve Bristow | Steve Bristow was involved in the development of Pong, Tank, and Computer Space. |
| 76 | John Romero | John Romero worked at id Software on Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. He was responsible for programming many of the interactive elements in Doom. |
| 77 | Ste Pickford | Ste Pickford worked on the game Zub with his brother, Jon. |
| 77 | Dave Lebling | Dave Lebling co-created the text adventure, Zork. |
| 78 | Steve Lycett | Steve Lycett worked on Sega All-Stars Racing. |
| 78 | Yu Suzuki | Issue 78 of Retro Gamer featured an interview with Yu Suzuki. |
| 78 | Roland Perry | Roland Perry worked for Tynesoft, where he designed the motherboard for the Amstrad CPC. |
| 79 | Alex Trowers | Alex Trowers worked at Bullfrog on games such as Populous and Theme Park. He also worked at Black Rock Studio on Split/Second. |
| 79 | Richard Hanson | Richard Hanson co-founded Superior Software. |
| 79 | David Crane | David Crane co-founded Activision. |
| 80 | Eric Schwartz | Eric Schwartz created public domain cartoons for the Amiga. |
| 80 | Violet Berlin | Violet Berlin was a presenter on the video game TV shows Bad Influence and Gamepad. |
| 80 | Larry DeMar | Larry DeMar was involved in the development of Robotron: 2084 and Defender. |
| 82 | Jamie | Jamie developed the arcade game Gorf. |
| 86 | Ste Pickford | Ste Pickford co-developed the game Zub with his brother, Jon. He has also worked on titles in the Plok! series. |
| 86 | Andrew | Andrew developed the game Druid. |
| 86 | Jez San | Jez San founded Argonaut Software and worked on the game Starglider. |
| 89 | Lyle Rains and Dennis Koble | Issue 89 of Retro Gamer features an interview with the developers of Sprint 2, Lyle Rains and Dennis Koble. |
| 89 | John Szczepaniak | Issue 89 of Retro Gamer includes an interview with John Szczepaniak about the creation of Resident Evil for the Game Boy Advance. |
| 92 | Steve Turner | Steve Turner worked for Graftgold and was involved in the creation of several ZX80, Dragon 32, Commodore 64, and Atari ST games. |
| 94 | Nick Humphries | Issue 94 of Retro Gamer contains an interview with Nick Humphries, the creator of Your Sinclair: Rock ‘N’ Roll Years. |
| 95 | Matthew Smith | Issue 95 of Retro Gamer includes an interview with Matthew Smith about the creation of Alien Trilogy. |
| 95 | Shaun Hollingworth | Shaun Hollingworth worked at Teque London and developed the Commodore 64 game Firelord. |
| 95 | Slvye Ybarra | Issue 95 of Retro Gamer features an interview with Slvye Ybarra, who discusses his time working on Project Firestart. |
| 96 | N/A | Issue 96 of Retro Gamer includes an interview with the developers of Radiant Silvergun. |
| 96 | David Leitch | David Leitch worked for The Stamper brothers and was involved in the development of games for the Spectrum, such as Double Dragon. He also completed freelance work for Tiertex and converted Rainbow Islands for them. |
| 97 | Greg Omi | Greg Omi reveals how he ported Klax from the Arcade to the Atari Lynx |
| 97 | Paul Norman | Paul Norman discusses the making of Aztec Challenge for the Commodore 64 |