Switchblade was the first game I began writing for the Atari ST. However, being a spare time project it took some eighteen months to complete - by which time I had started and completed several other projects including Rick Dangerous during work hours. 

Inspired by the artwork of Japanese videogames, a bit of Mad Max, a few passages from William S. Burroughs' book 'Cities of the Red Night' (no, I don't know either...) and the scale of Ultimate's classic 'Underwurld' the game was a 128-screen platform adventure. 

The game saw the super-deformed 'Hiro' running around the post-Apocalyptic 'Undercity' blasting a variety of cyborg enemies with his missile-firing 'Cyber Arm'. It was entirely non-scrolling, opting to have a system similar to that seen in Hewson's 'Ranarama' where areas of the screen were made visible as you entered them (so it was impossible to peek at later areas of the game that shared the screen you were currently on.) 

It was an absolute joy to make - allowing me to throw anything I wished into the mix, and being a spare-time project I could take as much time as was needed to pack the levels with tons of collectibles and bonuses. And, although it did not reach the audience that Rick Dangerous did, I have since discovered that it is still remembered fondly by a fair few people. 

Amstrad and Spectrum conversions of the game were  done by Gremlin and ultimately a sequel. I had no part in the sequel - by the time that Switchblade 2 came around I was far too busy in my work hours to ever consider doing another spare time project again!

The game was entirely developed by myself, with music being provided by the very talented Mr. Ben Daglish. 

In 2009 I was contacted by Stuart Hunt of Retro Gamer Magazine to do retrospective piece about the making of Switchblade - 20 years since it was published.

The feature eventually made it to press in Issue 70 of the magazine and it was a great opportunity to go back into the loft, dust off some unpublished artwork created during the making of the game and take a trip down memory lane. 

In celebration of this minor anniversary in the history of UK video gaming I decided to create some paper toys of characters from the game that you can find on the Downloads page.  I hope you enjoy them.