By the late eighties, gamers had become all too familiar with the uncertain nature of the licensed game. The general gaming public saw many titles based on movie and television franchises of varying quality for well over a decade, but games based on toy licenses were more of an oddity. However, UK software house Codemasters brought such a title to the NES in 1991 in the form of Micro Machines, a unique top-down racer that featured a variety of different miniature vehicles dashing across real-life backdrops, including breakfast tables and bubble baths. And on top of its distinctive premise, Micro Machines was ironically a game unlicensed by Nintendo, released on a range of different cartridges that bypassed the infamous CIC lockout chip on the NES.
"Codemasters had reverse engineered the console, and built a development system which would allow us to write games"
Codemasters - founded by young siblings Richard and David Darling in 1986 - had established themselves by creating budget games for home computers. The NES was not hugely popular in the UK at the time, as home computers from companies like Sinclair, Acorn and Commodore dominated the market. But in the US the NES was a rip-roaring success, so Codemasters began looking across the pond to get in on the action. Micro Machines designer Andrew Graham tells us how Codemasters got started on NES development and how he was assigned to the title as a twenty-year-old coder. "Codemasters had reverse engineered the console, and built a development system which would allow us to write games. That was when they contacted me," he explains. "I had done a couple of projects for Codemasters from home on the Commodore 64. One of them was a port of the Oliver Twins' Pro Ski Simulator. On the strength of this the Darlings asked me if I would be willing to do a NES project." With the primary platforms in the UK mainly using disks or cassette tapes, this made the proposition of creating a NES game all the more intriguing, as Graham adds. "I had been writing home computer games for a while, but to be able to write games that would be burned onto a ROM and put in a cartridge was a dream come true."
After Graham's involvement, the other key person brought into the fold was artist Paul Perrot, whose introduction to gaming was typical of the DIY nature of the UK development scene. "I was an aspiring but as yet unsuccessful cartoonist in 1988 and ran into Richard Darling in a pub at Christmas. He convinced me to give it a go and it seemed a fun thing to have a go at. It wasn't a hard sell!" he tells us, going on to reveal the humble nature of development. "Andrew and I shared a Portakabin for the duration of the project. It was pretty cold in winter as we only had an oil heater. We'd play each other at the game to see who would brace the cold to make coffees in Codemasters's renovated farmhouse." As was usual of development teams at the time, there were only a few more people involved in the creation of the game, with others working off-site. "I never even met Andrew's brother who did the graphics for a couple of the maps," Perrot explains.
Before any mention of toy licenses, Micro Machines originally pursued a different direction. "Micro Machines was originally designed as a beach buggy racing game," Graham reveals. "We had graphics done for it with sand dunes to jump over. At the time it was called 'California Buggy Boys'. While working on this, deals were being made for the distribution of our products, and this brought Codies into contact with toy firm Galoob. The NES was enormous in the US at the time, and Nintendo had a tight control over the market for games and peripherals."
"Anyone who could get around the technical and legal restrictions could make a lot of money"
This partnership lead to one of the NES's most-loved, yet infamous, add-ons: the Game Genie, released in 1990. This literal game-changing device allowed players to temporarily alter their games and punch in a variety of cheats. Of course, this landed Galoob and Codemasters in hot water with Nintendo. The Japanese giant tried suing Galoob, but ended up losing. "Anyone who could get around the technical and legal restrictions could make a lot of money," Graham appropriately adds. But it's clear that the Game Genie wasn't the only tool Codemasters had built. "We also had a device that allowed you to load games to the NES from a CD. In a sense the games that we were writing for the NES at the time were a side-line to these devices."
It was alongside Codemasters' tinkering and the huge success of the Game Genie that Galoob - now part of Hasbro - gave the plucky British company the licence for its Micro Machines toy line. Thus, California Buggy Boys was no more, and the transition into the toy-based racer began. "They sent us the full set of toys, which ended up strewn around the Portakabin," Graham tells us, going on to explain the efforts undertaken to stay faithful to the licence. "We were trying to include the full range of Micro Machines, so there were boats and helicopters, which didn't work so well from a gameplay perspective. They also had strange Mad Max-type vehicles that we needed to include. In the later games, we just put in whatever vehicles we wanted, regardless of whether they had a toy for it or not."
This dedication to following the licence also impacted the level design, with the finished game featuring imaginative settings and hazards such as school desks with rulers for bridges, breakfast tables with globs of honey slowing racers down, and pool tables that had players driving into pockets and being teleported out of others to continue the race. "At first I was keen for the cars to be racing in full-scale environments, since that is what kids are imagining when they are playing with the toys," Graham tells us, "but it had been suggested that we set the game in toy-scale environments. I have to admit that I was resistant to the idea at first, but eventually, I came around to it, thinking that it would certainly set the game apart from others. Once we started thinking about the kind of places the cars could be racing in, it became clear that we could have a lot of fun."
"I just tried to represent a global collection of kids really to be racially inclusive"
This process naturally involved some graphical changes to California Buggy Boys, but Perrot was up to the task. "I used various iterations of Deluxe Paint on the Commodore Amiga, starting with Deluxe Paint II. Initially I was swapping 3 1/2 inch disks between the program and the data disks. Then I got an external 3.5 inch drive which was a fairly special day. Frequent power cuts in the Portakabins made the days extra fun!" But alongside the annoyances, it appears there were relaxing moments, too. "We'd go to the pub at lunchtime, play pool and come up with ideas for maps. Like the Pool Table map, unsurprisingly."
To sit alongside the bright aesthetics and the imaginative tracks there was a series of cartoonish characters that players could choose as their avatar for racing (as well as the opposing A.I.), with quite a range in terms of race and gender. "I painted up some water-coloured pics for each one and David Darling signed off on them," Perrot explains. "I just tried to represent a global collection of kids really to be racially inclusive. They're fairly clichéd, and possibly not one hundred percent politically correct today, but I ran into someone only last week who actually remembered most of their names, which was surprising."
To accompany the bright and joyful nature of the game, a good soundtrack was needed. Composer Matt Gray was hired due to his previous work with Codemasters on compositions and conversations for the Commodore 64, including series like Dizzy and The Last Ninja. He explains the odd set of tools required for the job. "Codemasters gave me a modified NES which had been re-housed in the cardboard packaging box with an RS lead so I could code from PC. It was an ancient PC with the old floppy disks. Very slow, very temperamental." And due to his previous experience with the Commodore 64, Gray used it as a starting point for composing. "I was able to fairly quickly write a new music player based on my Commodore 64 SID player and replicate some of the signature sounds such as chord-plexing, vibratio and pitch bends. However, the NES's sound chip was no match for the mighty SID so ultimately I had to adapt my style to it."
"The 'Smoke on the Water' influence was pretty blatant for the race start riff"
The in-game music featured during menus and in-between races, and was comprised of cheerful little ditties. But for those with a knowledge of classic rock, it's obvious that the track played before each race is eerily similar to Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. "The 'Smoke on the Water' influence was pretty blatant for the race start riff," admits Gray. But it seems the soundtrack also foreshadowed popular songs to come. "People have commented on the title theme being the basis for 'Clocks' by Coldplay," Gray continues. "I remember the first time I heard Clocks and commenting to a musician friend that I used to play the arpeggiated chord sequence all the time. I think he thought I was insane! Shame I modified it slightly for Micro Machines, otherwise I could have had a case!"
Micro Machines's launch was unfortunately held up by the Galoob vs. Nintendo court case, but that didn't stop Codemasters and Canadian-based publisher Camerica from indulging in some clever promotion; one example was selling the game on the Home Shopping Club with an endorsement by 1990 Nintendo World Champion Thor Aackerlund. Even with the late release, the game proved to be a hit with players and critics alike, with outlets praising its simple arcade-like controls and the brilliant two player head-to-head mode – a points-based mode where players must gain a lead to make the other disappear off the screen. As a result, it stands as one of the best unlicensed games for the NES and is one of the console's best racing titles - if not the best.
And like the toys it was based on, the different types of unlicensed cartridges for Micro Machines can form a small collection. Among them are gold, silver cartridges published by Camerica for the US and Canada, a Game Genie-esque cartridge released in the UK and EU, a cartridge used for Codemasters's Aladdin Deck Enhancer, and a yellow Famicom cartridge published under the name BIC, with the game labelled as Micro Motion. However, due to various hardware revisions on the frontloading NES, the success of booting up the game can vary on this version of the system.
After its initial stint on the NES, the game was ported to numerous other consoles and home computers (the SNES edition actually gained a licence from Nintendo), kick-starting a series that went through multiple hardware generations and saw remakes on both home and mobile platforms - in fact, Codemasters is about to release a new version of the game years after losing the licence. But looking back on the original game, Graham reflects on the experience of making games for the NES. "Come to think of it, the age of releasing games on ROM is long gone now. That door is closed. It was nice to have the experience of having your game boot up instantly from a cartridge." Perrot adds to Graham's nostalgic sentiment by reflecting on the special type of freedom games developers had in the late eighties. "We had a lot of latitude as everything was signed off in-house. I think there was a lot of trust and belief in what we were doing and to not have a bunch of suits micromanaging (no pun intended) every aspect of the project was something that today is maybe unheard of."
This article was originally published by nintendolife.com on Mon 1st May, 2017.
Comments 33
codemasters is one of the best racing game developers , i hope to see new racing game from this developer on switch
i gave seen their name on 3rd party supporters of witch but why i dot see any game from they ?
@Stubi
i hope they announce that for switch , i think that's appropriate for switch
"It was nice to have the experience of having your game boot up instantly from a cartridge."
Tell me about it. I sorely miss the days when I could put a game in and start playing within literally a couple of seconds.
In a totally related point: I tried the fan-made OpenTomb Tomb Raider browser-based remake the other day, and I was utterly stunned to see it load basically instantly and be playable without any waiting whatsoever (only really the time it would take for your average web page to load anyway):
http://xproger.info/projects/OpenLara/
This is basically how quickly/immediately you used to be able to get in play games back in the day, kids. Ironically, before the advent of CDs and up to just before the time when this game actually could have existed.
Boy how I wish modern games could at least load the initial starting area that fast, or just some part of the game that I could get into and play pretty much immediately, on current-gen consoles.
"We had a lot of latitude as everything was signed off in-house. I think there was a lot of trust and belief in what we were doing and to not have a bunch of suits micromanaging (no pun intended) every aspect of the project was something that today is maybe unheard of."
Thankfully, this is something that indie development for the likes of Steam and the various App stores has allowed again in modern times. Although, actually making any money, or even just getting any attention whatsoever, is a whole other degree of challenge on these stores that are bloated far beyond anything that could exist in the past.
My favourite title in the series was Micro Machines 96 for the Sega Megadrive. It had 2 controller ports on the cartridge (called a j-cart) for 4 player. It also had a track creator. A really long code was required to load a built track to race on.
Whole weekends were taken up playing 2 player matches with me and my friends: Some of them even went on to buy a NES just to get good at playing it.
I bring this gane out foor my nephews to play and they both love it.
@locky-mavo I think you mean how good it is they did.
I hope the new Micro Machines comes to the Switch. MMV4 might be my favorite multiplayer game of all time.
Great read! Now if only they remember to put the new one on the Switch...
Micro Machines... the fun we had playing those games, on Sega hardware though for me. They just don't make 'em like that anymore!
I never actually played the game, which surprises me now that I think about, it, but I certainly remember the toys. I'm not sure why they were so fun, but somehow they were.
Who else remembers the fast-talker (that seemed to be EVERYWHERE back then) that did the US commercials?
I still own the Gold cartridge, it has the little switch on the back. Supposedly if the game doesn't work, you are supposed to be able to switch the switch and it should work, but I could never tell the difference. It was always the hardest game to get working, the title screen would always just flash on and off. Later in life I realized it was because of the NES lockout chip and the cartridge was unlicensed. So I disabled the lockout chip and now it works every time. I can't think of a better racer on NES....wait....actually RC Pro Am 2 could be debatable.
The SNES version (and its sequel) were developed by Merit Studios Europe (now Eutechnyx).
I have memories of Micromachines on the Nes being great fun, but no clear memories, other than the tanks shooting.
It's a shame they've stained the legacy with the smartphone game, that is a horrible, unbalanced, buggy mess. There's a fun game under the bugs and pay-to-win mentality, but there's just too much frustration involved for it to be truly fun. It puts you into matches you have no chance of winning with vehicles far more upgraded on a higher tier, and many of the vehicles control horribly. Many of the courses feel awfully cheap too. And the number of times I've used an item for it to have negative results due to crazy physics, is annoying: 90% of losses feel like the game's fault, which is the sign of bad design.
With the original, everyone drove the same vehicles, which at least made it fair. But when you enter into a battle match in this game and see a vehicles that is far better suited to the mode, you can predict who is going to win.
Both of them look like kids, especially the one at the keyboard- I'd be surprised if he was a day older than 16. I remember the Micro Machines games- really fun game. I remember signing up to be a beta tester at a Consumer Electronics Show one year and was mailed a cartridge sometime later (no I don't still have it, sorry). Unfortunately I had sold the console it was for some time after the show so I couldn't do anything with it.
Back to the initial observation, I wonder how many software studios were started in the 80s by those so young- home computing and gaming were still new at that point so it only makes sense.
This was the version I played the most as a kid. I remember renting this all the time from the local video store.
I rented the Gray cart game for my NES in 1991 and it worked great. I later bought a Gold cart version and it won't play.
Got Micro Machines on the SNES. One of the best, most unique racers of all-time. Four players with two controllers was great (using a technique not entirely dissimilar to how the joy cons work). The sequels were great as well. Hope the new one comes to Switch. They would seem tailor-made for each other.
Wow...
I have never knew that before...
I'll still never understand why the new micro machines isn't getting a switch release.
Oh well I guess it'll give me a reason to switch my ps4 on which hasn't been touched since March
I don't know about this version but I still have a copy for my Sega genesis.
I thought I read a story that actually linked the Game Genie with Micro Machines: supposedly they made a bug involving turning the car in reverse at the start of the race, or something. Something that was noticed after the ROM chips had been burned. Codemasters wanted to fix it but they didn't want to buy another chip print run for supposedly a one bit error, so they used their Game Genie tech to patch the error.
Yes, the SNES version was a licensed game since it was published by a licensed publisher (Ocean).
I use to read these type of articles on magazines back in the late 90's.
There was a Spanish mag called "Super Juegos" that when reviewing a sequel to a classic game, they would use up a good chunk of the review to look back at the long history of that game in particular.
Stuff like this is always a good read.
Micro machines switch please!
This is the most imaginative racer I've ever played. I just wish it had better controls. A new iteration would be fantastic!
One of my most rented games back in the day! I loved the parallax scrolling effect on the pool table and kitchen table tracks.
Would be cool if it was on the Switch!
Man, I haven't heard the name Codemasters since Overlord 2. Where have they been?
Funny to find this article on here as I was actually playing Micro Machines '96 on my Megadrive earlier this evening. I kept asking myself if I used to drive off the table so bloody often when I was a kid!
@Alshain01 Um...mostly F-1, DiRT, Grid Autosport.
@masterLEON What?
@Alshain01 Codemasters is still around working on those series that I mentioned. The annual F-1 games are the big ones.
@masterLEON Ah, I didn't know those were games you were listing. I'm familiar with F-1 as a sport, but not a game, and the rest I've never heard of. Racing video games really aren't my thing. I like Kart racing games, but those are another genre entirely.
I think I don't like racing games because I'm a NASCAR fan. The games just pale in comparison.
Amazing.
I really wish they announce a Switch version of their new Micro Machines game... I like this kind of games. The local MP was a blast!
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