In the games industry, there are names which have been around for so long they feel like part of the furniture: Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Warren Spector – these are individuals who have remained part of the gaming conversation for decades and continue to make notable contributions to the industry even today.
However, there are some legendary names which, despite achieving an astonishing degree of fame and success during their careers, have faded into the background.
Sometimes, this is down to unavoidable personal circumstance (Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy creator Matthew Smith dropped off the radar so dramatically at the close of the '80s that a website was established to find his whereabouts), but at other times, game developers actively choose to step out of the limelight and walk away from the industry – and of all of the people to have taken this route, Geoff Crammond's name surely stands out the most. He hasn't been credited on a video game since 2002, yet he's arguably one of the most talented designers and programmers the industry has ever seen.
A former defence industry systems engineer with a degree in physics, Crammond's debut was 1984's BBC Micro flight simulator Aviator, but he would arguably cement his reputation as one of the industry's hottest talents with a series of racing games, the first being 1985's REVS, followed by Stunt Car Racer (1988). Sandwiched between these releases, he found time to create the genre-defying 3D puzzler The Sentinel in 1986.
Picking apart Crammond's extraordinary career is far beyond the remit of this piece, however – instead, we're revisiting one of his most beloved series, Formula One Grand Prix (or just plain old 'Grand Prix' as it is also known). With the iconic second entry rapidly approaching its 30th birthday (and now playable on modern PCs thanks to the 'x86 mod'), it felt like as good a time as any to shine a light on this superb family of racers.
Indeed, booting up Formula One Grand Prix 2 after three decades reveals an astonishingly accomplished feat of programming – and one which is made all the more jaw-dropping when you consider that Crammond was largely operating alone during its production.
I didn’t follow motor racing. That would all change in the future once I had been introduced to the sport
Crammond's mastery of the racing genre is even more incredible when you consider that, prior to making video games, he wasn't all that interested in motorsports, virtual or otherwise. Speaking to me back in 2009 on behalf of Retro Gamer magazine, Crammond made the shocking admission.
"I didn’t follow motor racing," he said. "That would all change in the future once I had been introduced to the sport. REVS came about because Acorn Computers were sponsoring a Formula 3 racing driver by the name of David Hunt – the younger brother of the ex-F1 champion James Hunt.
"After the launch of Aviator, Acornsoft asked me if I could do a Formula 3 racing game, given that I would have access to David and his team – who were, at that time, Eddie Jordan Racing based at Silverstone. This sounded great, so naturally I agreed."
After honing his abilities with REVS and Stunt Car Racer, Crammond found himself in a position to tackle the world's premier motorsport competition: F1. "Not long after finishing Stunt Car Racer, my publisher – which was MicroProse at the time – rang me up one day and said that they were in talks with McLaren about a possible license deal and would I be interested in doing an F1 game.
I had always expected to do an F1 game one day, and with the power of machines like the Atari ST and Amiga, plus the possible license deal, this was just the right moment for me to do it
"McLaren [was] at that time a top team, with the likes of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost driving for them. I had followed F1 avidly since doing REVS, and it was at a time when Nigel Mansell was on the scene – I always thought he was a particularly entertaining driver. I had always expected to do an F1 game one day, and with the power of machines like the Atari ST and Amiga, plus the possible license deal, this was just the right moment for me to do it."
Grammond threw himself into the project, with his ultimate goal to "make things as realistic as I could." He recreated the iconic Silverstone circuit and built a 3D car to race around it, but the license deal ultimately didn't come to anything despite a positive initial meeting with McLaren. This wasn't the end of the venture, though, and Grammond adapted the work into what would become 1991's Formula One Grand Prix.
"For me, the simulator had to be realistic but also drivable," Crammond told me back in 2009. "I didn’t want a game where simply getting round the next bend was a big achievement – that just wouldn’t feel right. It was essential for [Formula One Grand Prix] that there was some steering help that was effective, since even the joysticks for the Atari ST and Amiga were switched joysticks – in other words, ‘all or nothing’.
"I knew from REVS that keyboard operation was inferior to the BBC Micro’s analogue joysticks, and yet that was all there was to work with. I really took the point of view that negotiating a corner should demand the same sort of dexterity and thought process as it does in real life, and that is how I decided on how steering help would work."
The PC version of Formula One Grand Prix was a slightly enhanced version of the Amiga and ST games, and there wasn't time to go into a whole load of texturing
Launched in 1991 for Amiga, Atari ST, and PC, Formula One Grand Prix (or 'World Circuit', as it was known in North America) was a groundbreaking moment for home computer racing simulations. Offering what was a blistering frame rate for the time (as high as 25fps on the PC version), authentic reproductions of famous circuits, and a realistic driving engine, Formula One Grand Prix was a critical and commercial success.
A sequel was assured – and developments elsewhere in the genre convinced Crammond that he could make his next game even more impressive. "I recall when I saw [1993's] Papyrus’s Indy Car Racing with texturing for the first time, I knew I would at least have to achieve a similar standard with the Grand Prix 2 graphics," he told me during the Retro Gamer interview.
Speaking to EDGE magazine back in 1995, months before the game was launched, Crammond outlined his objectives for Grand Prix 2. "The main thing that [Formula One Grand Prix 2] needed was a graphical upgrade. The PC version of Formula One Grand Prix was a slightly enhanced version of the Amiga and ST games, and there wasn't time to go into a whole load of texturing."
Taken at face value, the biggest upgrade between the two games was indeed the application of texture-mapped graphics, turning the boxy, low-poly cars of the original into realistic racing machines, complete with rounded bodywork that reflected the virtual sun. Crammond's brother-in-law, the late Norman Surplus, even visited the actual real-world circuits, obtaining photographs that would then be translated into textures for the game; Surplus would also map the tracks themselves, using an editor created by Pete Cooke, who also designed the game's menus.
The closest I have come to driving a real F1 car is sitting in one... The best corroboration of the simulator came when I managed to get hold of some real F1 data logging charts
The visuals were only part of the experience, however – Crammond's skill as a programmer arguably had a greater impact. "I'm quite comfortable working with assembler," he told EDGE in 1995. "You can make it semi-high level using macros, and it means you've got full control. Most importantly, because [Grand Prix 2] started its life as [Formula One Grand Prix], which already had a pure assembler engine, there wasn't the time to convert all or part to C."
The data Crammond fed into his engine played a significant role in its success, too; cars behaved realistically, with elements such as slipstreams and even curb contact being taken into account. "I've acquired all of the data from very good sources," he assured EDGE back in 1995. "People who know the figures say it is accurate. The simulator has been massively extended and enhanced. It's a much better set than the first game's."
Speaking with me a few years later for Retro Gamer, Crammond elaborated on this a little. "The closest I have come to driving a real F1 car is sitting in one. The best way for me to ensure that the simulator provides a realistic simulation of the real thing is to include as much real data and as much physics as is practically possible. The best corroboration of the simulator came when I managed to get hold of some real F1 data logging charts. Other than that, lap times were the best way of evaluating the performance of all the teams. I have also had feedback from real drivers, and it’s all been positive."
One thing that Crammond was sadly unable to include in Grand Prix 2 was real-time weather, which is quite a significant omission when you consider how much the real-world sport is beholden to the whims and wiles of Mother Nature during your typical race weekend. This wouldn't be seen in one of his games until 2000's Grand Prix 3.
The weather system was fully simulated, right down to rain-bearing clouds that come in from a distance. The wet track had variable water depth and therefore changes in grip, and the whole thing could dry and have a drying line
"The wet weather feature was huge," he told me in 2009. "That is why I left it out of [Grand Prix 2]; I simply didn’t have time to do it justice. [Grand Prix 3] was my opportunity. The weather system was fully simulated, right down to rain-bearing clouds that come in from a distance. The wet track had variable water depth and therefore changes in grip, and the whole thing could dry and have a drying line. It was also possible for one part of the circuit to be wet while the rest was dry, and so on."
He also recounted an amusing anecdote from the time of Grand Prix 3's development, which took place during a golfing holiday with some associates in Spain. "We were driving in the rain, and as we entered a tunnel, I exclaimed loudly with a note of surprise, 'It’s not raining in the tunnel!' I then had to explain that I was developing the wet-weather simulation for my latest game and hadn’t considered that the tunnel at Monaco would need code to stop it raining inside. They thought this was very amusing for some reason."
Despite this addition – and a flood of positive reviews in the games press – Grand Prix 3 wasn't as well received as its predecessor by a small selection of fans, something that Crammond feels is a little harsh. "Perhaps people’s perceptions are affected by graphics quality," he told me in 2009. "Clearly, the graphics quality of [Grand Prix 2] was a big step up from [Grand Prix], and [Grand Prix 4] is a big step up from [Grand Prix 3], but that’s just the way that the graphics progressed. The reality from where I sit is that if I look at the advances in the physics of [Grand Prix 4] compared with [Grand Prix 2], then most of the big developments actually went into [Grand Prix 3].
"[It] had the all-new wet weather system, which was huge, but it was also the version where I completely overhauled the modelling of the transmission system and tyres and incorporated an active differential. You could do 'doughnuts' for the first time. Also, the cars were able to tumble upside down for the first time. That kind of enhancement was not trivial."
The game's 2000 season expansion pack added more features, such as the ability to collide with debris. Crammond clearly feels that, over the years, the third entry has been unfairly maligned and that some of this negative reaction to the game is due to "misconceptions" and misunderstandings.
If I tried to monitor all the forums, trying to correct misconceptions, I wouldn’t have time for anything else
"Sim enthusiasts can understandably sometimes get the wrong idea about something," he said during the 2009 Retro Gamer interview. "I have seen forums where people can collectively arrive at all sorts of misconceptions about how the sim works, saying things like the simulator puts the car on rails when you use steering help or when you do a 'doughnut', the manoeuvre is 'canned' – by which they mean a pre-programmed sequence of positions.
"The truth is that all the steering help does is feed a value to the steering wheel position in the simulator, absolutely nothing else, and 'doughnuts' are properly simulated, interactive and unique and never 'canned'.
"My experience has been that people have their loyalties regarding different sims, and once they have decided something, there is little likelihood that they can be persuaded otherwise, particularly if they have already expressed an opinion online. If I tried to monitor all the forums, trying to correct misconceptions, I wouldn’t have time for anything else."
Around the time of Grand Prix 3’s release, Sony had really stepped up the production of its own Formula One franchise on the 32-bit PlayStation. Although markedly inferior in terms of realism, it didn't escape Crammond's attention. "I mainly remember being impressed by the power of the PlayStation and its ability to do fast texturing," he said back in 2009. "I thought leaving skid marks was a good idea."
Regardless of the third game's detractors, 2002's Grand Prix 4 effectively redressed the balance, even receiving a perfect 10/10 score from Eurogamer. By this point, however, the days of one person doing the bulk of the work were over. "There was a team of about 30 at MicroProse who worked on [Grand Prix 4]," Crammond told me in 2009.
"Basically, I worked on the physics and AI, and I took the raw GPS data and converted it into a 'physics track' mesh, which comprised everything inside, including the fences. MicroProse took that from me and created a graphics track which incorporated the mesh of the physics track.
When [Grand Prix 4] was over and the studio closed, I started a new phase called 'having a normal life' and no longer worked seven days a week, including evenings
"MicroProse did the rest of the game, including all the graphics, sound and menus. Obviously, I had to provide interfaces so that the sim could drive things like the sound, pit crew actions, the weather, car set-ups, race results, data logging and so on."
Back in 2009, Crammond had already been away from games for a few years, and explained to me how his life had changed since Grand Prix 4 – which, at the time of writing, is the last game he released. "When [Grand Prix 4] was over and the studio closed, I started a new phase called 'having a normal life' and no longer worked seven days a week, including evenings. That enabled me to do things called 'hobbies' and pursue 'interests'.
"However, over the seven years of this phase, I have also been doing various recreational programming projects, some of which have involved research into game physics. Oh, and now I program exclusively in C++, which I really like. I’m playing around with ideas that may or may not lead to something."
Over 15 years later, Crammond remains silent – but it's hard to begrudge one of the industry's brightest talents a well-earned rest.