Defender creator Eugene Jarvis interview : Simon Perry: Schemes, dreams & trivia

"He'll be haunted by that, not for the rest of his life, but until the day he dies." Alex Salmon, Politic show (source:Colemanballs, Private Eye)

Defender creator Eugene Jarvis interview

3rd March 2004 by Simon

Eugene Jarvis to me is a living legend, for he is the man who wrote Defender - in my eyes one of the top five video games written to date. It’s frantic non-stop action means you need to have total co-ordination with the controls, as you plan, and at later stages, just react to all of the many, and determined aliens.

Ever since I first saw it at Harrow Leisure Centre during school trips there for “exercise”, I loved it. The physical jerks didn’t interest me, but when I first saw Defender I was transfixed. I threw my 10p in and attempted to climb up the very steep learning curve that hits you. I probably played for about 30 seconds - a minute, and couldn’t put the money in again fast enough. I was hooked and trips to the leisure centre became something to look forward to.

I went on to play it for as long as I could find arcades to play it at. My most consistent period was during sixth-form college. I would bunk off most days during “study” periods to head down the arcade Mecca near the then Lowlands College. There, one of the blokes working at it and I would regularly play extended, huge scoring games - great fun.

It had downsides but you were happy to live with them. The most obvious being Defender-thumb. The blister on the left hand that caused the skin to melt against the plastic as you pushed and pulled the joystick - guiding your space ship up and down the page. It was a permanent feature.

For years people told me I was just wasting time playing video games - but they were proven (slightly) wrong when, to my surprise, I actually won the Joystick Junkies Defender competition a couple of years ago.

Salon has an interview with Eugene Jarvis, that I’m planning on reading this afternoon.

Update: One the whole it’s a good article and he’s got interesting ideas, but I’m not as side-tracked by al-Qaeda as he is. The most exciting news in it is the reminder that Defender will have its 25 year anniversary next year - a quarter of a century! Can you believe it?

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.