And now for something a little different.

As you guys know, I have been collecting arcade machines for a couple of years now and have even worked on a MAME cab or two. Well, MAME is so great, that whenever I get a chance to help in anyway I can, I do. Early last year I came across a game that wasn't in MAME yet so I bought it and sent it to the people that can get it in there. After a long few months, the game finally showed up and although I didn't do any of the programming, I felt like just finding and buying the game made me a "co-producer" of getting it in MAME. Well, more important than feeling good, I helped save another game that would more than likely disappear forever. Well, flashback to late 2005 and I come across another game that isn't in MAME. This time the game in question is B.O.T.S.S. Battle of the Solar System, a giant, sit-down mech game. Of course as soon as I see it on ebay I post a message at MAME.net to let the fellas know that it is available. The opening bid is at only $50 and we (we being the MAME community) didn't have the PCB (although the ROMS had been dumped). Well, long story short, no one bought it. Since it was a sit down game with a giant screen, shipping would have been killer, and none of the MAME team lived in Maryland so shipping would be a bitch.

In Maryland I say? Why yes I do. Hmmm, who do I know that lives in Maryland? I do! Well, frack it (BSG!) I say and I contact the owner. Turns out she will be re-listing the item soon and I can bid on it when she does. There is something else too. Something that peaks my interest more than a game that is not yet in MAME. She says, her husband is the original designer of the game, and it's his I'll be bidding on and buying. Not only that, but he has agreed to give the winning bidder one-on-one time to answer any questions about the game. Wow, a chance to interview a man who actually designed a video game? Yes, regardless of how little room me and Jolene had in our tiny condo, I was going to bid and win this game. Did I mention it was a giant sit-down arcade game? Did I mention we lived in a cramped condo, on the second floor? Did I mention I bought a new car, perfect for transporting giant arcade machines? I immediately threw open my ebay account and made an opening bid.

Well, having the bid in there and knowing I would bid up to a ridiculous amount to be able to meet the designer, I started thinking on ways to a) break the bad news to Jolene and b) find someway of getting this thing to my house, which was 45 minutes away from where it was waiting for me. The first was easy enough. Jolene doesn't care what I do as long as it's not to crazy, oh and I just didn't tell her about it until I got it home. B) turned out to be easy also as I was in class with a guy who just bought a new truck and was supper eager to use to move stuff in. The stars couldn't be more lined up, except, I still hadn't won the game yet.

Now, if you know anything about ebay, you know that people in the know, wait until the last second to snipe an auction. It helps keep prices down and to piss off people who don't know about sniping. Some bidders (like me) like to make an initial bid to let others know they are watching the item (usually the opening bid) then they sit back and wait until the last possible second and slam the auction with their maximum price. Sometimes using sniping software from a third party. Me, I don't use the software, but I snipe something fierce, like that guy in that movie, that movie about snipers. Anyway, the plan was set in motion for this auction when I noticed that the end date was Thanksgiving. Uh-oh, this would be a major problem because I wouldn't be home sitting on the computer waiting for the end of an ebay auction (this Thanksgiving at least!). I had to think of something fast. Should I just put in my maximum bid now and take a risk? Should I sign up for one of those sniping programs to do the dirty work for me? What to do?

I did what any fair minded ebayer would do. I contact the seller and made an offer to BIN, or Buy It Now for the ebay uninitiated. She took me up on the offer and I was off to get the game.
I can't tell you the excitement I had in the car with my friend Taj to go and get the game. A real life game designer. Oh the things I would ask him. Then I realized, the things I would ask him? I didn't know any things! I wasn't a journalist! I hadn't ever interviewed anyone in my life! I didn't even bring a tape recorder! Oh crap, this would end up sucking. But then I realized, hey this is really for the readers of Mooshack.com. you guys already know I can't write! A few minutes later we arrived at the house and here is the interview. Enjoy.


Me: First off Doug, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. My first ones are, what was your involvement with this game and where and when did you get a hold of this actual one?

Doug Kaufman: Ha, well thank you for coming by to get this out of my house and to ask me these questions! Lets see, back around 1990 I was asked to be the designer of the B.O.T.S.S. game where I worked at Micropose. Microprose had recently expanded their business to a coin-op division and got into the market with a 3D polygon game by the name of F-15 Strike Eagle. They wanted to put out a second game and at the time Japanese robots were very popular, so it seemed like the right direction to go. We had the hardware done, so it was easy to develop B.O.T.S.S. on that platform. As far as how I got mine, five years ago, a friend of mine had called from the Timonium Fairgrounds (a town North of Baltimore that holds fairs and auctions on a regular basis -Mo) and told me they had one for sale. I decided to go and check it out, with the thought that I could spare $400 on the game, but I doubted I could win it. When the bidding started for it, there were two other people who were bidding on it. When the bidding started, I finally took it to the 300 dollar mark, one guy dropped out and the other kept going. When I finally bid my final bid of $400, he looked at me for a second and then just shook his head. I had won the game I once designed!

M: Awesome! So you were there when they were planning the game. Were you excited to move to the coin-op division in the company, why did you do it?

DK: Well, I had been looking for something more interesting to do and they offered me the designer position. I thought I could bring some unique ideas to the game and decided to do it. I was relatively new at the company and I wanted a chance to prove myself.

M: Lets talk about the game, what was the inspiration for it?

DK: Like I said earlier, Japanese robots were big at the time, so we knew it was going to be a robot game. We spent a long time trying to come up with the game title actually. One day one of the guys says, hey we are fighting different levels, lets make them planets and call it Battle for the Solar System. Then someone noticed that if you made it Battle OF the Solar System, it spelled BOTSS in acronym. At first we thought, two s's? That won’t work, but then we just went for it and it seemed to work out.

M: What about some of the elements in the game?

DK: Well, I have a couple of stories here. First is the targeting display. The reticule itself changes as you get different weapons. Up to this point I don’t think any game I had seen did this and I came up with the idea after a dream. One night I had dreamed I was in the game and when I got a bigger gun, the targeting display changed to show the bigger gun. The next day I had it put directly into the game!

M: From dream to reality! (note, I didn’t really say this because it sounds even goofier than it looks on paper).

DK: Another funny story involves the hot female in the game. At the time the game came out, everyone who played it (and even the testers) were like who is this hot female doing the voiceovers?

M: Are you talking about the sexy-sounding assistant in the game that tells you the planet objectives and damage report? Man she does sound sexy! That voice is very nice.

DK: LOL, yeah that is the best part. At that time we didn’t have any females in the office and instead of going out to hire an actress to play the part, we just grabbed the first one at work we came across that could do the job. She just happened to be the office secretary, Anita, our like 65 year old unofficial grandma!

M: 65! Oh man.

DK: Yup.

M: Wow (looks around nervously to see if anyone sees the crushing look of disappointment on his face at the fact that his dreams of ever meeting the sexy assistant who countless times helped him avoid certain death by giant robots comes crashing down). OK, so you guys finished the game, what happened then?

DK: Well, I think we were only able to get 40 (note: Doug wasn't 100% about this number, it could have been 400) or so games to market. At the time, Microprose’s CEO refused to get into the coin-op "distribution game" like other companies. He wanted to handle distributing internally and I feel (as did others) you just couldn’t do it with an establish industry. They were just not going to be open to it. As a result, we had problems getting it out there and felt resistance in other areas of the business. I feel that the coin-op division of Microprose actually helped bring the whole company down as we were losing tons of money.

M: Wow, the whole company? That is harsh! How did B.O.T.S.S. do though?

DK: It did very well, but was facing stiff competition at the arcades. There were a few games out there where the arcades could link them up and players could play head-to-head. This was proving to be a very popular option and we didn’t have it. At first we considered an update to the B.O.T.S.S. game to get this feature in there, but then decided it would be better to create a new game. We decided to do a tank battle game, but it would be linkable and co-op. We were even looking at doing a split screen if the operator only had one copy of the game.

M: Would that be the often rumored A-10 Tank Buster?

DK: Yes, it would be the follow-up and have all the features we wanted to put into F-15 and B.O.T.S.S. but couldn’t. Now, another game you may not have heard of was a car game we were developing.

M: A car game? No, tell me more.

DK: Yes, it was another attempt to use the hardware and included co-op, simultaneous play. Sadly it was never completed past the planning stages. I think it was going to be called Crazy Race.

M: What happened at this point?

DK: I was offered an opportunity to work in the PC division and I took it, because I could see the handwriting on the wall. The coin-op division folded a bit later.

M: Wow, I’m sorry to hear it; I bet you could have created many more cool coin-ops, had you been given the chance. What do you think of MAME, the main reason I bought this game from you today?

DK: Thank you. MAME, what’s that?

M: MAME is the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. It was started to help preserve the arcade games of the past. Basically, people are writing code/program to be able to run old arcade games on a PC. This allows us to preserve the work you and your coworkers created as the hardware they were designed on begins to fail and in some cases is discarded or lost.

DK: That sounds fantastic, where is this located?

M: Check out www.mame.net for more information. Hopefully, with your help we (and by we, I mean Philip J Bennett who is working on the emulation of B.O.T.S.S.) will be able to get the emulation of B.O.T.S.S. completed.

DK: Wow that is great news! I’ll help in anyway I can.

With this ended our interview. Doug Kaufman is in my opinion a master game creator with many games under his belt including the following:

Board games: Star Warriors, the TORG RPG (with Greg Gorden), and Star Trek Kobayashi Maru Test while at West End Games.

Computer games: Civ 2 (with Brian Reynolds), Dragonsphere, and Command HQ (with Dan Bunten) while at Microprose, Alpha Centauri while at Firaxis, Rise of Nations at Big Huge Games.

And he is President of the official Netrunner fan club, the Top Runner's Conference.