Author of: Kgen (Genesis Emulator)

Age: 28

Hobbies: Music (listening, and attempting to create!), Programming, Driving, anything technical.

Fox: Right, the GUI for Kgen looks somewhere familiar to the WWF Wrestlemania and NBA Jam (PC) option screens, where you involved in those particular gaming projects (and what other games have you participated in the past) and what was the deal with you as a hidden character in NBA Jam ? :)

Steve Snake : Does it ? Didn't even realise :-) Just did it how I like it.

I did write some Network support for PC NBA Jam, and the sprite scaling stuff was ported from the 32X version (written by me). But the Net support was dropped because the project was late. I wrote major parts of both NBA Jam & Jam TE on Genesis, SNES, SegaCD, 32X, and bits on other versions - that's why I'm a hidden character. I also had to cut out and stick in all those damn heads on all versions !!

In the 32X version, I even have random hair colour !

I've done loads of stuff over the years - I had a hand in practically every project released by The Sales Curve / Storm up until I left in 1994 - before that I was freelance.

Fox: What are your next plans for the Kgen98 emulator and have you ever thought of emulating the DSP chip which supports games like Super Street Fighter 2, International SuperStar Soccer and Virtua Racing? (Steve if you NEED these for testing then let me know and i'll send them to you, I own them all and can dump them)

Steve Snake: I wasn't even aware these games (apart from VR) used this chip ! I'd like to get everything working, but without more info on it, I'm unsure as yet if I ever will.

I'm thinking of more ways to inject even more speed into KGen98, so that I can improve it further. Apart from that I don't want to say yet - I'm undecided and I don't want loads of email begging me for features people won't even have thought of !

Fox: During your last release of Kgen, did you enjoy the competition between your emulator and Bloodlust's Genecyst? and what did you think of their effort?

Steve Snake: I thought Genecyst was pretty cool. I wasn't aware of it's existance when I started KGen - had I been I probably wouldn't have bothered. As far as I was concerned though, it wasn't a competition. I'm quite happy for people to use both emus - that's why I try to make KGen as compatible with Genecyst as possible. For a while I was getting mails from people telling me I 'suck', and going on about their 'loyalty' to Genecyst. To me, that was just plain stupid. It's not like I was forcing them to use KGen.

Fox: Are you thinking of adding Light Gun support similar to the ZSNES emulator that will work on games like Lethal Enforcers 1 & 2 etc...?

Steve Snake: Hmmm.... Last version of ZSNES I saw was about a year ago ! I'll have to take a look, but as yet there are no plans.

Fox: What other computer/console would you like see emulated and would you have a go at emulating it :) ?

Steve Snake: I don't know ! Pretty much everything I had planned to emulate has now been done well enough for me not to bother. I was considering a decent SMS/GG/GB emulator - but they seem to be springing up like rabbits at the moment.

Fox: What are your thoughts at this time, on the current emulation scene?

Steve Snake: I'm a bit concerned about it, actually. What with certain companies being a pain in the arse and threatening to sue emu authors for writing something which will lose them *no* money at all, and with the current crop of consoles being far too advanced for a humble PC to emulate at a decent speed, I don't know where it can go from here. There's still a load of old Arcade Classics that haven't been attempted yet, though - will somebody please emulate Tazmania ?

Fox: Other than Kgen98, what do you think is the current best emulator on the scene and why?

Steve Snake: I'm VERY behind when it comes to current emulators. There's just not enough time in my day. Last time I looked (a long time ago!) Callus was coming along very nicely - it's just a shame I'm not a huge fan of the Capcom games. I discovered the I-Robot emu recently, that takes me back a few years, I can tell you. Apart from that, I'd have to say MAME, simply because most of my old favourites are in there.

Fox: What are your favourite three Megadrive/Genesis titles?

Steve Snake: OOhhh, that's HARD ! There are so many good ones. Comix Zone has to be one of them, because knowing the machine as well as I do, I can appreciate the effort that went into it. I haven't played them since I bought them way back, but Castle of Illusion and Another World (Out of this world) are two of the few games I ever bothered to play to completion, and then played them again.....

Fox: Roughly, how long has it taken you to make Kgen98? also what did you use to make it and how long have you been programming?

Steve Snake: The original KGen was a couple of months, working 2-3 hours per night, I guess. KGen98 was almost a complete rewrite, and that was a bit less - but I knew much more about what I was doing by then. It's written with MASM, and I link with Watcom's Linker, simply because it adds the DOS4G stub that I can then replace with PMODEW. It's a lot less hassle that way.

I've been programming since I was just 9 years old. I started out in Z80 on a machine built by a friends Dad (imaginatively called 'The Z80'), before I got myself a ZX81. I didn't write anything major until I was 16, when I started freelance. I was still coding without the aid of an Assembler by the time I had written three games. I used Decimal for Z80 (cos the ZX81/Speccy had no HEX conversion built in - it was quicker!) and Hex on the C64, using the good old trusty Expert Cartridge.

Fox: What are your thoughts on the Emulator Unlimited site? and if you were the editor, what changes would you make to it?

Steve Snake: Neat =)

Fox: If you were stranded on a Desert Island what three things would you take? :)

Steve Snake: A Solar powered CD player, My Skinny Puppy CD collection, and the wife :-)

Fox: Finally Steve, who do you think will win the 1998 World Cup? ;)

Steve Snake: I should say England, shouldn't I ? But they probably won't, and to be honest, I couldn't care less.

Fox: Thanks for your interview Steve and the greatest of luck with your excellent emulator.

Steve Snake: Ta. =)