Nina Stanley Interview |
Nina herself
NinDraw Graphics Program
A few games Nina worked with: Exodus, Menace Beach, King Neptune's Adventures, and King of Kings
Nina's favorite Color Dreams game
Some of Nina's non videogame related art, two of the pieces I liked best out of those I saw :)
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After talking to some of the other Color Dreams dudes, I really wanted to talk with Nina Stanley. She was one of the major graphics people, and I heard she did the Color Dreams' graphics wonders. I finally tracked down Nina, and I gave sent her a little e-mail asking if she minded me interviewing her. She was busy so she didn't get back to me for a while, but when she did it was worth the wait. I had alot of fun with this interview.
TWZ: When/why did you start working at Color Dreams?
NS: I started working at Color Dreams in 1989, part time as a contractor. I met the chief engineer while working at a coffee bar (back before they were trendy) and he used to come in at the crack of dawn after a long night's
work and we would talk about stuff. When he found out I was an artist
(at
the time i was finishing up my bachelor's degree at Cal State Fullerton
in
art) he offered me a job. At first I didn't like it as the technology
was
extremely primative and I swore I 'd never get involved with computers,
so I
quit after a couple of weeks and went back to making cappuccinos. We
remained friends and a few months later he came around and said they
were
expanding their operations and had some new software that made the
graphics
easier to create so I gave it a try again. By this time I was going
through
a divorce and starting on my masters degree in art and had a young
child to
support - Color Dreams paid better and had more flexible hours than the
coffee bar so it seemed like a good thing to do. Plus the guys were
pretty
fun to work with.
TWZ: I saw you did graphics for a lot of the games. They
all look pretty well, better than anything I drew up
on my PC. I know you did the graphics for Bible
Adventures, Exodus, King Neptune’s Adventure, Menace
Beach, Secret Scout, and Spiritual Warfare. Was there
any others that I missed?
NS: There was a sequel to Bible Adventures called King of Kings, plus I did
a
couple monsters for Crystal Mines on the Lynx. There were 3 versions of
Exodus I think - PC, Nintendo, and Game boy.
TWZ: What was it like making the graphics? Was it
hard/easy, and what program did you use?
NS: At first we used a very primative program, you had to use the control
pad
from the game machine to cycle through the colors and to move the
pixels
around - it was awful. Then they created a tool called NinDraw. the
palettes
were extremely limited, and we had only 256 character spaces (a
character
being an 8x8 pixel square) for background and another equal space for
all
the sprites, for each level. It was certainly challenging, but since I
didn't know any other computer graphics programs to "spoil" me, I
didn't
know any different. It was kind of like a puzzle, to fit in as much as
I
could, and to use it most efficiently.
TWZ: Did you work on any of the label art or was it just
in games graphics?
NS: I did the cover art for King Neptune, reworked the cover art for King
of
Kings, and usually did the little manual drawings. Sometimes I did the
whole
manual.
TWZ: Roger Deforest told me that he originally did all the
graphics for Secret Scout yet you decided to change
them. He said that his graphics weren't all that great and he liked yours better. What all graphics did you change?
NS: As I recall I reworked the entire game. It wasn't my decision, btw : )
the
boss decided.
TWZ: What was your favorite Color Dreams game? I liked
Captain Comic and Spiritual Warfare best. Exodus and
Joshua were pretty good too.
NS: I liked Menace Beach best, it was the most fun to make. The graphics
were
whimsical and funny. A lot of the characters I based on the guys that
worked
there.
TWZ: Were you involved in Spiritual Warfare for Gameboy?
I saw where you could by it online before and I though
about getting myself a copy. If you did work on it,
was it an exact port in black and white or was it
changed a lot?
NS: I don't remember working on Spiritual Warfare for gameboy.
TWZ: Is there any other interesting things you can tell me
about Color Dreams?
NS: We had a lot of fun making the games - "those were the days", when you
could
really make a game in 3 to 6 months with only a couple of programmers
and an
artist or two. Things are totally different now! The last game I worked
on
we had about a dozen artists and nearly as many programmers, plus a
design
team and the usual support staff of producer/director/aps/testers etc.
TWZ:
Okay well thanks for taking the time to answer these
questions. I really appreciate it.
NS: No problem. Like I said, sorry it took so long - it's been very hectic
lately, I just had a baby a few weeks ago and have just started back to
work, so needless to say I don't have a lot of time on my hands!
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