Cannon Fodder (1993) 
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| Publisher: Genre: Author(s): Musician(s): Minimum Memory Required: Maximum Players: Joysticks: Language: Media Code: Media Type: Country of Release: Related Titles: Comments: |  Virgin GamesStrategy Sensible Software, Pete Hickman, Julian Jameson, Stoo Cambridge Jon Hare, Richard Joseph 512K 1 Yes Eng 3.5" Floppy disk UK, Europe, USA Cannon Fodder 2 Cannon Fodder CD32 | Click to choose platform: Atari ST Commodore Amiga Sega Mega Drive Nintendo SNES Atari Jaguar Nintendo Game Boy Color |
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Unknown (Edge) 25th Nov 2010 06:16The Making of Cannon Fodder
===========================
Format: Amiga, ST
Release: 1993
Publisher: Virgin
Developer: Sensible Software
It stirred the British Legion into a fury, was immediately hailed as a classic by Amiga magazines and abides as one of the 16bit generation’s most memorable games. Though best known for the eponymous Soccer, Cannon Fodder was the third hit of Sensible Software’s golden age: a period between 1989 and 1994 when the UK codeshop could do little wrong, enjoying universal critical acclaim and validation, in retail form, to the tune of cash registers ringing up millions of sales.
With a principal team of Jools Jameson (code and design), Jon Hare (design), Stoo Cambridge (art) and Richard Joseph (audio), but with contributions from throughout the close-knit company, Cannon Fodder was initially part of a four-game deal with the doomed Mirrorsoft but later signed by Virgin. Sensible co-founder Hare is vague on the subject of Cannon Fodder’s direct origins, but does recall the initial inspiration behind it: “I can’t remember whose idea it was, and I’ve never been able to remember. I think it mutated from an idea we had for a Gauntlet-style game, but in a military setting, which is why we ended up with holes in the ground where men ran out – like the ghost-creating machines.”
Like other Sensible games of the time, Cannon Fodder had a unique visual style. “We had Mega-lo-Mania, we had Sensible Soccer – the Mega-lo-Mania men dressed up in football kit – and we’d established a look, so Cannon Fodder was the third ‘Sensible look’ game on the Amiga and ST,” explains Hare. “I think the military-action route was an obvious one. You take a bit of what Sensible stuff looked like, take Gauntlet, take explosive hardware, and that gives you an idea of where we started.”
Superficially a mouse-driven shoot ’em up, Cannon Fodder was more akin to a puzzle game in many respects. Although its earlier levels gave players very simple objectives – kill all enemies, destroy all enemy buildings, or both – play evolved in a manner unusual for its era. Although there were clear boundaries within the confines of an individual stage, the means the player would use to ‘solve’ any given confrontation required a more evolved response than a simple quick trigger finger. Through tight level design, Sensible provided the means that players could beat a given map. The manner in which the player approached was, somewhat refreshingly for 1993, often his or her own prerogative.
We put Cannon Fodder’s evident puzzle game leanings to Hare, and found him entirely receptive to the theory. “I think a lot of military games, or shooting games, miss out on this stuff,” he opines. “It’s really quite easy to do. I like the way that in Cannon Fodder you didn’t always go forwards. Sometimes you’d go backwards. You’d find a building and not know how to deal with it, and then travel the map and find a helicopter, then return and blow it up. The levels were very tight. It’s the tightest level design we ever did.”
That said, Cannon Fodder could be brutally difficult in places. Not guiding the player by the hand by offering resources but rarely a readily apparent conclusion, its emphasis on experimentation could lead to some frustrating instances of trial and error. This is a flaw that Hare readily acknowledges. “I think the difficulty curve became a little bit too steep too early,” he says. “I think there were a couple of levels, about 16 or 17 in, that people got stuck on. I think, perhaps, that we could have done more to help the non-hardcore players into the later stages.”
Cannon Fodder, though somewhat exacting in its expectations of player ability, had a reward system worthy of a Nintendo own-brand game. Its various munitions, vehicles and scenarios were introduced in a measured fashion. Beyond every excruciating failure, the prospect of the next satisfying pay-off beckoned. Vehicles, a device in vogue with modern shooters, were a principle Cannon Fodder innovation. With the weapons-free skiddoo and jeep, Sensible flirted; with the later introduction of helicopter gunships and tanks, it delivered. “I really like the way we blended people walking with people getting into vehicles,” says Hare. “I don’t think anyone had really done that before.”
"I’m sure that we all just felt the poppy [on the cover] would be a good idea. People dying in war was an underlying theme. But it’s interesting the way it was responded to by the British Legion, who took great offence to it: we were degrading the name of the poppy, as they saw it. But we weren’t intending to do that. They thought we were infringing their copyright with the use of the poppy. We paid them £500, and then they were quiet. That didn’t do much for my feelings on their morality, and I’ve never bought a poppy since. I’ve already paid £500 for one once.” Jon Hare
Speaking to Hare, we get the impression that the development of Cannon Fodder was something of a stroll, an example of a codeshop firing on all cylinders and vaulting all hurdles with relative ease. He does admit, however, that one aspect of its development was at least mildly problematic. Sensible Software might easily have opted for a single commando strolling through its assorted levels but, from an early point, opted to favour players with a group of soldiers that could be separated into individual squads. Hare acknowledges this device as the biggest single technical hurdle the team had to overcome: “I think the biggest problem we had was getting the pathfinding for them right, the sharing of who took the shots, who defaulted to be leader and ensuring that getting in and out of vehicles worked smoothly. That took a lot of work.”
The most charming aspect of Cannon Fodder, besides its salient qualities as a piece of game design, was that it had a distinct feel, a sense of humour that veered between dry and wet with arterial, schoolboy-pleasing gore. This was a game that concluded each level with jaunty, circus-style tunes, the surviving soldiers waving or leaping for joy, and yet it took the time to remind players of those that had died during the mission.
In no place was the Sensible humour more apparent than Cannon Fodder’s opening sequence, a slideshow of images (taken from a ‘pop video’ filmed by the team that later appeared on the CD32 release) accompanied by the ‘War Has Never Been So Much Fun’ theme tune, produced by Hare and respected Amiga tunesmith Richard Joseph. “We got the riff and the singing together, then took those ideas to Richard,” recalls Hare. “He added little bits of production work, and the horn lick. I think it’s the first decent track to appear with vocals on a games machine. It was the kind of thing we did then: we liked to experiment with the mediums we were dealing with.”
One strange aspect of Cannon Fodder was that, while it evidently sought to titillate players with byte-sized agony – bursts of blood, writhing sprites and soldiers ‘juggled’ by gunfire – its treatment of friendly fatalities was unusual. ‘Sensitive’ is almost certainly not the appropriate word but, oddly, it’s the one that leaps most readily to mind. In acknowledging dead soldiers at the end of each mission, by making the menu screen a graveyard that grew with every fatality and according each sprite with its own name, Sensible imbued the soldiers with greater significance.
“I liked the character development – the fact that when they died, they’d appear on the hill,” agrees Hare. “I think you identified with soldiers you cared about in the game – they were never expendable. The Boot Hill, Cannon Fodder’s menu screen and graveyard, was funny, but it had a point to it. Anyone playing must have twigged about what we were saying when the names of the deceased scrolled up, and the graves appeared: you’re having fun, which is one emotion, but at some point you’re going to think: Shit, that would have been me out in a real battle. I think we got the message across in a gentle way.”
Perhaps as an extension of this idea, or as an artful example of media manipulation – depending on your individual take on the ensuing furore – Sensible and Virgin opted to use an individual poppy as the cover image for their shoot ’em up. The Royal British Legion and the Daily Star, mindful of Cannon Fodder’s November launch date, took great exception to this decision. "The poppy is a sacred reminder of the men and women who gave their lives in two world wars," thundered the Daily Star editorial on October 26, 1993. "Computer games designers compete to glorify war and viciousness. How dare they use the poppy to turn truth on its head. How sickening it is to see it being abused to sell a savage computer game. The distributors say that the poppy is there 'to remind the consumer that war is no joke'. That’s just publicity writer hypocrisy. Make sure you don’t buy this shameful game."
“I don’t remember exactly, but I’m sure that we all just felt the poppy would be a good idea,” explains Hare. “People dying in war was an underlying theme. But it’s interesting the way it was responded to by the British Legion, who took great offence to it: we were degrading the name of the poppy, as they saw it. But we weren’t intending to do that. They thought we were infringing their copyright with the use of the poppy. I think it was an early alarm bell regarding legality and game content.
"We paid them £500, and then they were quiet. That didn’t do much for my feelings on their morality, and I’ve never bought a poppy since. I’ve already paid £500 for one once.”
The cover was dropped and Cannon Fodder, as its very first screen was quick to assure players and agents of moral outrage alike, was not officially supported or endorsed by the Royal British Legion. The irony, of course, is that this brief flashpoint served only to raise awareness of Cannon Fodder, which topped the Amiga charts, was ported to a variety of consoles and was followed by a successful sequel. One achievement that eluded it, however, was a high profile across the Atlantic.
“From a game design point of view, I’m very, very happy with Cannon Fodder,” says Hare. “I think it’s a tight, clever, easily accessible game. I’m glad that people remember it, and if I’ve got one regret, it’s that it didn’t do well in the States. It was the one game we did that could have got us a lot of respect over there. Sensible Soccer was never going to work, some of our quirkier stuff wasn’t going to happen, but Cannon Fodder… it should have done well in the States, and I still can’t understand why it didn’t.”
===========================
Format: Amiga, ST
Release: 1993
Publisher: Virgin
Developer: Sensible Software
It stirred the British Legion into a fury, was immediately hailed as a classic by Amiga magazines and abides as one of the 16bit generation’s most memorable games. Though best known for the eponymous Soccer, Cannon Fodder was the third hit of Sensible Software’s golden age: a period between 1989 and 1994 when the UK codeshop could do little wrong, enjoying universal critical acclaim and validation, in retail form, to the tune of cash registers ringing up millions of sales.
With a principal team of Jools Jameson (code and design), Jon Hare (design), Stoo Cambridge (art) and Richard Joseph (audio), but with contributions from throughout the close-knit company, Cannon Fodder was initially part of a four-game deal with the doomed Mirrorsoft but later signed by Virgin. Sensible co-founder Hare is vague on the subject of Cannon Fodder’s direct origins, but does recall the initial inspiration behind it: “I can’t remember whose idea it was, and I’ve never been able to remember. I think it mutated from an idea we had for a Gauntlet-style game, but in a military setting, which is why we ended up with holes in the ground where men ran out – like the ghost-creating machines.”
Like other Sensible games of the time, Cannon Fodder had a unique visual style. “We had Mega-lo-Mania, we had Sensible Soccer – the Mega-lo-Mania men dressed up in football kit – and we’d established a look, so Cannon Fodder was the third ‘Sensible look’ game on the Amiga and ST,” explains Hare. “I think the military-action route was an obvious one. You take a bit of what Sensible stuff looked like, take Gauntlet, take explosive hardware, and that gives you an idea of where we started.”
Superficially a mouse-driven shoot ’em up, Cannon Fodder was more akin to a puzzle game in many respects. Although its earlier levels gave players very simple objectives – kill all enemies, destroy all enemy buildings, or both – play evolved in a manner unusual for its era. Although there were clear boundaries within the confines of an individual stage, the means the player would use to ‘solve’ any given confrontation required a more evolved response than a simple quick trigger finger. Through tight level design, Sensible provided the means that players could beat a given map. The manner in which the player approached was, somewhat refreshingly for 1993, often his or her own prerogative.
We put Cannon Fodder’s evident puzzle game leanings to Hare, and found him entirely receptive to the theory. “I think a lot of military games, or shooting games, miss out on this stuff,” he opines. “It’s really quite easy to do. I like the way that in Cannon Fodder you didn’t always go forwards. Sometimes you’d go backwards. You’d find a building and not know how to deal with it, and then travel the map and find a helicopter, then return and blow it up. The levels were very tight. It’s the tightest level design we ever did.”
That said, Cannon Fodder could be brutally difficult in places. Not guiding the player by the hand by offering resources but rarely a readily apparent conclusion, its emphasis on experimentation could lead to some frustrating instances of trial and error. This is a flaw that Hare readily acknowledges. “I think the difficulty curve became a little bit too steep too early,” he says. “I think there were a couple of levels, about 16 or 17 in, that people got stuck on. I think, perhaps, that we could have done more to help the non-hardcore players into the later stages.”
Cannon Fodder, though somewhat exacting in its expectations of player ability, had a reward system worthy of a Nintendo own-brand game. Its various munitions, vehicles and scenarios were introduced in a measured fashion. Beyond every excruciating failure, the prospect of the next satisfying pay-off beckoned. Vehicles, a device in vogue with modern shooters, were a principle Cannon Fodder innovation. With the weapons-free skiddoo and jeep, Sensible flirted; with the later introduction of helicopter gunships and tanks, it delivered. “I really like the way we blended people walking with people getting into vehicles,” says Hare. “I don’t think anyone had really done that before.”
"I’m sure that we all just felt the poppy [on the cover] would be a good idea. People dying in war was an underlying theme. But it’s interesting the way it was responded to by the British Legion, who took great offence to it: we were degrading the name of the poppy, as they saw it. But we weren’t intending to do that. They thought we were infringing their copyright with the use of the poppy. We paid them £500, and then they were quiet. That didn’t do much for my feelings on their morality, and I’ve never bought a poppy since. I’ve already paid £500 for one once.” Jon Hare
Speaking to Hare, we get the impression that the development of Cannon Fodder was something of a stroll, an example of a codeshop firing on all cylinders and vaulting all hurdles with relative ease. He does admit, however, that one aspect of its development was at least mildly problematic. Sensible Software might easily have opted for a single commando strolling through its assorted levels but, from an early point, opted to favour players with a group of soldiers that could be separated into individual squads. Hare acknowledges this device as the biggest single technical hurdle the team had to overcome: “I think the biggest problem we had was getting the pathfinding for them right, the sharing of who took the shots, who defaulted to be leader and ensuring that getting in and out of vehicles worked smoothly. That took a lot of work.”
The most charming aspect of Cannon Fodder, besides its salient qualities as a piece of game design, was that it had a distinct feel, a sense of humour that veered between dry and wet with arterial, schoolboy-pleasing gore. This was a game that concluded each level with jaunty, circus-style tunes, the surviving soldiers waving or leaping for joy, and yet it took the time to remind players of those that had died during the mission.
In no place was the Sensible humour more apparent than Cannon Fodder’s opening sequence, a slideshow of images (taken from a ‘pop video’ filmed by the team that later appeared on the CD32 release) accompanied by the ‘War Has Never Been So Much Fun’ theme tune, produced by Hare and respected Amiga tunesmith Richard Joseph. “We got the riff and the singing together, then took those ideas to Richard,” recalls Hare. “He added little bits of production work, and the horn lick. I think it’s the first decent track to appear with vocals on a games machine. It was the kind of thing we did then: we liked to experiment with the mediums we were dealing with.”
One strange aspect of Cannon Fodder was that, while it evidently sought to titillate players with byte-sized agony – bursts of blood, writhing sprites and soldiers ‘juggled’ by gunfire – its treatment of friendly fatalities was unusual. ‘Sensitive’ is almost certainly not the appropriate word but, oddly, it’s the one that leaps most readily to mind. In acknowledging dead soldiers at the end of each mission, by making the menu screen a graveyard that grew with every fatality and according each sprite with its own name, Sensible imbued the soldiers with greater significance.
“I liked the character development – the fact that when they died, they’d appear on the hill,” agrees Hare. “I think you identified with soldiers you cared about in the game – they were never expendable. The Boot Hill, Cannon Fodder’s menu screen and graveyard, was funny, but it had a point to it. Anyone playing must have twigged about what we were saying when the names of the deceased scrolled up, and the graves appeared: you’re having fun, which is one emotion, but at some point you’re going to think: Shit, that would have been me out in a real battle. I think we got the message across in a gentle way.”
Perhaps as an extension of this idea, or as an artful example of media manipulation – depending on your individual take on the ensuing furore – Sensible and Virgin opted to use an individual poppy as the cover image for their shoot ’em up. The Royal British Legion and the Daily Star, mindful of Cannon Fodder’s November launch date, took great exception to this decision. "The poppy is a sacred reminder of the men and women who gave their lives in two world wars," thundered the Daily Star editorial on October 26, 1993. "Computer games designers compete to glorify war and viciousness. How dare they use the poppy to turn truth on its head. How sickening it is to see it being abused to sell a savage computer game. The distributors say that the poppy is there 'to remind the consumer that war is no joke'. That’s just publicity writer hypocrisy. Make sure you don’t buy this shameful game."
“I don’t remember exactly, but I’m sure that we all just felt the poppy would be a good idea,” explains Hare. “People dying in war was an underlying theme. But it’s interesting the way it was responded to by the British Legion, who took great offence to it: we were degrading the name of the poppy, as they saw it. But we weren’t intending to do that. They thought we were infringing their copyright with the use of the poppy. I think it was an early alarm bell regarding legality and game content.
"We paid them £500, and then they were quiet. That didn’t do much for my feelings on their morality, and I’ve never bought a poppy since. I’ve already paid £500 for one once.”
The cover was dropped and Cannon Fodder, as its very first screen was quick to assure players and agents of moral outrage alike, was not officially supported or endorsed by the Royal British Legion. The irony, of course, is that this brief flashpoint served only to raise awareness of Cannon Fodder, which topped the Amiga charts, was ported to a variety of consoles and was followed by a successful sequel. One achievement that eluded it, however, was a high profile across the Atlantic.
“From a game design point of view, I’m very, very happy with Cannon Fodder,” says Hare. “I think it’s a tight, clever, easily accessible game. I’m glad that people remember it, and if I’ve got one regret, it’s that it didn’t do well in the States. It was the one game we did that could have got us a lot of respect over there. Sensible Soccer was never going to work, some of our quirkier stuff wasn’t going to happen, but Cannon Fodder… it should have done well in the States, and I still can’t understand why it didn’t.”
(Anonymous) (Unknown) 24th Nov 2010 09:07
Jules Rules (Unknown) 24th Mar 2013 08:18| Cheats | Trivia |
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| There are no cheats on file for this title. | No trivia on file for this title. |
History
This title was first added on 28th July 2010
This title was most recently updated on 24th March 2013