Potential.

Potential can sometimes feel daunting, scary.

But today's the day you decide to act on it, with a higher technical qualification.

Designed with employers, it will give you the skills you need to land the job you want,

because today is your day. When anything is possible, if you make it happen.

It all starts with skills. See how you can get started. Search skills for life.

Hello and welcome to the Retro Hour podcast episode number 93, your weekly dose of retro gaming

and technology news with me, Dan Wood. And me, Ravi Abbott. Hopefully not sounding too husky after a busy couple of weeks. Oh, yes. Now we can relax, Dan. All the kind of events are over and stuff. It's good. Play Expo last weekend. What a weekend we had. And I think fingers crossed, we did manage to record the interviews that we did on stage this Yeah, no, I didn't fall off, so that was good. So we're going to bring you those amazing panels that we did in coming weeks on the show when we get the audio taken off and edited. If you did come along and say hi to us as well, we met up with so many people. It was such an incredible weekend. So thank you so much for being there. And Roland Play Blackpool it's coming up in february oh totally and the guest we've got today oh my god guys

bob wakelin we've always wanted to have this guest on haven't we well we first met bob

at play didn't we about two years ago i think yeah because he he's at these events quite a lot and he has

kind of a stand and you know he did all the

video game art the original stuff for ocean you know um those like kind of mussely guys and sexy

ladies that you'd have on the front of the games it was very much inspired by like comic books and

stuff his early stuff wasn't in the 80s or kind of ramboish you know. Action man figures. Then obviously, though, I mean, he did stuff like, you know, Parasal Stars and Rainbow Islands and the kind of cartoon cutesy kind of games as well later on. Yeah, totally. And we're talking to Bob about what it was like to kind of be an artist, but not a video game artist, a video game cover artist. Yeah, because I mean, you think back then, and we do kind of touch on this in the interview, because graphics, especially in like the 8-bit days when he started on the C-64, it was really, I mean, the front cover of the game is what would sell you in the shop. I remember being a kid and looking up at the shelf full of like, you know, cassette tapes and even when you wanted to get Amiga games and like electronic spoutique and all that later on, it would always be the covers that would draw you in first. Oh yeah, totally. You know, even at the back, you'd have a blurb and a description, but that would always be just some rubbish. Like the cover would kind of get your mind going and think, right, let's jump into this. And, you know, it would set up that kind of fantasy world. Well, I remember, you know, in the 8-bit days, it was kind of like, because you'd look at the back and the screenshots would always be from like the 16-bit platforms. Well, they'd be from wrong platforms. Yeah, totally. And you'd be like, take it home. Like, where have all the details gone? Little asterix who's always there said at the bottom. Not actual representations of the product. Or screenshots maybe from a different platform, it would always say. But yeah, I mean, those amazing covers. And I mean, Ocean were like the kings at that, weren't they? And Bob was really their main artist. Totally, yeah. And by the sounds of it, they kept him, you know, kind of protected away from the other people. So he's got some great stories to tell what a guy. Bob Wakelin, the Ocean Software Legend, is our special guest on this week's episode of the Retro Out podcast. He'll be coming up in around 20 minutes from now. Now, of course, we do do the show week in week out. We may be the only weekly British retro gaming podcast.

Yeah, you've had... coming up in around 20 minutes from now. Now, of course, we do do the show week in week out.

We may be the only weekly British retro gaming podcast.

Yeah, you've added British now because we also realised after New Game Plus,

we also realised that there's a podcast that I donate to.

Ravi.

Which is so bad, called Amigos podcast.

How did I not notice they were weekly?

You watch every episode as well.

...