The Lone Raider

The Lone Raider

I was part of the newly created Atarisoft London.  I was learning the ropes from the brilliant John Norledge who had first recruited me to Atari UK a year prior. 

Justin getting his packaged game from the Atari UK MD Graham Clark

We all used to regularly contribute to Atari's user magazine, called I/O.  It was decided to run a programming competition to create a game for Atari's home computer systems - the winning game being commercially published by Atari!

The contest was won by 17-year old Justin Whittaker and his game was The Lone Raider.

John worked with Justin to tweak his game and make it truly commercially viable.

Basic, cheap packaging! Job done!

My connection to the Lone Raider, other than helping out John where he needed it, was a couple of years later, when Atari was sold to Jack Tramiel (ex-Commodore).  They fired almost everyone at Atari UK and closed down Atarisoft.  I think they kept me on because I was cheap and knew all of the products.  I was moved into marketing, and asked to think up game bundles for the new XL product range.  I did - one of the titles was The Lone Raider!  This natty red design was made by me - red pens and all!  There was no money so I copied the line art from the XL literature and made this basic artwork, to be used as a template on all the repackaged material!  Crazy to think that in those days it was easier to use pens than to use our home computers for such design!