Fergus McNeill

Fergus McNeill

Fergus McNeill is a Scottish author and award-winning interactive entertainment developer. He has designed and created games since the early 1980s, working with companies such as CRL, Silversoft, Macmillan Group, Activision, SCi Eidos and EA. He was a founder member of TIGA and is a member of the Crime Writers' Association[1] and BAFTA. He is the author of a series of contemporary crime thrillers published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Background

McNeill grew up in Scotland, living in Helensburgh[2] and later in Fintry.[3] When he was 11, his family moved to Hampshire, England, where he attended Swanmore Secondary School. Whilst there, he wrote his first games, which attracted coverage in the specialist computer press,[4] and this led to him abandoning college plans to pursue a full-time career in the games industry.

Career

McNeill started developing adventure games using The Quill software. Initially, these were sold by mail-order under the Delta 4 brand, before publishing deals with CRL and Silversoft brought the titles to a larger audience. This led to McNeill working with Terry Pratchett to create the first Discworld game[5] and, later on, adapting Murder Off Miami by Dennis Wheatley.[6] After an affiliate label deal with Activision, McNeill set up a new studio for SCi in Southampton, focusing on PC games. While there, he oversaw development on movie tie-ins including The Lawnmower Man, and scripted the award-winning Kingdom O' Magic. He also co-produced (and provided the race announcer's voice-over for) Stainless Software's controversial racing game Carmageddon.[7]

After SCi, he moved to Smoking Gun Productions, where he worked on a range of football management titles and interactive DVD games,[8] before joining InfoSpace / IOMO as studio director in 2005. Two years later, McNeill and other staff from IOMO relaunched the studio as FinBlade.[9]

Books

In 2011, he signed a three book deal with Hodder & Stoughton.[10]

A Detective Harland novella entitled Broken Fall was published in 2015.

Games

Early interactive fiction titles and PC CD games

More recently, McNeill has worked on the following apps:

Awards

References

  1. ↑ http://www.thecwa.co.uk/links.html
  2. ↑ The Lochside Press, Key figure in games industry backs Heroes project
  3. ↑ Heroes Centre, Award-winning interactive entertainment developer & Author.
  4. ↑ Micro Adventurer Magazine, issue 17
  5. ↑ Gamebase64, The Colour Of Magic
  6. ↑ "Planet Sinclair: The Sinclair Industry: Publishers: Delta 4". Nvg.ntnu.no. Retrieved 2012-10-08.
  7. ↑ "Carmageddon Splat Pack - Credits". allgame. 2010-10-03. Retrieved 2012-10-08.
  8. ↑ "News: Rangers Football Coach announced". Gamershell.com. 2002-03-27. Retrieved 2012-10-08.
  9. ↑ Obrien, Stuart (2007-08-06). "FinBlade opens its doors | Mobile content industry news | Mobile Entertainment". Mobile-ent.biz. Retrieved 2012-10-08.
  10. ↑ "Hodder buys thriller from games developer". The Bookseller. 2010-07-20. Retrieved 2012-10-08.
  11. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-08-12. Retrieved 2007-11-27.
  12. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  13. ↑ http://www.crashonline.org.uk/43/bsleaze.htm
  14. ↑ Bored of the Rings, Adventure Game of the Year category: Golden Joystick Award#1985
  15. ↑ Computer Game Review magazine, March 1996
  16. ↑ Sinclair User magazine, issue 40 (July 1985), issue 46 (January 1986), issue 53 (August 1986), issue 57 (December 1986), issue 65 (August 1987)
  17. ↑ Amtix magazine, issue 11 (September 1986)
  18. ↑ Crash magazine, issue 32 (September 1986), issue 43 (August 1987)
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