Opportunity, something for which everyone should remain vigilant. When reflecting on the history of Gallius IV leading up to its anniversary, I decided this was story I wanted to tell: a story of opportunity and what happens when you find it, follow it and embrace it.

Since I first fell in love with Deadlock in 2001, I was struck that such a wonderful game, unlike many other games that held a special place in my heart, did not have any fan sites or communities online. As I found out later, it had for a time, but the communities had died in the five years since Deadlock was first released. I always thought to myself: someone should make a website dedicated to Deadlock, just like all other great games. When pondering such thoughts, you should always ask: why not me? That was why over ten years ago, I finally came to the realisation that I should be the one to create a website dedicated to Deadlock: Planetary Conquest (and its sequel too).

Today marks ten years since I opened Gallius IV, a simple shrine and potential home for the Deadlock fan community. I was unsure of how successful the site would become, thinking it may end up being just SonOfDon (whom introduced me to Deadlock) and I occasionally talking to each other about Deadlock on the forum. I was very excited when shortly after Christmas of 2010 that someone named surchk had signed up to the forums and began eagerly discussing Deadlock. At long last, I had finally made contact with another Deadlock fan! I had honestly thought I would meet a Chevy Chase fan before then, but I was wrong.

Around the same time, I made contact with Matthew Ford — Deadlock’s Producer and Chip Harris — Deadlock’s Composer, both via email. Chip was kind enough to provide full quality stereo versions of six of Deadlock’s music tracks, his response and kindness still seemed like a dream at the time. Matt was very enthusiastic about the sudden existence of a Deadlock fan site and promptly made the other six design team members: Russell Shiffer, Ken Capelli, Dan Evans, Mark Jensen, Paul Kwinn and Gary Strawn aware of this event.

"Tarth forces soon turn your military into coffee beans.”

Soon after I received Matt’s response to my email, I was also contacted by Gary Strawn — Deadlock’s Junior Programmer, now a coffee farmer in Hawaii. He was overjoyed about the creation of Gallius IV and sent me a photo of a cardboard cutout of a Tarth that was guarding his bags of coffee. The cardboard cutout came from Deadlock’s promotional display at E3 1996. Mark Jensen informed me that after E3 — the marketing department gave the cutouts to the Deadlock team for display in their team area during development. When Accolade disbanded the Deadlock team, the team took the cutouts as mementos. Mark still has the Re'Lu and Oolan cutouts, with them hanging in his office to this day. The excitement I felt was however — only just beginning.

“I find it rad that you guys are such big fans after so long, and I get a kick out of seeing the race portraits and my little sprites on your profile badges. Super big blast from the past. DL was my first original game, my first game as a Lead Artist, and the first time I got to work with a real honest-to-satan TEAM. And I'll let you guys know that one neat result of your enthusiasm as fans has been, for the first time in 15 years, the entire original DL team on an email thread talking together.”

— Ken Capelli (goblin) on January 22, 2011, discussing Deadlock on Gallius IV’s forum.

Not long after, on a summer’s day in January 2011: I was out at one of the local universities to enrol in a Computer Science degree. SonOfDon was at home and very excited about the events that were unfolding on Gallius IV. He wanted to call me but was aware I was busy, leaving me open to complete surprise when I arrived home. Ken Capelli — Deadlock’s lead artist, was discussing Deadlock on the forum under the handle of goblin, along with Gary Strawn under the handle FarmerGary. He was soon joined by all the others, bar Matthew whom I continued to communicate with over email. Russell Shiffer under the handle commander, Dan Evans under DeadlockN3RD and Paul Kwinn under MoeMoose. Mark Jensen would follow many months later, having been tied up by a production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for a theatre company in Saint Paul. Mark writing the book and lyrics for the production. The forum topic from nearly a decade ago is still accessible here: http://forum.galliusiv.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14.

Matthew “Overseer” Ford

Just over a year later, in February 2012, I travelled across to the other side of Australia to Brisbane, in order to meet Matthew Ford for lunch. At the time, he was working as a lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology, very close to Brisbane’s central business district. I discussed the lunch in detail in a previous blog entry here. Needless to say, engaging with someone who was heavily involved in the creation of something you love, much like meeting your partner’s parents, is an initially daunting, then exciting and finally transcendental experience. The dream had grown and had kept growing past a point where I thought it could not grow any bigger.

The following year, Atari — whom were previously called Infogrames and had acquired all of Accolade’s assets in 2000, went bankrupt, meaning Deadlock’s rights were up for sale. On January 28, 2014, both Deadlock I and II were once again made available for purchase on GOG.com, being re-released by Tommo, Inc., later Retroism, who had acquired the rights during the Atari bankruptcy auctions. Since the Macintosh version of Deadlock had been broken since 2006 when Apple began using Intel processors, the re-release of Deadlock was Windows-only, something I still hope can be rectified in the future. Deadlock I’s re-release in particular was of note, given that the sound issues present on Windows versions later than Windows ME (specifically versions based on Windows NT) had been fixed. Absent sadly, was multiplayer, given that it relied on the NetBios networking protocol, which has not been available on any version of Windows higher than XP.

I did feel slightly redundant since one of my goals was to see a re-release of Deadlock and that it would have happened regardless of whether Gallius IV existed or not. However, that was not always its main purpose, as the fan community was revived and the goal of a cross-platform enhanced re-release still exists. I was however surprised to open my inbox around Australia Day in 2014 (I had spent that Sunday helping some friends clean up their farm after a bushfire) to find GOG.com had contacted me. They had found Gallius IV’s pages on the various editions and localisations of Deadlock I and II and wanted to know where they could find the various translations of both games online. This was so they could make Deadlock I and II available for sale in languages other than English and German. I had written on the most specific aspect of a specific piece of knowledge, which I was sure had a captive audience of one (like how Bald and Bankrupt feels about his interest in Soviet Bus Stops), but a large corporation contacted me wanting to know more. I was naturally quite surprised. No additional language releases eventuated from this discussion, but maybe they will in the future.

Apart from work on OpenDeadlock (which Tggtt and I, while being in the best position we have ever been with the project, will discuss further at another time), not much else of excitement happened from early 2014 until July 2018 when I travelled to the United States for the third time for a conference. While I was there, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Russell Shiffer, Ken Capelli, Mark Jensen, Paul Kwinn and Chip Harris.

(From left to right) Ken “Veil Lord” Capelli, Russell “Commander” Shiffer and Paul “Grand Hortus” Kwinn.

Russell Shiffer (Deadlock’s Lead Designer), Ken Capelli (Deadlock’s Lead Artist), Paul Kwinn (Deadlock’s Lead Programmer) and I all had dinner together at Harry’s Hofblau in Redwood Shores, California, halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. Dan Evans (Deadlock’s Associate Producer) was also due to join us, but unfortunately was taken ill and unable to make it. A meat house is not where I would normally eat, as Russell put it: “The one guy who works in health and he’s not eating the meat.”

A few years ago: Ken Capelli, Paul Kwinn, Dan Evans, Mark Jensen and Gary Strawn had met for dinner at Harry’s Hofblau in San Jose. Russell Shiffer had been unable to join them, since he was honeymooning in Hawaii, while Matthew Ford was, of course, in Australia.

The Triangle Building, San Jose, California — Where Deadlock Was Made

The conversation over dinner consisted of reminiscing over the days of Deadlock’s development and their experiences at Accolade, discussion of other areas of science fiction and a good dose of humour.

Given that I had been an admittedly obsessive fan of the game for 17 years by this point, it was inevitable that I would sometimes remember little details about the game that they had forgotten. Especially since it had been 22 years since Deadlock was released. The funniest example was when Ken was telling us about how excited he was to see that someone was selling pirated copies of Deadlock in Hong Kong. The pirated copy’s cover utilised artwork from the cover of the Computer Gaming World issue that featured Deadlock. He looked at the pirated copy and found that it was a game that had used the CGW artwork as a splash screen, but was actually just a cheap arcade game. He said that the game’s logo also copied Deadlock’s Palatino logo. I corrected him and told him that Deadlock’s logo (which he created) font was actually Optima. He looked up at me with bulging eyes and a wide open mouth, completely shocked that I could know such a minor detail as the font used in the game’s logo.

We also discussed Russell Shiffer’s musical career, his education including a degree in Classic Music Composition from California State University Northridge. In his early career, he played many different gigs including parties, night clubs and ballet classes. At Accolade, he composed the soundtracks of many games, including for the Les Manley series that were in the vein of Leisure Suit Larry, among others. Russell said that his work had at one point netted him the Worst Composer Award. He still works as a piano teacher and writes songs (discussing the experiences of song writing on his blog: https://russellshiffer.com/). Ken mentioned that he had been telling someone the other day about how Russell had once written a musical jingle with Michael Jackson. Unfortunately, Russell confirmed that the story was untrue and he had no idea how it had come about.

When I asked if we could take a group photo, Russell joked that I should take a picture of three rather down-and-out looking chaps having a meal a few tables away and say that they are Deadlock’s creators. We all laughed, but my better judgement said that taking a photo of them was something I should not do, so unfortunately… or perhaps fortunately, that joke is lost to time. The dinner finished approximately two hours after we began, Russell specifically having a long way to drive home. We all hugged and said our goodbyes. If I had it my way, this dinner would still be going on now.

Ken was kind enough to drop me back at my hotel in San Francisco (we had driven to Redwood Shores from SF together). Given the evening rush had finished by the time we left, the trip back to SF took much less time. Ken and I discussed British comedy and television (as we had done earlier) heading back and also spoke a little bit more about another game of his: Giants: Citizen Kabuto. He said that a cancelled Xbox port of the game was nearly completed and that if the source code for it survives, it is sitting on a hard drive in landfill. Once outside my hotel, we chatted a bit more, before hugging and saying goodnight.

Chip Harris

Later that week, I met up with Chip Harris (Composer of Deadlock’s Soundtrack) at the Rock Ridge BART station in Oakland, the name Rock Ridge bringing back memories of Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles. I had been on Broadway in Oakland the day before where I visited the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE), which had a copy of Deadlock on a shelf of games at the entrance. We had lunch together at a local Chinese restaurant. The meal started with me getting confused over the difference between Sprite and Lemonade, since in Australia the terms are synonymous (which now thinking about it makes no sense and non-Australian confusion over it is justified).

We discussed the creation of the music of both Deadlock and Bubsy II. Russell Shiffer and Paul Kwinn also worked on Bubsy II as programmers. While I had never played Bubsy II, my cousin tells me that it is one of his favourite games. Chip said the main reason Deadlock’s music doesn’t sound distinctly 90’s like many other games of the era, was simply because he never tried to make it so. Chip also oversaw the recording of all of Deadlock’s dialogue at his former studio in San Francisco. Immediately after our lunch together, I caught the BART from Rock Ridge to San Francisco Airport, where I caught a plane to Los Angeles for my conference.

Mark “Hive Imperius” Jensen

I met Mark Jensen (Deadlock’s Writer) for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in the centre of Saint Paul, Minnesota. The discussion was half divided between anecdotes about his career at Accolade, including Deadlock and our mutual love of a certain science fiction television program. He began at Accolade in phone support and as a result had to play all of Accolade’s games. One such game was the classic Star Control II, which he had played through several times. Following from this, in 1996 — while working on Deadlock, he was tasked with script editing Star Control 3’s dialogue. Working his way up from phone support and game testing, he soon found himself as Deadlock’s writer.

He recited many stories about his time working on Deadlock, including how he collaborated closely with the Japanese translators to ensure that the Japanese version of Deadlock’s localisation was accurate. He had met with them in California and used an English-Japanese dictionary to explain all the different, complicated scientific concepts. We also discussed the cancelled Deadlock III, including how the action was to move into space, as discussed in my previous article on him on this blog. Discussing Deadlock humour, Mark said:

“Deadlock's humour probably pulls from multiple influences — slapstick, Noel Coward, Aristophanes, Star Trek, Mark Twain, etc. I needed to write humour that would appeal to a large, younger audience. The humour couldn't be dark or offensive either.”

He also shared a humorous anecdote about how the team had employed a programmer to specifically work on the networking aspect of the game’s code. He would come in once a week to Accolade’s offices in San Jose, but after awhile he stopped turning up to work. Turns out he had been arrested for Marijuana possession. As Mark explained:

“This actually slowed down the game's development. Russell ended up learning how to do the network programming. The internet was very new at the time, so Deadlock was on the cutting edge of leveraging the internet as part of its design.”

Another interesting piece of trivia he gave was that the Tarth worker at the Surface Mine in the introduction sequence was motion captured from Colin Thomson, whom voiced the Human advisor. Discussing this, Mark said:

“The studio that did the motion capture was in downtown San Jose. They had created some of the computer animated spots that aired on MTV during the late 1980's - early 1990's too. It was a terrific experience to work in that studio.”

“Only the mind matters in these matters of the mind.” (Science Museum of Minnesota)

While walking around Saint Paul, he shared the fun fact that the world famous Peanuts comic strip (featuring Charlie Brown and Snoopy) had originated in one of the city’s local newspapers. Knowing of the characters for a long time, this certainly interested me. After driving me back to my hotel, Mark kindly gave me a copy of his book and signed it to: “The world’s number one Deadlock: Planetary Conquest fan.” I have to say, it is good to be a world number one at something. This was certainly more meaningful than being given a Nobel Peace Prize. The book: HR Pioneers — A History of Human Resource Innovations at Control Data Corporation, is about an international mainframe computer manufacturer from the 1960's - 1980's based in Minnesota. For a time, Mark explained, they were a big rival of IBM. The Amazon link to Mark’s book (with physical copies and a Kindle eBook) is here: https://www.amazon.com/HR-Pioneers-Resource-Innovations-Corporation/dp/0878396535. The book is also available on Apple iBooks: https://books.apple.com/book/hr-pioneers/id1462378149.

Arriving back at my room, I finally caught a double episode of “The Dick Cavett Show.” This was a show I had tried to see in the many other cities that I visited during my time in the US. However, I was not able to pick up the channel: Decades, on which it was being rerun, until I came to Minneapolis-Saint Paul. All but one of the cities had an affiliate for the network, but the cable providers in each of the hotels did not offer it. While getting an elevator to Mark’s car, I asked the other occupants of the full elevator whether they knew who Dick Cavett is. They all said yes, one asking why I wanted to know, I said I had been chasing him all over the country. I should have clarified I meant his show, since they would likely not have been aware that his old shows were being repeated.

I coincidentally happened to see two episodes featuring Arthur Miller, the playwright whom wrote Death of a Salesman. Mark later told me that he saw one of his last plays at the Guthrie Theatre in Saint Paul. Arthur Miller came onstage during the final curtain call and took a bow. He died about three years later.

The following morning I headed back home on a 30 hour plane journey to Australia. Waiting outside the gate for a plane back to San Francisco at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport, I saw a small boy very excitedly meet the captain of the plane. Seeing this, I could not help but feel that I had come on a really long journey and had also met my captains.

It was truly an out of this world experience meeting Russell, Ken, Paul, Chip and Mark, also not forgetting when I met Matthew many years prior. When figuring out how to best tell the stories of my meetings with these fine gentlemen, I reflected on what lead up to these meetings taking place. Working backwards, I realised that the moment that lead to all these wonderful moments over the past ten years was realising there was an opportunity. An opportunity to create something I felt needed to be created — a Deadlock fan site. Yes, it did not lead to a multimillion dollar empire or putting a man on Sedna, but I think it lead to something pretty darn great. Besides, could you really ask for a more successful hobby?

I would also like to thank Greg Tullis of Gray Line Tours in Minneapolis, Minnesota for driving my mother and I from Minneapolis to Saint Paul. This gave me plenty of time to check out the Science Museum of Minnesota before my meeting with Mark that evening. Finally, I would like to thank SonOfDon for introducing me to the game nearly twenty years ago (and also Brian Hewitt for introducing it to him) and the support you have given to me and Gallius IV. Without you, none of this would ever have happened.