Geoff Crammond

Geoff Crammond is a computer game designer and programmer who specialises in motor racing games. A former defense industry systems engineer, he claims to have had little interest in motor racing before programming his first racing game (Formula 3) back in 1984, but he holds a physics degree, which may explain the realism of some of his programming. As a consequence of that project he became a big fan of Formula One motor racing. At the end of the 80s, this interest, plus the ever improving capabilities of home computers, inspired him to specialise in programming Formula One racing simulations.

One of his early releases was Aviator, a Spitfire simulator marketed for the BBC Micro by Acornsoft. Although displayed in only four colours and has few of the features of modern simulators for more powerful computers, Aviator was of unparalleled quality at the time of its release (c. 1983), with a realistic flight model that included g-forces that could tear the wings off in a dive. This would be accompanied by a continuous high pitched beep. The wings could be restored by removing the physical pressure on the airframe which was causing the flight envelope to be exceeded. Generally, this could be achieved by returning the joystick to a neutral centre position. The landscape was crudely rendered, and was basically a plane. Some scenic features were drawn as vector graphics, including low hills, fields, a lake, a suspension bridge over a river, and a small town which comprised a cluster of three buildings. Bonus points could be earned for flying under the bridge or along the main street of the town at a lower altitude than the buildings. Double points were earned for performing these stunts upside down. The game also had a shoot-'em-up mode in which alien vessels were seeded in the fields, feeding on the crops and growing until they could become airborne, at which point they headed for the town. The player could destroy the aliens on the ground as they fed, or (for reduced points) tackle them in the air (the aliens were agile but could not return fire). If an alien reached the town, the game was lost.

Although better known for his Formula One simulation games on the PC and Amiga platforms, his first motor racing simulator was REVS, a Formula Three simulator that debuted on the BBC Micro platform in 1984. The BBC version of Revs featured just one track, the Silverstone circuit, but the realistic implementation of motor racing physics and artificial intelligence of the computer controlled components gave the game enormous depth and replayability.

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