Жон "Jops" Hare: Англиялық ойын дизайнераның өмірбаяны

English computer game designer

Jon "Jops" Hare (born 20 January 1966, Ilford, Essex, England) is an English computer game designer, video game artist, musician and one of many founder members of the early UK games industry as co founder and director, along with Chris Yates, of Sensible Software, one of the most successful European games development companies of the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2006 the Sensible Software game Sensible World of Soccer, for which Hare was Creative Director and Lead Designer, was entered into a Games Canon of the 10 most important video games of all time by Stanford University, it was the only game developed in Europe to make the list which also included Spacewar!, Star Raiders, Zork, Tetris, SimCity, Super Mario Bros. 3, Civilization, Doom, and the Warcraft series. Hare has the unique distinction of a #1 football game in each of 4 consecutive decades MicroProse Soccer 1988, Sensible World of Soccer 1994, Sensible Soccer (mobile) 2004 and Sociable Soccer 2019, developed by Tower Studios for whom he has been co founder and CEO since 2004. Visiting Professor of Games for Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge since 2017, Hare has also been a voting member of BAFTA since 2004 for whom he frequently chairs Games Awards Juries.

Following a year of working as a consultant games artist on various ZX81, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 games in 1985, Hare became co founder of Sensible Software with school friend Chris Yates in 1986 working as co designer and lead artist of all of Sensible's 8 bit era games including Parallax, Wizball, Microprose Soccer and SEUCK.

As Sensible Software moved into the 16 bit era in the 1990s Hare took a more active role in overseeing the business activities of the company while continuing his role as the lead designer, creative director, and predominant lead artist and musical composer of games such as Wizkid and the Sensible Soccer series, the Cannon Fodder series and Mega Lo Mania, some of the most popular software franchises of the mid 1990s. Hare and Yates sold Sensible Software to Codemasters in May 1999.

Since the sale of Sensible Software to Codemasters in 1999, Hare has worked in the capacity of a consultant designer on many games including numerous strategy, action and sports games including Real World Golf and Sensible Soccer 2006. Hare is also one of the founders and owner of games company Tower Studios, founded in 2004 with two former Bitmap Brothers it has developed a number of successful titles including mobile phone versions of Cannon Fodder and Sensible Soccer. Hare has been a voting member of BAFTA across all media since 2004 and works periodically for BAFTA as both a juror and a mentor. In 2006, Hare contributed a weekly politics feature to UK video game radio show One Life Left. Hare then became a director of development at Nikitova Games, a games developer with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and London; and development studios in Kyiv, Ukraine. They worked on several projects for Nintendo DS and Wii, such as Showtime Championship Boxing and the as yet unreleased CCTV. In July 2009, Hare joined Jagex (makers of browser based MMORPG RuneScape and casual gaming website FunOrb) as their Head of Publishing.

Hare has also been a prolific songwriter since 1982 and has featured in a number of bands over the years as a singer and guitarist, including Essex outfits Hamsterfish, Dark Globe and Touchstone, all of which also featured Chris Yates on lead guitar. Dark Globe was particularly important in the formation of the creative relationship between Hare and Yates prior to the formation of Sensible Software and rehearsed in the house of Richard Ashrowan one of Hare's closest friends since childhood. From 1990 onwards, Hare was also a frequent musical collaborator with Richard Joseph, another close friend with whom he co wrote and arranged all of Sensible Software's best known musical tracks including the soundtrack for Cannon Fodder the GBA version of which was also nominated for a BAFTA in 2000, and is still the only small format soundtrack to be recognized by BAFTA to this day. In 1995 Hare and Joseph embarked upon an epic 32 track soundtrack for the multimedia product Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll, signed to Warner Interactive, however in 1998 Warner bowed out of the games market and their Magnum Opus was only ever released as a limited edition audio CD. Since 2000 Hare has also written for and performed with a number of outfits including the Little Big Band featuring Jack Monck and Sid 80s featuring Ben Daglish. Hare is also known for writing the music for a number of Sensible Software's games, including Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, Sensible Golf and the never released Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll, which featured over 30 tracks written and arranged by Hare and his frequent musical collaborator, Richard Joseph.

Year Title Platform(s) 1985 Twister, Mother of Charlotte ZX Spectrum 1986 Parallax C64 Galaxibirds 1987 Wizball C64; ZX Spectrum S. E. U. C. K. C64; Amiga 1988 Oh No C64 Microprose Soccer C64; ZX Spectrum 1990 International 3D Tennis C64; ZX Spectrum; Amiga; ST 1991 Insects in Space C64 Mega Lo Mania Amiga; ST; Mega Drive; SNES; MS DOS 1992 Wizkid Amiga; ST Sensible Soccer Amiga; ST; Mega Drive; SNES Sensible Soccer International Edition Amiga; ST; Jaguar Sim Brick Amiga 1993 Sensible Soccer 92/93 Amiga; ST Cannon Fodder Amiga; ST; MS DOS; Archimedes; Mega Drive; Jaguar; 3DO 1994 Cannon Fodder 2 Amiga; MS DOS Sensible Golf Sensible World of Soccer 1995 Sensible World of Soccer 95/96 Sensible Train Spotting Amiga 1996 Sensible World of Soccer European Championship Edition Amiga; MS DOS Sensible World of Soccer 96/97 1998 Sensible Soccer '98 MS DOS; Windows 1998 Sensible Soccer European Club Edition MS DOS; Windows; PlayStation 2000 Cannon Fodder Game Boy Color 2001 Prince Naseem Boxing PlayStation; Game Boy Color 2002 Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing PlayStation 2; Xbox 2003 World War II: Frontline Command Windows 2004 Sensible Soccer Mobile Phones 2005 Cannon Fodder Mobile Phones International Rugby Sevens 2006 Real World Golf Xbox; PlayStation 2; PC Sensible Soccer 2006 2007 Showtime Boxing Wii; Nintendo DS 2008 Casper's Scare School (video game) Nintendo DS M&Ms Adventure Wii; Nintendo DS 2009 Football Superstars Windows Online I Can Football Real Madrid: The Game Wii; Nintendo DSi; PSP; Windows 2010 Me Motes Messenger iPhone; Windows Shoot to Kill iOS; Windows 2011 Alien Puzzle Adventure Nintendo DSiWare Speedball 2 Evolution iOS; Mac; Nokia smartphones; Sony Minis 2013 Speedball 2 HD Windows 2014 Word Explorer iOS; Windows; Mac 2017 Sociable Soccer (Early Access) Steam (service) 2019 Sociable Soccer iOS 2020 Sociable Soccer 2020 iOS 2021 Sociable Soccer '21 iOS