SPECIAL EDITION - Chegwin Checks It Out - Ocean Software - 8th July 1988 (1080p)

New UPSCALED footage from a higher quality source along with NEW explanatory intro and credits outro. This is much better quality than any previous upload of this footage!
The complete home video of the making of the Ocean Software segment of 'Chegwin Checks It Out'.
Filmed in the basement of Ocean Software (the 'dungeons'), 6 Central Street, Manchester on Friday 8th July 1988 by Z80 coder Paul Owens.
Here is all the video shot that day. It remains the longest video document of what it was actually like downstairs at Ocean.
Many thanks to birdy-scc for upscaling the footage & Barry Leitch for the assistance.
Music:
'Wizball' high score tune on the Commodore 64 by Martin Galway (1987).
Unused Spectrum 'Wizball' bonus level tune by Peter Clarke (1987).
'Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge' on the Commodore 64 by Jonathan Dunn (1988).
'Ocean Loader 3' on the Commodore 64 by Peter Clarke (1987).
Ocean staffers featured & their roles at the time this was filmed:
GARY BRACEY - Software Manager.
DAVID BLAKE - Commodore 64 coder.
MARK R. JONES - ZX Spectrum artist.
PAUL HUGHES - Commodore 64 coder.
JAMES HIGGINS - Amstrad CPC coder.
DAVID 'ICE' THOMPSON - ZX Spectrum coder.
LEE COWLEY - Lead Games tester.
MARTIN MACDONALD - Amstrad CPC artist.
RICK PALMER - Commodore 64 coder.
IVAN HORN - ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC artist.
ANDREW DEAKIN - ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC coder.
KANE VALENTINE - Games tester.
ROCKY MING - Games tester.
BILL HARBISON - ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC artist.
SIMON BUTLER - Commodore 64 artist.
LYNNE CARTER - Art Department (responsible for misspelling 'WIZZBALL' on all the tape labels!)
COLIN PORCH - Commodore 64 coder.
DAVE COLLIER - Commodore 64 coder.
DAWN DRAKE - ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC artist.
ALLAN SHORTT - Commodore 64 coder.
DEBBIE MATTHEWS (?) - Sales team.
STEVE WAHID - Commodore 64 artist.
JOHN MEEGAN - Commodore 64 coder.
ANDY SLEIGH - Commodore 64 artist.
*** I forgot to include JONATHAN DUNN in the who’s who section at the start! I thought there’d be a cock up somewhere. I prepared a photo to illustrate him and realised, 2 hours after rendering it, I'd not included it! Anyway, he’s the musician featured who gets the most screen time of all the staff so I guess it works out. Sorry Jon!

[@IamMrChris]

The good old days when creating games was fun! I would of loved to work for Ocean but i worked for Probe back in the day

[@DaveBlake-dp8ri]

That's me at 15:17 being interviewed by Keith Chegwin. I was at Ocean for about a year, and was involved in developing Gryzor and Operation Wolf on the C64. I was 17 at the time. Great memories.

[@mlucifersam]

Hi David! Hope you’re doing okay! Mark (Junior!!)

[@bennicholls87]

Brilliant. Great times. Still playing on the Zx Spectrum today. Thanks Ocean Software. For me the greatest software house.

[@mogadon7]

TV presenters are so 'switched on', stressful. Keith smoked 60 a day. Died at 60.

[@magicknight8412]

Awesome stuff, great to see the workings behind the scenes. Trying to recognise the folks

[@mlucifersam]

There's a roll call of who's who at the start!

[@robogod3000]

OCEAN F O R E V E R ♥️

[@micheleporcu2287]

tnx man ! LOVE this documentary, brings me back in those days.

[@RetroDawn]

The kid says he made 8 grand a year, if I heard right. In 1980, the average UK salary was 6000 GBP/yr, and this was 8 years later, in 88. Doesn't seem lot a lot of money, other than the fact that he's only 17-18 (he's worked there for 1.5yrs and answers affirmatively that he was around 16 when he left home, when asked that immediately after saying how long he's worked there).

[@mlucifersam]

You’re right. It wasn’t a ‘load of money’! It was barely enough to live on. I got about £115 after tax a week. £40 of that went on rent!

[@More_Row]

@@mlucifersam Still cheaper than nowadays. Young people pay 80% on living in shit apartments.

[@fugelkusch3722]

Rocky Ming could make videos where he presents simple solutions to overcomplicated problems on TikTok today.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

10:03 Had Gary Bracey been watching Wall Street. The braces.

[@MrHarbonaut]

2:32 I'm having that as my albun cover.

[@mlucifersam]

Ha! It was hard to find a decent screen grab of you for the intro, then I spotted that one! :)

[@RetroDawn]

Several Atari ST's spotted--but only 8-bit game developers in this video, so apparently they were using them for development for 8-bit games? Only one Amiga (a 1000) spotted.

[@mlucifersam]

That is correct - Atari ST’s replaced the Tatung Einstein’s they used to use to write Spectrum & Amstrad code

[@i_never_asked_for_an_alias]

This is some OG nerd stuff. 👍

[@MattFurniss]

Is it true that Gary's father owned a shop that sold braces and ties?

[@mlucifersam]

ermmm, I have no idea

[@sma7530]

Thanks for this !