Interview
Handle: Knatter
XAKK - The official homepage
How did you come up with your alias ?
One of my past time friends called me "Knatter" one day after I had spent lots of hours at my newly bought Commodore 64. I was looking for a handle at the time and it was as good as any. "Knatter" by the way is the swedish word for the noise you make when tapping a keyboard.
City / Country:
Angelholm, Sweden
Born year:
1969, Just a few days after we landed on the moon.
What was your first computer, and when did you get it?
It was a Commodore 64. I went with my fater to Denmark for it since it was much cheaper there. This was in September 1985. One year later I got a 1541 Diskdrive.
How did you get into the scene and what groups have you been a member of ?
I was introduced to assembler coding by my friend Jolly Cracker, wrote a few demos and then founded XAKK together with him. That was back in August 1986 I think. I have always been a member of XAKK. Mr Vivace and me made a game for the C64 where we called ourselves Wacko Designers and when I made a game for the Amiga together with Black Adder we called ourselves Cyberpunk Developments.
What was the proudest moment in your career ?
There were many, but getting a good review of Cybergames in CU Amiga felt very good... And every time we won a democompo was also great.
For what specific reason(s) do you think that you are remembered ?
For being the guy that wrote those wacky scrolltexts and for hating Mahoney.
What would you like to be remembered for ?
For my music and graphics and for being the guy that came up with the ideas for many of our demos.
What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)
We got pretty sick of the whole thing and was depressed by not getting any work as game developers. It took way to much time to make the demos and in the end we felt like it didn't match what you got out of it when the demo was finished. Maby we were simply getting to old...
Thinking back on the good old days, is there anything you regret?
Hmm... NO!
What was your favorite
GAME(S)
Delta, Sanxion, IO, Thing on a spring, Gyruss, IK+, Katakis, Giana Sisters.
DEMO(S)
Bound to be best II by XAKK ;)
1001 made some cool things.
Horizon was good.
There were some finish guys that made that DYSP-thing (Finish Gold?).
PROGRAMMER(S) (OR PROGRAMMING TEAM(S))
Mr Cross and Jolly Cracker of XAKK were/are incredible!
Stavros Fasoulas, Andrew Braybrook, BWB
CRACKER(S) (OR CRACKING GROUP(S))
I was never so impressed by cracking-teams since so many games had the same protections. I however remember how cool Mr Cross was when he broke the incredible protection on the tape version of The Last Ninja II (or was it III?) Mr Z was a god!
Triad and Fairlight for being such incredible huge groups...
BEST COMPOSED TRACK(S)
Hubbard: Monty on the run, Thrust, Last v8, Crazy comets
Galway: Ocean loader, Parallax, Comic Bakery
Tel: Cybernoid
EVENT(S) (E.G. COPYPARTY)
Of course I will always remember our first party which was 1st Furulund in 1987. The Alvesta parties with The Silents were also great. Great guys! I hated the two Ikari parties in 1988 and 1989. The first was way too small and the second was sooooo boring.
Of course I also remeber the XAKK vs Mahoney war. Who will ever forget that?! ;)
DRINK ?
I was raised on computer chips and Coca Cola.
What are you doing nowadays ?
I work as a designer/consultant on Seraf Digital (www.seraf.se) making web-pages, cd-rom productions and hey... we might even get in to the games business... Who knows...
What are you doing on your spare time?
I'm currently working on my debut CD which will be released the autumn 1996.
Is there anything you'd like to say to the public (read: admires)
Do what you like and never look back...
What is the meaning of life?
Sex!