Interview with Eduardo Mena

Greg Livingston: The Bugaboo book [Bugaboo, un hito en la Historia del Software Español by Francisco Portalo Calero] mentions that Bugaboo was one of the earliest games with a cutscene, and its jump gauge was novel. However, Bugaboo was also one of the first platformers (jumping games) where the screen moved both horizontally and vertically. Additionally, there are many paths in Bugaboo, and the way forward is not always certain. It's one of the first games where a player can become lost. Would you say these qualities have historical significance, as well?

Eduardo Mena: Yes, I agree, the features you mentioned were also really innovative in a time when, among all the new games launched, only a few contributed to recreate new game experiences.

Greg Livingston: The article "Los videojuegos como paradigma de innovación en los orígenes de la industria del software español" mentions a golden age of Spanish software ("La edad de oro del software español").

What role did Spain play in the larger European video game culture? Worldwide?

Eduardo Mena: Well, in Europe, Spain was, is, and will be an outstanding country of video gamers... (and video game programmers!!). In the 80's the biggest game industries were located in UK and Spain; I am not really sure about Spain because software piracy was a big problem in Spain by then, but concerning the number of video games played, sure it was!! Not surprisingly, the main markets for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum were the UK (of course!) and Spain and that lead to a very high number of local game developers and consumers.

Greg Livingston: Do you think Bugaboo or Spanish games in general made an influence that could be felt today in any market? What might that influence be?

Eduardo Mena: I don't think so, at least directly... but of course the type of game is not obsolete at all. For example, there exist certain similarities between the control of the flea in Bugaboo and the pig launch method in Angry Birds. What about some kind of "Angry Fleas" in the 80's with a much more modest physics? :-)

Greg Livingston: Games from Spain's golden age explore a variety of ideas. Bugaboo, Army Moves, and La Abadía del Crimen are all unique. Are there any features or qualities particular to Spanish video games? That is to say: when you play a video game, can you "feel" whether or not it's Spanish?

Eduardo Mena: Well, it is difficult to answer this question. Perhaps we could talk about game genres instead: in Spain, during the Golden Age, there was a big effort developing so called "video adventures", i.e., games where the gameplay was moving a character around a maze-like scenario, recollecting objects that upgrade your character in some way and/or achieving certain intermediate goals to go on; La Abadia del Crimen could fall into this genre. I believe that this was the most prolific game genre in Spanish games in the 80s. Of course, many pure arcade games, like Army Moves or Bugaboo, were developed also, among many other game genres.

So, I don't think there was a common style of doing games in Spain: The main 7-10 Spanish companies had their own style and distinguised easily from each other; it was actually quite easy to know whether a new videogame was from Dynamic, Opera Soft, or others, just by looking at a simple screenshot.

Greg Livingston: What is your interest in the history of software and video games, and what is its importance?

Eduardo Mena: Well, I love Computer Science, I believe that computers are the most amazing machines the humankind has created. And video games have been there almost since the beginning of the Computer Age. In any decade video games have been probably the most challenging and resource-demanding software ever created, due to the importance of graphics, concurrency, real-time, etc., in almost any video game. They have been pushing the best hardware from each decade to its limits; and for each new hardware, we created new more complex video games.

From another point of view, video games are a very special software: They shake our deepest feelings!! well, that's their main goal, to make us live new experiences that we cannot (at least easily) experience in real life. Thus, it is not possible to avoid falling in love with them... at least with some of them. :-)

Greg Livingston: What led you to research Bugaboo's history in particular? What was it like working with Paco Portalo on this subject?

Eduardo Mena: Paco and I met in RetroEuskal 2010 when he and Paco Suarez were invited to give a talk about Bugaboo, as the book "Bugaboo: un Hito en la Historia del Software Español" was written by Paco Portalo in 2009. After that, Paco Portalo contacted me with an idea in his mind: to write an article concerning the role of first video games (like Bugaboo) as a trigger for the Spanish software industry. And that was the origin of the article "Los videojuegos como paradigma de innovación en los orígenes de la industria del software español", where I helped Paco Portalo to follow the style needed to publish it in a research magazine (Novatica, in this case), in the role of coauthor.

Greg Livingston: For video game design, what is the most important? The game itself, the intention of the developer, or the experience of the player?

Eduardo Mena: This one is easy to answer. :-) Definitely, the experience of the player!! When that fails, the whole process is a failure. Yes, perhaps some graphics, effects, the story, could contribute somehow but... a video game must satisfy its players (it is a GAME, it must be fun or at least entertaining).