Beautiful Game Studio
Beautiful Games Studios, the team behind the latest Championship Manager games, are based in north London. The studio employs over 30+ avid CM and football fans with over 100 years cumulative development experience and 90+ published titles.
You've played the game, now is your chance to meet part of the team behind Championship Manager!.
Name: Michael Braithwaite
Favourite Club: Tottenham Hotspurs
Job Title: Lead Programmer
Job Description: Overseeing the programming team
History: I've worked in games for the last 10 years or so working on a variety of genres and platforms.
If you had champ man stats – what would your highest be: Er, right foot?
Favourite Pastime: Mmm, CM probably pips commuting.
Name: Oliver Bray
Favourite Club: Southend United
Job Title: Quality Assurance Technician
Job Description: Play testing, bug reproduction, regression, assigning bugs, and absorbing the wisdom of Kyne.
History: After living off my parents and girl friend through college I started temp work at customs and excise, after 18 months I started to lose hope of ever making it into the games industry when I suddenly landed a job at Eidos. After a very brief stay there I was moved down to BGS where I have been ever since.
If you had champ man stats – what would your highest be: Preferred foot
Favourite Pastime: Vodka and coke, CS:S
Name: Richard Steer
Favourite Club: Young Boys (Swiss Premier Division)
Job Title: Lead frontend programmer
Job Description: I organise the development of the front end, getting involved in the design and artistic decisions and making sure what the designers and artists want is done as well as we can given the time and resources available. I deal with the producers and designers to get tasks written up for programmers, make sure the programmers understand the task, make sure it is written to an acceptable standard and is as free of bugs as possible. You'd be amazed how difficult this is.
History: I've been a gameplay, AI and frontend programmer for my entire career, starting writing my own games as a young teenager. My first job was a gameplay programmer at Bullfrog/EA. I've written a surprising number of football games.
If you had champ man stats – what would your highest be: Versatility.
Favourite Pastime: I study lots (currently taking a degree in philosophy and literature), I go to a lot of comedy gigs and I go clubbing/drinking regularly (maybe slightly too regularly). I also spend too much time playing World of Warcraft.
Name: Steve Screech
Favourite Club: Crystal Palace & Beacon Hill Rovers
Job Title: Senior Programmer
Job Description: Match engine touchy feely stuff, all the things that make the game feel and act like a football match...the good stuff.
History: Very old, industry dinosaur. Officially started with Anco back in 1987 but had games published before this so that makes this my 20th year in the industry...nice! Worked on Kick Off and Player Manager virtually exclusively for about 16 years before joining BGS.
Highest champ man stat: Movement
Favourite past time: Photographing military aircraft, preferably while they are flying very very low and very very fast.
Name: Troy Lonergan
Favourite Club: Watford
Job Title: Designer
Job Description: The design team have the responsibility of coming up with new features for the Champ Man series, and working out how these new features and going to go into the game. We also do a lot of tweaking with the game, and test it as much as possible. Sometimes it can take a week or two of solid gameplay to find those little niggles that can have a bigger affect on the game further down the line. So it’s important that we are always playing the game whenever we get the chance. I’m also constantly involved in a lot of text that goes into the game. This is some content but also most of the text bugs come through me to be re-assigned (sometimes they are actually code bugs although they appear to be text based).
History: Before videogames I was in and out of a couple of barely interesting lowly paid jobs, most notably running a bar at a hotel. Good times, free beer, and lots of girls! Recommended. I got my foot in the door as a tester at Silicon Dreams in 2000, where I happily worked away until I got promoted to a Designer. I joined up with BGS in March 2003, and have been here ever since.
If you had champ man stats – what would your highest be: My vision and creativity is naturally superb, passing is top notch, and my pace is right up there. However I never get to put any of this into practice because my injury proneness is so high I just have to sneeze and then I’ll put my knee out. Again. My lowest would be shooting (although while helping out the BGS 5-a-side team this season it’s 2 shots, 2 goals = 100% Strike rate. Better than Henry!)
Favourite Pastime: DRINK! GIRLS! FECK! Or Lazing around
Name: Will Ormerod
Favourite Club: Tottenham
Job Title: Programmer Fool
Job Description: Copy and paste, Copy and paste, take it from the man, Copy and paste … all in the logic area of the game.
History: Started in the games industry as a tester for Eidos, then migrated to programming while at BGS.
If you had champ man stats – what would your highest be: Dribbling…?
Favourite Pastime: Into games/photography/travel (currently all done in Azeroth)