OK here's all the information Robert Nendel gave me, quoted verbatim and cut from his emails. The conversation started as I asked him if Robert Clardy had programmed Warriors of Legend:
"He [Ed: Robert Clardy] designed it [Ed: Warriors of Legend] - I wrote it ( programmed )
I developed the Synergistic World Builder game engine that
was used in these games ( all of which I am looking for )
Conan the Cimmarian
Warriors of Legend
Homey D. Clown
Beverly Hillbillies
Mission to Mars
Super Battleship ( sega )
The original engine came from the Excalibur series - I
rewrote it, basically, to fit adventure games. That's when it started
to be called the 'world builder' engine.
Robert Clardy designed everything at Synergistic on paper -
once the design was done the programmers managed the projects, timelines,
deliveries, publisher deadlines, etc... ( he was never a very good
designer - always took a minimalistic approach ). It's basically what killed
Synergistic - his poor designs and lack of interest in spendnig money on
new technologies.
Rather than develop new engines and pay for support
programmers those games were basically written by one person with that one person
doing everyling including dealing with the publishers, artists, etc... ( he
was really cheap - saved a buck by working the main programmers to death ).
If you actually boot up your copy of Warriors of Legend my
name is right there ( no biggie - the game was a flop because it was
originally meant to be a followup to Conan of Cimmeria but Clardy lost the Conan
license and didn't want to pay for it so he 'redesigned it' - it's
obviously conan running around on the screen ). Also during it's
development the main programmer ( Jerry Speed ) basically went nuts for awhile
after his father died."
"I'll think back to what happened during the development of my
games. One little piece of info - one of the characters in Warriors of
Legend is actually a self portrait of the lead artists - Jerry Speed ( the
character with the mustache )."
"Homey D. used the same engine as
Warriros of Legend - a guy named Chris ( I think ) wrote the game part and I
did the engine support. It was his first 'lead' on a game - up till then
he wrote tools and utilities."
"It's kind of strange - the Warriors of legend on eBay has a 1994
date but I'm sure I finished it in 1989. Perhaps Virgin held onto it for
awhile or shipped new versions in following years.
I had to leave Synergistic for a year either just after or
just before Warriors and I can't remember if they gave me top billing on
it ( I wrote it but someone else may have done the final delivery )."
"I was real dissapointed in finding I didn't get lead credit although I wrote the thing.
I left Synergistic for a year when I found my birth mother ( I was adopted ) then returned.
Durnig my absence John Connoly started warriors. I never checked the credits or I
wouldn't have finished it."
