Peter Morawiec interview by HXC (January 11, 2006)
From Sonic Retro
This is a interview conducted by HXC, with Peter Morawiec.
The Interview
HXC: How was it to work with Yuji Naka personally? How did both of you handle new challenges? Something specially you remember and can tell us?
Peter Morawiec: When I was originally offered a job at STI, I asked to speak with Naka - I wanted to get a sense of how the Sonic games were made. This made the manager a little nervous, but he introduced us anyway. It was clear that he spoke very little English, and that the Sonic Team were a very isolated, seperate entity from the rest of STI. I *was* told that he liked the Genesis 3D demo I had put together before joining, but otherwise I rarely interacted with him.
HXC: Do you know Motorola 68000 assembler? Did you help programming stuff for Sonic & Knuckles, and if so, what did you do? We like to hear specific details on your work.
Peter Morawiec: I know (or knew) 68000 assembler very well. I had previously worked on Atari ST and Amigas, which used the same chip. I did not work on Sonic and Knuckles.
HXC: You were not credited in Sonic 3, or Sonic & Knuckles. The staff roll at the end of the games did not include your name. How does that feel?
Peter Morawiec: Since I didn't work on them, I think that not including my name was justified!
HXC: Roger Hector told us that you were sometimes "a stronger technical designer than Naka". I (the interviewer) have followed how Sonic has developed from Sonic 1 (year 1991) up to Sonic & Knuckles (year 1994), and I can find stuff in Sonic & Knuckles that was groundbreaking and at a higher math level than the previous games, such as the scorpion robot's attacking tail when aiming at Sonic, and a floating boss device that uses a shield to prevent attacks from Sonic, that will always be in the way no matter what angle Sonic comes from. I believe you must have been involved in those math routines since they are new stuff never used by Naka before. If you remember anything specific, please tell us!
Peter Morawiec: It's lucky for Roger that Naka doesn't read English then! Sadly though, despite my brilliance, I cannot claim any credit for any math routines in any Sonic games. He certainly wasn't the only programmer on the games - maybe a new guy (from Japan) came up with those?
HXC: Hm...thats really strange.....I swear that it mentioned you in the Sonic and Knuckles Rock the Rock MTV special..lemme look again...
Yes! You were in there, explaining some Knuckles running mechanics..
Peter Morawiec: MTV needed someone who was technical and could speak English, and they found me!
I wasn't completely bull-shitting - I really had been talking about that stuff to a programmer when the MTV people came in. They just asked me to do it for the camera. Did I actually mention Knuckles by name?
HXC: Hahah!, And yes, you did mention Knuckles by name :P