ARCHER MACLEAN - CELEBRATING A GAMING LEGEND

Friends and developers pay tribute to the creator of Dropzone

We start the first issue of 2023 with the extremely sad news that Archer Maclean has passed away at the age of 60.

Famed for hit games like Dropzone, IK+, and Jimmy White’s ‘Whirlwind’ Snooker, Archer was an incredibly accomplished programmer and a prolific name throughout the Eighties and Nineties.

Known for his love of arcade games (he owned a large number of classics and eventually started to restore them) he made his mark with the excellent Dropzone, which took elements of Eugene Jarvis’ Defender and pushed the capabilities of both the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64. Archer’s calling card meant he soon caught the attention of System 3’s Mark Cale, who paid his own tribute to Archer on Facebook and shared a photo of them having dinner together while discussing a new project Archer was involved with, IK++. “Another industry friend and a key person in the history of System 3 was Archer Maclean. Very sad to say that he passed away last night,” Mark shared. “We had been working on IK++ together on and off for several years. Rest in peace, Archer. IK++ is for you.”

News of Archer’s passing spread quickly on Christmas Day, with a swell of support from both developers and those that had enjoyed playing his games growing up. One such person was the musician Allister Brimble. “I was very sad to hear of the passing of Archer Maclean. He was a pioneering coder who came up with many famous titles including his snooker games of which I worked on several,”