John Rowlands

Having enjoyed playing video games for many years, a career developing them was an obvious choice for John Rowlands and he has been involved in the UK games industry since leaving college in 1988.

As John’s brother (Steve Rowlands) shared his passion for playing and developing games it seemed a natural choice to set up a development partnership together. John would program the games with Steve providing the visual and audio assets. Both would combine their gaming experience and creativity when designing each product. Starting off developing games for the Commodore 64, they would go on to create a string of original award-winning games on a range of platforms. These include 8-bit home computers, handheld consoles and arcade machines. The company they founded was called Apex Computer Productions.

John is currently developing games for Java-enabled mobile phones at Infinite Lives.

Curriculum Vitae 1988*: Cyberdyne Warrior - Hewson – Commodore 64 - co-design and all programming

• 1989: Retrograde - Thalamus – Commodore 64 - co-design and co-programming

• 1990: Creatures - Thalamus – Commodore 64 - co-design and all programming

• 1991: Creatures 2: Torture Trouble - Thalamus - Commodore 64 - co-design and all programming

• 1992: Mayhem in Monsterland - Apex Computer Productions - Commodore 64 - co-design and all programming

• 1997: Blood Lust - Atari (unreleased) - co-design and all programming

• 1999: Everybody's Kung-Fu Fighting - Digital Graffiti - PlayStation - co-design

• 2000: International Karate 2000 - Studio 3 Interactive – Game Boy Color - co-design and all programming

• 2001: Road Champs: BXS Stunt Biking - Activision - Game Boy Color - co-design and all programming

• 2001: Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX - Activision - Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance - co-design and all programming

• 2002: Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX 2 - Activision - Game Boy Color - co-design and all programming

• 2003: Burnt Out Cop - Infinite Lives (unreleased) – PlayStation 2, Xbox - co-design and design documentation

• 2004: Happy Valley Friends - Infinite Lives - Java-enabled mobile handsets - all game design, programming and in-game graphics and animation

• 2005-...: International Karate - Play It Mobile - Java-enabled mobile handsets - all game design and programming