Interviews

“The thing about Sensible Soccer was that we stripped everything away that wasn't fun. We didn't care about realism — we cared about the feeling of scoring a goal, the feeling of that after-touch curl going in from thirty yards. If it felt good, it stayed. If it didn't, it went.”

Jon Hare — on the design philosophy of Sensible Soccer

“Cannon Fodder was meant to make you think. The joke was dark — the little soldiers, the cheerful music, the poppy fields — but the point was serious. War kills people. Real people with names. We wanted to make that felt.”

Jon Hare — on the design intent of Cannon Fodder

“The SWOS database was Chris and the team spending months entering real player data from real football sources. It was an enormous amount of work. But that's what made it feel real. When you could look up an actual player from the actual team you supported, it changed everything.”

Jon Hare — on building the SWOS player database

“We were in Chelmsford, making games in a tiny office, and we were competing with the biggest publishers in the world. And we were winning. That was an amazing thing to be part of. I'm still proud of what we made.”

Jon Hare — reflecting on the Sensible Software years

“The Cannon Fodder controversy didn't upset me. It proved the game had done something — that it had made people feel something strong enough to react to. That's exactly what art is supposed to do. If you make something that everyone ignores, you've failed.”

Jon Hare — on the Remembrance Sunday controversy

“The pixel art work was all about clarity. You had a tiny sprite on a tiny screen and you had to make it read instantly — what the player was doing, where the ball was, what was happening. Every pixel had to earn its place.”

Stoo Cambridge — on pixel art design for SWOS

“The Sensible games were all about communication. Jon had an incredibly clear vision of what each game needed to feel like, and the job of the art was to make that vision readable on screen. It was a collaborative process — everything fed into everything else.”

Stoo Cambridge — on working with Jon Hare

“Looking back at SWOS now, I'm still happy with it. The UI, the pitch, the menus — it was clean and it worked. That's all you can ask for. Clean design that works.”

Stoo Cambridge — 2022 retrospective interview