Andrew Nicholas Oliver and Philip Edward Oliver, together known as the Oliver Twins, are British twin brothers and video game designers.
They began to professionally develop computer games while they were still at school, contributing their first type-in game to a magazine in 1983. They worked with publishers Codemasters for a number of years following their first collaboration Super Robin Hood, creating the Dizzy series of games and many of Codemasters’ Simulator Series games. At one point during the 1980s it was reported that 7% of all UK games sales were attributable to the Oliver Twins.
In 1990 they founded Interactive Studios which later became Blitz Games Studios. In October 2013 they founded Radiant Worlds, based in Leamington Spa, with long time friend and colleague Richard Smithies.
Philip and Andrew Oliver first began programming computer games while at school (Clarendon School in Trowbridge), having their first game published as written code in Computer and Video Games Magazine in 1983. The same year they won first prize in a national TV competition (The Saturday Show) to design a computer game. Their first very successful game, Super Robin Hood for the Amstrad CPC, was published in 1985 by Codemasters.
I remember going to the local college library and hoovering up all the magazines on the shelves, it was a time-consuming exercise, but it was a magical feeling. You were making something, you were discovering something new. And you didn’t have to buy components! With Lego and Scalextric, you always had to buy more stuff; with a computer, you could just get on with it.
Philip Oliver, with his twin brother Andrew, would go on to create the phenomenally successful Dizzy arcade-adventure series.
VISIT —> The Oliver Twins website
