The Warp Zone :
What made you start working at Tengen?

Steve Woita :
I was going to the coin-op group at Atari to do my first coin-op game and they wanted me to go to their new consumer group "Tengen" because I had consumer game experience.

The Warp Zone :
What games did you work on?

Steve Woita :
I helped Bill Hindorf with Super Sprint for the 8 bit NES.

The Warp Zone :
I know you worked on the really interesting game Police Academy. I heard you worked on the first version. Wasn't it changed then or something?

Steve Woita :
I worked on the first Police Academy game for the 8 bit NES. We focus group tested the game and it did very, very well. So I went back to finish it up and upper management said they wanted me to stop working on it. They then put another group on it and asked for them to start again from scratch...The game never got out, it just didn't test well. Go figure.

The Warp Zone :
Do you know why Police Academy was cancelled?

Steve Woita :
To this day, I still don't know why it got cancelled. It play tested well, I just don't know why it got cancelled.

The Warp Zone :
Was Police Academy ready to ship or was it just a proto? I know I've seen the box art for it.

Steve Woita :
I was half way done with the game. I needed 2 to 3 more months of work to finish it.

The Warp Zone :
Did you help on the game Klax? The one stage makes a reference to Police Academy.

Steve Woita :
I didn't help on Klax, but my friend Dave O'Riva who did the 8 bit version was nice enough to give my game a plug. We used to do Ads for each others games within the games. I've always thought Ads in games looked cool.

The Warp Zone :
I just gotta know. Do you have any neat goodies from Tengen such as protos or never released boxarts or anything along that line?

Steve Woita :
Yes I do.