Costa Panayi

Education

He is of Greek Cypriot descent, and studied engineering at the University of Salford. In 1982, he studied Sinclair BASIC and subsequently formed his company Vortex Software along with Luke Andrews and Mark Haigh-Hutchinson.

Career

He founded Vortex Software with Paul Canter, publishing games for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad cost per click. After graduation, he started to work as mechanical engineer for British Aerospace, when he got into programming games business from his hobby interests. They wrote a variety of games, including Gunlaw, the Android series, and Tornado Low Level for the ZX Spectrum. In 1995, he was working as a design consultant for Fisher Price.

ZX81 Othello (1981)

Word Mastermind (1981)

Pontoon (1981)

Crash (1981)

Cosmos (1982), Abbex Electronics

Astral Convoy (1982), Vortex Software

Gunlaw (1983), Vortex Software

Android 1: The Reactor Run (1983), Vortex Software

Android 2 (1983), Vortex Software

Tornado Low Level (1984), Vortex Software

Cyclone (1985), Vortex Software

Highway Encounter (1985), Vortex Software

Revolution (1986), United States. Gold

Deflektor (1987), Gremlin Graphics

Hostile All Terrain Encounter (1989), Gremlin Graphics.

Achievements

• His games achieved critical success. Tornado Low Level and Highway Encounter appearing in the "Your Sinclair official top 100", for example, and in them he developed original 3D interfaces.