Created in Glasgow in 1969, Fergus McNeill led a pleasant (albeit uneventful) life until, during an extended moment of weakness in the early eighties, he rashly started the maverick software label DELTA 4. Months of mail-order oblivion crawled past, and there the story might have ended in a wave of stamp-licking-induced nausea were it not for a rather favourable 2-page article in Micro-Adventurer magazine, which the 16-year-old Fergus chanced upon in English class at school. This article sang the praises of DELTA 4's first parody game, "Quest For The Holy Joystick" and galvanised the DELTA 4 crowd into action.

Leaving school with only his qualifications and a packet of Camel Filters, Fergus experimentally attended college for a few weeks before a deal with Silversoft / CRL Group dragged him back to his computer (and his drinks cabinet) full-time. Several games later, he met Anna Popkess and worked with her on "Mindfighter" for the Abstract Concepts label. Everything was going rather well until a national newspaper published that fateful horoscope "Pisces - today your publisher will sever ties with all affiliate labels, leaving you without funding for your current projects."

Never one to believe in horoscopes, Fergus was therefore taken completely by surprise when Activision announced a 100% downsizing of their affiliate label operation. Finding himself without a publisher, he and a colleague joined forces with Matthew Wilkinson's Advanced Media Group, providing audio-visual services for corporate clients.

Several spinning logoes later, Fergus returned to the games sector with On-Line Entertainment, working with industry veteran and omnipotent guru-figure Clement Chambers to produce some of the very first CD-ROM games. This exciting collaboration continued for some time but couldn't prevent his long-overdue marriage to Anna in 1991.

A year or so later, a series of bizarre coincidental events culminated in Partick Thistle Football Club being relegated from the Scottish Premier League and, perhaps even more significantly, in Fergus setting up and managing the Southampton development studios for SCi. Starting with CD-ROM titles such as "The Lawnmower Man" and "Cyberwar", the SCi team grew from a handful of people to almost 50 staff, helping to bring award-winning titles such as "Kingdom O' Magic" and "Carmageddon" to an unsuspecting public.

At Smoking Gun Productions, Fergus joined up with former SCi colleagues Rob Henderson and Chris Wild to work on new projects, with a special interest in football games. After developing the official Club Manager games for some of the UK's biggest teams, the company produced some innovative iDVD titles. It was all rather exciting! From there he moved on to become studio director at Iomo (part of InfoSpace) working on mobile phone games.

In what little time remains spare, he has written a first parody novel ("Star Drawers" which is available from this very website), an illustrated children's story about hamsters, and is currently compiling a website of artwork and photography called Ministry Of Joy.

Fergus lives in Southampton with Anna and their son, Cameron.