Your Sinclair is often called anarchic, crazy, funny and off-the-wall. Under the editorial gaze of Teresa Maughan it was all of those things, and there was no-one crazier than Duncan MacDonald. News has today surfaced that Duncan sadly passed away in 2017.

“Your Sinclair got funnier and wackier when we had the team of me as editor, Snouty, Berks, Macca and Duncan, who was completely crazy,” Teresa told me when I interviewed her for Eurogamer’s retrospective on Your Sinclair earlier this year. “These were all people I gave jobs to, that you probably wouldn’t normally - but I very much believed in giving people a break.”

While Duncan forged a reputable career in games journalism after Your Sinclair, working at its spiritual successor, Zero, and PC Zone (most notably as ‘Mr. Cursor’), his first home is often his most fondly-remembered, especially when it came to a certain April fool joke.

“Duncan at one point was just sitting there tinkering about in the office and chortling to himself,” remembers Teresa. “He had this screen of green disappearing with this thing moving back and forth, and had called it Advanced Lawnmower Simulator. We thought it was hilarious and said we had to put it on the cover!”

“Not on your grass-box matey; this game is ACE!”

Reviewed by Duncan himself in the April 1988 issue of Your Sinclair, Advanced Lawnmower Simulator gleefully riffed on Codemasters’ zealous self-promotion in particular, and secured a 9/10 Megagame score. Eventually, the game would go on to inspire a new section in Your Sinclair entitled ‘Crap Games Corner’ and be presented on the cover as a cassette giveaway.

But it was Duncan’s crisp, enthusiastic and sometimes bizarre copy that amused most. “So much insincere profit chasing hype?” he boasted of Advanced Lawnmower Simulator. “Not on your grass-box matey: this game is ACE!” Signing off many of his reviews with a trademark ‘Boing!’, there was always a cheerful read with Duncan. Never too shy to take the piss, he was in particularly fine sarcastic form in a review of Software Projects’ Star Paws. “Crikey, that’s a funny idea, take the name of a well-known film, change one of the words slightly and voila, a rib-tickling title for a computer game in which the main character can be a dog. Because dogs have paws. Har har. I’ll see if I can come up with something, using that formula, before I finish this review.”

A few dozen words later, and Duncan is ready to complete his challenge. Kind of. “Oh dear. I’ve suddenly remembered my foolish boast…a computer game title derived waggishly from a film title. Uuuuum, eeerrr, uuumm…Ah! Got it. The Sound of Moo-Sick, you play a vomiting space cow. Cripes, I’m not very good at this ‘game title’ lark, am I? Boooiiinng!” Actually you are, Duncan. Very good indeed.

“Duncan would be so unreliable, roll in really late, and then be working until two in the morning.” says Teresa. “But he was probably one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with.”

Rest in peace, Duncan MacDonald.