A rather nice entry this time for GTW, and from the world of Taskset. Paul Drury from Retro Gamer magazine has in the last year or so been in touch with the guys form Taskset and has been doing various features, including a recent one on Pipeline 1 and 2.
Through the contact, one of the guys from Taskset dug around at their parent’s house and dragged up some various out negatives which had photos of Pipeline. On there was this particular game which has caused us a little bit of a stir, as it is a long lost Taskset game which now requires some digging!
It is believed that this is a game which had graphics produced by a guy called Andy Rixon and that the game was based on a musical concept. Indeed the game seems to indicate some ‘Equaliser columns’, but no-one can recall what they were meant to do in the game. It was suggested that maybe the columns fell down from above and required matching in a vaguely Tetris way, and that maybe the music concept could be related to the pitch of the sound register.
Thanks to Mike Bevan, in 2013 – Andy Rixon confirmed that this was a game that he was working on – producing a set of mock-ups. Andy suggests that the game was no more than a concept and he can’t recall it ever getting as far as having a working title. Like with most Taskset games, it was inspired by mundane daily tasks and in the case of this game – keeping all the light bulbs burning. The main character navigates the bars platform style to reach the bulbs and the equalisers controlled the maximum bar height. It was designed as a platform game with puzzle elements – following on from the Pipeline theme.
Sadly Andy believes that no code was actually written, and only graphical mockups were made. He suggested that a chap called Mark Buttery may know more. There may also be other mockups showing the game with levels featured in a castle.
Andy suggested that he has no idea if anything of the game still exists – he hopes some day to dig around his attic and see what he can find. With that and Andy Walker potentially digging out some disks soon – this one could well be saved in some shape or form in the future!
Watch this space!
Contributions: Paul Drury, Mike Bevan, Andy Rixon
Supporting content
Gallery
Creator speaks
Andy Rixon sheds light on his light bulb game concept:
“Wow not seen those pics for some time! The game was no more than a concept, don’t even think it went so far as having a working title.
Like most Taskset games it was inspired by mundane daily tasks, in this case keeping all the light bulbs burning. The main character navigates the bars “˜platform style’ to reach the bulbs and the equalisers controlled the maximum bar height. It was designed as a platform game with puzzle elements but following on from the Pipeline theme.
I don’t think any code was written so the photos are only graphical mock-ups, but Mark Buttery might remember better”¦
There may be similar conceptual mock-ups floating around the ether, I seem to remember planning out levels based in a castle but I’ve no idea if the artwork and disks still exist. I really should have a dig around in the attic some time!”
Update history
01/09/22 – Tidy up of piece.
