An interesting little game from the late part of the 80’s, featuring music which Mark Wilson composed for Obliterator.
This game involves controlling the main character on some kind of space craft, using arrow buttons with a pointer icon. There is not much to explore, nor to look at apart from some very early ship interrior, and the ability to go through a door and shoot bullets.
The game has the look and feel of one of those games you would find on the “Players” budget label or something. Has the look of potential for its time
According to Chris, who recently got in touch with GTW, this game demo was started off to show a Swiss company who were looking for someone to code a conversion of an ST game.
However, the company wanted the complete conversion done in 8 weeks and Chris could not get enough time away from work to finish in that time so the deal fell through.
This unfortunately was it, and nothing else will be obtainable. To me, this seems to be some kind of Obliterator clone, and the use of Mark Wilson’s music may confirm that. We hope to hear more from Chris and Andie soon.
Mark Wilson tells GTW that he cannot recall much about the game, but feels the Obliterator music was temporary. This means there could be another version out there with Mark’s music. In the meantime, Mark very kindly passed us on a music demo with the tunes intended for the game (of which in turn Ian Coog provided a clean SID rip and year confirmation of 1988). The main tune is brand new, but the sub tunes (selectable via poke 251,1 to 3) were sneaked out via compilations released by Mark over the years.
Not a bad preview, but a shame it never progressed further…
Contributions: Jason Kelk, Chris Fitzsimons, Mark Wilson, Ian Coog
Supporting content
Available downloads
Gallery
Creator speaks
Chris Fitzsimons speaks to GTW about work on Arbitrator…
“This game demo was started off to show a Swiss company who were looking for someone to code a conversion of an ST game.
An old friend produced the Amiga version and then went on to write Body Blows/Body Blows 2 (Jnr).
The company wanted the complete conversion done in 8 weeks and I just could not allocate enough time to do it because of work so the deal fell through.
Someone created the music but I can’t remember who. ”
Chris Fitzsimons .
Update history
- 15/02/14 – Mark Wilson details on the music.
- 17/02/14 – Mark Wilson passes over tunes for addition to the archive. Added Ian Coog’s SID rip and year clarification as 1988 (based in the demos)
