A shock, and a big one … it’s a title which certainly shocked us…. Yet another of the 15-20 something unreleased games from Codemasters towards the end of the C64’s life has been named as Captain Dynamo 2, the sequel to the naff first game by Ian Gray.
And guess what?… we’ve found it!… Here’s the story…
Developed by Finlay Munro who was behind the various Twilight/Enigma Variations games (Including Kick Off 2 cartridge), this was to be significantly better than the original game. Here is the code
Graphics were provided by Wayne Billingham, who recently came forward as the Mega Twins artist. Wayne informs GTW that this was a game being produced by Duncan Kershaw.
Captain Dynamo 2 is a side scrolling game where you have to defuse bombs in different locations. It’s pretty much similar to Flimbos Quest and Hawkeye, where you have to travel in two directions to find an object.
The game was cancelled the same time Codemasters pulled out of the C64 scene altogether… and was yet another game from their collection deemed to have been lost forever until now. Finlay has been talking about the game, and he can remember being paid for the game but can’t remember ever receiving a copy of the game or seeing it on the shelves.
Wayne Billingham recently sent GTW a disk with Captain Dynamo 2 written on it. Upon initial reading, the disk was corrupted and only listed graphic files. Still a good finding for GTW, but after passing on the corrupted disk to see if more graphics were locked away on the disk – Skeletor comes back and finds a fully executable preview of the game!… and almost complete too!
The game looks very nice in its late stage – we think all the levels are in place, and there are just a few glitches. It seems only a few tweaks, final level, end sequence and music were needed. But does such a version exist? Finlay isn’t sure – but someday we hope Finlay is to dig out his disks to take a look. A loading screen which was unused was also dug out from Wayne’s Amiga disks (Thanks to Adrian from aGTW for the converting!)
For now, enjoy – and use “1” to skip levels :-) Also check out the graphic files also on the disk!
A big big finding!… can the full game be found? did it exist?…
Contributions: Wayne Billingham, Finlay Munro, Will Morton, Skeletor, Adrian Simpson
Captain Dynamo the first game was fun. I remember enjoying it and at Budget price it was decent. Although this does look better and has that CJ’s Elephant Antics or even Turbo the Tortoise feel about it. I am sure this would have been decent but Codemasters were a bit ruthless, They jumped into the console market too quickly.