Night Hunter

Ubisoft

Status: Preview, Findability: 4/5

Thanks to screenshots from various magazines for an Amiga version of Night Hunter, it can be confirmed that this is in fact Night Hunter by Ubisoft. In the game, you control a nice Hi-res overlaid Dracula who must roam around his castle. Pressing down on the joystick turns you into a werewolf type character.

The first two previews have no sound, and the first preview doesn’t have very good scrolling. Preview two has much smoother scrolling, but little more than the first preview. There are a few glitches and bugs in both, but this can be put down to the stage reached by the previews. Dracula can actually walk in the air, and moonwalk too!

The third preview actually contains music by Jeroen, and allows you to go outside of the castle. This seems to be a later version of the game, and possibly this is how far it reached.

Jeroen Tel’s awesome music sits in the HVSC with its awesome samples and can also be downloaded from here. Apparently the tunes were done in a rush thanks to Ubisoft’s quick demands.

Originally it was not known why the game was cancelled, as Ubisoft continued to produce C64 games until 1992. Possibly the game was too hungry for sprites, as the main character is very well animated, two sprites high and has a overlay. Certainly by hacking into the game’s code, the player seems to have all his animations which he would have had in the full game. There were no other sprites made.

The game also saw release on the likes of the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, Atari ST, Amiga and PC. So clearly there was some kind of issue with the C64’s development.

Well, thanks to a contributor – we learn that the coder was a chap called Guy Mille – who worked on Iron Lord previously for Ubisoft. Although the game was seemingly progressing well, Guy was under huge pressure regarding the graphics and fixing glitches, freeing additional scanlines. Some of the demands were a bit too much, and Guy called it a day with Ubisoft and moved on. Bruno also confirms that this was the case sadly.

As a result it seems – Ubisoft decided to cancel the C64 version. Did Guy release the remains of the game as a result of this? Nope – Guy had handed over the source code after leaving the project for pastures new.

There does exist a version which features enemies and sprites, which is what started to cause the glitches and issues that evented in cancellation of the game. It is now very unlikely that the last version of this game will ever see the light of day, but you never know. It is lucky that this version at least did make it!

Contributions: Ross Sillifant, Unknown, Bruno Kortulewski, Nimo, Guy Mille, Nemo

Supporting content

Update history

  • 03/11/20 – Added in all known previews so far to download. Could be some differences to explore.
  • 22/03/17 – SFX credit added thanks to Nemo
  • 19/01/16 – Scan added!
  • 04/02/15 – Graphic artist confirms details
  • 23/07/14 – Added credits thanks to comment contributor
  • 05-04-14 – Added CVG scans mentioning the C64 version.
Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 8 Comments

8 Responses to Night Hunter

  1. I have (or had) the DOS version of this game. It was awesome and it was challenging. I was hoping to find somewhere I could get a download copy of it but so far I haven’t found anything. I thought for sure gog.com would have it but they don’t.

  2. look incredible that a running version was crossed ages, I reverted all materials to ubi (including sources)… Anyway this version sounds early version as the latest one have enemies on screen that created famous glitches…
    effectually I’ve left due to interesting offers in others business and cannot manage pressure on the project (mostly requirements)

    sorry Bruno for that

    • Thanks for commenting Guy! Is there any chance that you kept anything of the later version that you speak of, with the enemies?

      • as I said all materials was given back to ubi.

        Project manager at that was really incompetent and didn’t know so much in video game : she was not able to understand why it took so long to fix some glitch due to scrolling and flip to bitmap for HUD.
        Also constraint on C64 was increase (yes original atari ST version does not have scrolling at all). Graphic managements like scrolling and use 3 sprites per character force to have a strong sprite multiplexing routine, that not allow so much time to count processor cycles precisely)

        • Apologies Guy, so you did! It is a shame about the project, as it was looking great – but could have been adapted for the C64. Glad to help document the game’s history, so many thanks for that!

  3. I was incredibly surprised to see these demos on which I worked 25 years ago.
    I ask myself the same questions, how this preview sneak out from ubi? Didn’t have the answer.
    I confirm Ubi canceled this game after too much delay to have a correct release, due to the graphic management issues, to my regret. The programmer (Guy) left the company after too much pressure and probably because he was a misfit in the programmers team.

    About the graphics, I’m the only one to be credited on, M.Albinet nor F.Sauer worked on it.
    Now I will quickly install vice and try these demos, who reminds me the time when graphics was made with a joystick…

    Cheers

  4. “guy mille” was the programmer, he left the company due to heavy requests on graphics (like glitches need additionnal scanline,etc…
    same programmer who work on iron lord c64

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