Well, ever since the upgrade of GTW64 was completed – it was straight onto preparing for the Christmas update. No rest for the wicked. Hopefully we won’t disappoint with some big findings to keep you going. Lets kick things off:
Otherworld full game
Our big finding for this update is a long lost full game from Andrew Morris (graphic artist for Kikstart 2 amongst many others) which we have salvaged from Andrew’s work disks. This is a very cool Thing on a Spring’esq game which unfortunately didn’t quite make the budget labels of the day. A huge thanks to Jani Tahvanainen for helping recover the game and also fixing things up as a completable game.
Fuzzball music found + more!!
A month or so ago, Jeroen Tel helped us recover all the tunes he composed for Fuzzball. You can now check out Level 2, Title Screen and High Score tunes by Jeroen which have not been heard before – and they are pretty brill!.
But that is not all! Literally at the death, Mikael Backlund caught wind that we had located the tunes, asked us to hold back as there was opportunity to share something a little bigger with you today! Mikael and his team have spent the last 10 years taking the Fuzzball preview apart and reconstructing it and are now able to construct new levels in the game. To show exactly what is possible – you can now play Level 2 for the first time!
This gives a huge indication of what could be possible – does it mean that we could finally see the game completed? Check out the all new Level 2 preview and fingers crossed there will be more to come!
Epsilon preview recovered
Next up, thanks to a loan of disks from Dawn Drake – we made the surprise discovery of builds of Epsilon, Paul Hughes’ long lost space shooter intended for Rainbird. It’s a nice set of previews giving a glimpse of something special. Thanks to Martin Pugh for fixing the second preview!
Exodus (Nexus) reconstructed
Exodus was to be the unofficial sequel to Hades Nebula, with a more Uridium-like game. It didn’t get far, and Richard Paynter thought he’d never see it again. We luckily managed to find what is thought to be the last remaining copy of the source code. Jani Tahvanainen has painstakingly put the game together and has helped us to present a preview showing the early title screen, an asteroids sequence and the main game. It isn’t fully playable, but another one saved and certainly worth a look:
Martin Piper racing game recovered
Next is a very early stage racing game which Martin Piper was working on back in the day (notice the test Turbocharge car sprite). This was to test a cool road drawing routine. Now you can check it for yourself.
Also – a big Happy Birthday today to Martin!
Two full White Wizard adventures found
Found on a disk sent to Darren Melbourne from Gary Liddon was a set of text adventure games which were sent to the White Wizard at Zzap 64 back in 1985. Sadly the games have never surfaced until now!
Andrew Morris game graphics added
Additionally on Andrew Morris’ disks, we found advanced graphics for two games that sadly never made it. Sadly no executables as of yet, but check out these very cool graphics by Andrew and find out a bit more about these potentially exciting games to find (the first game name not the same as the above finding!):
Epsilon (Space Taxi clone), Speed Sprinter
Early Paranoid Software game graphics found
A bunch of graphics were also found for two games, Combat 2004 and Light Cycles 2004 by Paranoid Software.
Combat 2004, Light Cycles 2004
Paddle Mania screens found
Additionally on some disks from Darren Melbourne, a set of screens were found for Paddle Mania – showing how the game would have roughly looked. These have now been added. The music will come in the future! :)
Mountain Combaters new entry
The creator of Beauty and The Beast, Maham Samanpajouh, got in touch to inform us that his team was working on another game called Mountain Combaters. Maham kindly passed on some screenshots and the intro sequence which you can check out. We hope to show you more very soon!
Beauty and The Beast tape file
In addition to the above, Maham very kindly passed on some extra info and a TAP image of Beauty and The Beast, with more content. This has been added to the entry:
Pyramid of Time and Futureball updates!
Credits are now confirmed, and the creators behind both these elusive Firebird games speak about both games and give some detailed background about what the games were like. Are they about to be found?
And along with the above (including repeated links), there have also been these updates… get ready, it was a big backlog!
70 new entries added
3 2 1 quiz game, Alberdo, Alien 8, Alien game, All dogs go to heaven, Alliance, Arena, Armed Retailators, Baby Starts Walking, Basket Case, Batman – The Adventure, Beat 1984!, Cabal, Chimera 2, Choc-a-Bloc Charlie 2, Chopper Land, Chops, Chuck Rock, Combat 2004, Conquest, Cyclone, Cyclotron, Dots and Boxes, Dr Who and the Warlord, Dreadnought, Ecorche, Epsilon, Fantasy, Firehawk, Gem Quest, Hareraiser 2, Hero, Hexapawn, IndeflataBall, Industria 14, Jet Pac, Jet Set Willy V1, Knightlore, Light Cycles 2004, Logger Mania, Mag Max V1, Megatanio, Mountain Combaters, Newt, Opera House and The Pay Off, Peace, Pigs on Marse, Piracy, Plum Duff, Psyclapse, QA!, Race Fun, Sapiens, Sheep in Space, Ski Run, Space Raider, Speed Sprinter, Star Traders, TT Racer 2, Test Master 2, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Great London-Paris Air Race!, The White Dragon, Trucc, Unknown war game, Unnamed Tony Gibbs game, Video Images game, Vietnam game, Vinnie Jones Soccer Spectacular, XS
84 updates added
Be sure to have a good sift through – there are plenty of Creator Speak segments added, new scans and articles added. I’ve commented where I can on some of the highlights:
10-yard Fight (Creator speaks), Appointment With Fear, Bamboo, Barbarian 3, Barry The Seahorse, Block Game, Blood Rush, Born In Space, CJ’s 4th Adventure, Car Game (Road techniques added), Charlie Chaplin, Chiller V1, Crossbones (Creator speaks), Damned, Dandy The Comic (Scan added), Death Pit (Creator speaks), Defector, Defensive, Detective Takashi, Devils Of The Deep, Dive Bomber, Dropzone 2, Escape From Colditz, Fade To Black, Frontier, Futureball (Creator speaks), Gamma Strike, Gauntlet 3, Gladiator, Go Ape! (Poster + creator speaks), Halloween, Hard Fire, Hyper Rally (Scan added), In The Beginning, Inspector Gadget (Scans added), Kid Niki (Extra info + creator speaks), Linking Leroy, Marble Madness Clone, Mega Games (Split up entries), Metal Warrior 4 V1, Murder, Nigel Mansell’s Grand Prix (C64 file of loading screen + Simon Nicol link), Operation Thunderbolt V1, Panic Button, Parasol Stars, Phantis, Plotting, Pyramid Of Time (Creator Speaks), Race Drivin’, Rastan V1, Rommel: Battles for Tobruk, SAS Strike Force, Saviour, Seuck 2, Shao Lin’s Road V1, Sorry! (Game found!), Starace, Starship, Streethawk (Merged entries), Sturmtruppen (Translated Ready64 article), Subterranean Stryker, Super Scramble, Super Thief, Sword Of Samurai, Talvisota, The Battle Of Chickamauga, The Godfather, The Run, The Soul Gem Of Martek (Advert scans), The Tebbit (Article scan), The Terminator, Three Weeks In Paradise, Thundercats V1 (Confirmation that it was Beyond The Ice Palace!), Troddlers (New 2012 edition added), Tujad, Tyger Tyger, Unnamed CRL Game (Creator speaks), Vale Of Shadows (Creator speaks), Venturia, Virgin Atlantic Challenge (Article scans), Zynon (Download + credits added)
Merry Christmas!
Well, we hope you enjoy the update. Now that the site has been upgraded, this may well be the last update of this kind. The reason is that we now aim to update the site as we get information come in and keep on top of the backlog. This in turn we hope will help us to recover more long lost software. See you in 2013 if the Mayans are incorrect! :)
Wowsers, almost too much to take in there!
Excellent work Frank! I really should do some more investigating…
Bloody amazing update! Where on earth do I start?!
Got loads of ‘evenings by the fire’ reading to catch up on :)
Superb work.