1988 Firebird and then Electronic Arts
Platform: Atari ST (and likely Commodore Amiga)
An impressive looking title which featured a massive dragon main character, which took up most of the screen. This was to be a second title signed up by Firebird from ICOM Simulations, along with Blazing Barrels (which also never saw release).
The game was shown briefly in a few magazines, and TelecomSoft’s Richard Hewison recalls seeing the game on the ST and how simple it was:
“Dragon was never advertised, and the development version on the ST was extremely simple. Basically, on the left you saw a castle with a drawbridge. The drawbridge was open, and a large dragon sprite could walk along the drawbridge and back. That was about it! The whole thing looked and felt a little bit like ‘Black Lamp’ which Firebird had only published earlier the same year (1988).
I have no recollection as to what happened to the deal with ICOM (UK) Ltd. It might have still been active when BT sold the labels to MicroProse, or the deal might have already been dead.”
About a year later, the title was signed up with Electronic Arts, still developed by Jake Glover and Dave Lawson, but this time under a rebranded name of Rapier. That additional version also didn’t see publication.
Although the version Richard saw didn’t seem too advanced, by the time it got to Electronic Arts, it was starting to look a little more fleshed out – with another screen found by Richard of that version.
With thanks to Ross Sillifant for the scans and also Richard Hewison and his Bird Sanctuary website (currently down for now) for the information.
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