1993 Finetime Software
Platform: PC (DOS)
Our next entry into the archives is a title that we hadn’t been aware of until it suddenly turned up during an archive search. We believe that the game was to be called ShelShock, and was written by Finlay Munro as part of Finetime Software. It may have been possibly a working title, and no story is known for it.
At this stage, it seems that Finlay produced a proof of concept for a new 3D engine, which is similar to games like Paul Woakes’ Damocles. Throughout there are a mixture of solid 3D objects, but also sprites too for more detailed objects. It runs quite well, though there is a bit of slowdown in places, especially where there are lots of sprite objects.
It is a relatively large world to explore, almost like a small village/town that has been created. You can use a mouse pointer to click onto objects to identify them, but there doesn’t seem to be any way of entering buildings or do much else at this early stage. The icons on the dashboard don’t seem to do anything either.
A few keys allow you to change the perspective, but that is about it by the looks of it. It seems the world was created as a means to potentially entice publishers to either ShelShock as a game, or the engine itself for other productions.
Andy Swann got in touch via the comments to suggest that “Andy’s cube” in the game was probably referring to him, and that the texture mapper in the demo was likely his. Andy suggests this was testing and learning 3D in an era before consumer level graphics cards. Andy contacted Finlay, and came back with the following details to summarize in the comments:
“This was a tech demo and learning 3D exercise. At the time, most games were 2D and we were trying to learn 3D, I guess getting ready for the future. This was written before Doom came out and changed everything.
It’s a quad renderer, flat and textured. Screen space clipping, that I’m guessing is a bit flakey. No perspective correct textures, spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. We never got there, then the first generation of 3D graphics cards appeared. Scaled sprites too.
Coding was a loose collaboration between myself, Finlay Munro and David Box. If one of us come up with a better / faster routine we’d pass it around. We have no idea where the border graphics came from.
Even though I’ve not seen this in over 30 years, as soon as the trees hovered into view, I heard Fin’s voice saying ‘We’ll have to optimize the sprite scaler’.”
So there we have it. It wasn’t really a game as such, but just a technical demo. Check out a build of the game/engine for yourself in something like DOSBOX. If you find anything interesting of note tucked away in the demo, please do let us know!
With thanks to Mark Greenshields for allowing us to preserve remains of this title and Andy Swann and Finlay Munro for additional information and help.
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Spoken to Fin.
This was a tech demo and learning 3D exercise. At the time, most games were 2D and we were trying to learn 3D, I guess getting ready for the future. This was written before Doom came out and changed everything.
It’s a quad renderer, flat and textured. Screen space clipping, that I’m guessing is a bit flakey.
No perspective correct textures, spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. We never got there, then the first generation of 3D graphics cards appeared.
Scaled sprites too.
Coding, a loose collaboration between myself, Finlay Munro and David Box. If one of us come up with a better / faster routine we’d pass it around.
We have no idea where the border graphics came from.
Even though I’ve not seen this in over 30 years, as soon as the trees hoved into view I heard Fin’s voice “We’ll have to optimise the sprite scaler”.
As a complete aside, loved your talk at Zzap live. Hopefully see you at the next one.
Thank you so much Andy! Just updated the page with the details and confirmation. Glad you liked the talk too and will do for sure!
Would you guys be happy for us to include the source code on the page, or would you prefer that kept offline? Either way, let me know if you would like a copy sent to you via email.
Forgot to add – but perhaps Wayne Billingham/David Bland did the panel graphics? They did a few things for Fin I believe. We also saved Fin’s ArcWar game last week which Wayne + David did the graphics for: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/05/arcwar/
I think I’m the Andy of “Andy’s Cube”, guessing that’s my texture mapper
Pretty sure this is testing \ learning 3D in the era before consumer level graphics cards
I will contact Fin.
That’s fantastic, thanks Andy! That would be great to learn more about it too from Fin, please feel free to pass on my contact details. There is a source code archive that I can pass over too if Fin wants a copy (not added to the site unless he gives permission etc).
Sorry I didn’t get chance to chat on Saturday and thanks for coming to the talk Andy. Saw lots of people including yourself and tried to catch up, but the whole day went in a bit of a haze! Hope you are well!