1992 Virgin Games
Platform: SEGA Master System
One of the things most tragic with planned games is when magazines of the time featured them heavily, showing off good looking screenshots of the game in question. This would be the case with Tintin on the Moon, which had been released in the past on home computers such as the Amiga and C64 by Infogrames, but was due for release by Virgin Games on the SEGA Master System in 1992.
The game was to mark the first console adaptation of the classic European comic series, bringing Hergé’s iconic characters to life in a new game designed specifically for the Master System. This was to be no port or rehash of the old Infogrames title.
For those not familiar, the story follows young reporter/detective Tintin who during an investigation gets trapped aboard a rocket launched to the Moon. Upon crash landing, he awakens to discover his loyal dog Snowy is missing. Armed with a spacesuit and high-tech weaponry, Tintin sets out across the lunar landscape to rescue Snowy, encountering a host of dangers along the way.
Plans for the gameplay included blending horizontal shooting segments reminiscent of Defender, with platform/puzzle sections akin to Manic Miner. Players pilot Tintin’s rocket ship across the Moon’s surface, avoiding or battling hazards such as satellites, star fields, moon worms and tanks. Once landed, they must descend into craters, navigating treacherous platforms, moving ledges, and deadly traps to locate Snowy.
The visuals and character design aimed to be faithful to the original comic strip, with plenty of stills and cartoon-like animations. Magazine previews in the likes of SEGA Pro and SEGA Power depicted a game that was shaping up very well, and it would also feature in a number of other magazines.
Development was being carried out by Teeny Weeny Games for Virgin Games. SEGA Pro suggested that Angela Sutherland was the developer, but this was a mistake. More on this further below. The game had been in development for around 3 months when previewed in the magazine (in April 1992) and was due for release in September 1992.
Things then went rather quiet, and it wasn’t until Sega Pro issue 9 (July 1992) that it was mentioned the game had been pushed back to 1993 due to quality concerns raised by SEGA on the game. A similar story it seems to what happened with The Godfather and Die Hard 2 on the same platform. However, nothing further was heard about the game and it seems it was quietly cancelled.
We reached out to Angela Sutherland about the game, who confirmed that she was the project manager for the title. According to Angela, Teeny Weeny Games were commissioned to design and develop the game by Virgin Games, and it was in fact fully completed. When they took the game to the publisher for publication, it was discovered that they didn’t actually have the licence for TinTin.
No final payment was made, so the source code for the game was never handed over, and it remained locked away for over 30 years. Angela couldn’t recall exactly who worked on the game, but suggested it may have been Paul Shirley behind the development. Paul confirmed however it wasn’t him.
One of the artists though was confirmed as Paul Mitchell, who had worked on Choplifter 3 around the time. It seems Paul mainly did sprite work, and suggests that someone else did the backgrounds. Original suggestion was that Paul (Dokk) Docherty may have been the person, though Paul quickly confirmed that this wasn’t one of his.
We’re continuing to investigate who that person was, and if we can work out who the developer was. Unfortunately Paul confirmed that he no longer had anything of his work from back then. As a result, nothing of the game has so far surfaced in the 30 odd years since. But this is at least about to change today:
Although we don’t have anything of the game itself, we have recently recovered all of the music and SFX that was created by Matt Furniss. Music and SFX that hasn’t been heard for over 32 years. This was found in a music demo that had been sent out by Krisalis Software as an example to other development studios of what they could offer as an audio service.
The music demo itself has an interface coded by Shaun Hollingworth that you can select many different tunes and SFX intended for the game, and also includes a scroll text intended for Teeny Weeny Games for their integration. It’s a bit glitchy in the Fusion emulator, and I had to set up two controllers to then press “Start” to move the screen to show the selector.
Hopefully this is a sign of something further positive to surface in the future. Fingers crossed we’ll get hold of those who were involved and see if anything still exists.
With thanks to Mark Greenshields for allowing preservation of the music demo, Angela Sutherland for information on the development, Archive.org, Abandonware France magazines, Stephen Stuttard and SegaRetro.org for various scans, Paul Mitchell and Paul Docherty for helping with investigations and Lost Media Wiki for highlighting issues with screenshots.
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Going by the plot you mentioned, it sounds like it’s more based on the 60’s animated version (Espionage Moon) – the plot of the original Tintin book has Tintin as part of the first manned mission to the moon (with Professor Calcalus, Captain Haddock and a supporting characfter) but with Snowy the dog as a passenger (plus additional stowaways, accidental or on purpose). They form the double volume books Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon,
The stage 1 graphic is from a scene in the book where teh villianous Colonel Jorden is trying to steal the rocket