1994 Anco
Platform: Nintendo Game Boy
Whilst digging through the Enigma Variations archives, we found an archive relating to an abandoned Game Boy original development of Kick Off 3. However, the approach to the development was interesting and resourceful.
First of all, it seems that early on an attempt was made to simply modify the original Super Kick Off codebase and force a 2.5″ viewpoint with pre-existing characters. Present in the archive are two builds (which are practically identical apart from header differences) which show the standard Kick Off menus, but with the new perspective.
It sort of works, but its a little clunky and slow at this stage. Then it seems that the go-ahead was given to proceed with the approach, and developer Andrew Bowen began work on updating the menus to match the other conversions and also change the sprites.
We have a 3rd build which unfortunately doesn’t quite work, with the menu tiles being corrupted in the VRAM. It seems that Andrew was working on getting the menus updated and working when the plug was pulled, and at that stage the display wasn’t quite working.
When you run the prototype, the screen is garbled, but you can move a cursor around and interact with objects in the background. Hopefully at some stage we will be able to get the display working, or if you have any luck – please let us know. Looking at the player tiles, it seems the start of adding the new player sprites was under way, but nowhere near complete. The pitch graphics don’t seem to have changed from the initial concept work.
Looking at some developer documentation, it suggests the menu system was actually complete, though the game itself wasn’t quite there. Only pitch scroll, translation of the macro system and inclusion of ball logic was present. There was still a lot of work to go. See the documents below for an insight.
As for why the conversion was abandoned, Anco would commonly abandon conversions – and Kick Off 3 on the GB was likely to the decline with the platform support by 1994. We hope to get confirmation soon on this, but for now – check out these early glimpses of the game.
With thanks to Mark Greenshields for allowing us to preserve the game.
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