1988 Superior Software
Platforms: Commodore 64, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum
This particular entry is closely tied to the Commodore 64 edition of the game, which first helped highlight the project and its unusual origins. For some time, there had been confusion over this title, especially given that Superior Software had already released a Chess game back in 1984. However, this later project was something entirely different, and not simply an update or reworking of the earlier release.
Instead, the game was to be based on the West End musical Chess, and was at one point intended to be released under the name One Night in Bangkok. It was thanks to Christopher Drum on BlueSky that the crucial link was made, after posting an Acorn User article which referenced a BBC Micro version of the game. The article describes the project as follows:
“The long-promised One Night in Bangkok is expected soon. Superior has postponed the game so as to have something to fill the post-holiday lull. The game is based on the West End musical Chess, and is set on a chess board with a three-dimensional Ultimate-style view. Bangkok obeys the rules of chess at all times, there are dangerous pieces roaming around ready to ‘take’ you if you move to the wrong square, and puzzles to solve. Superior has the rights to two of the songs from the show, so they’ll be used as background music.”
So there we have it. Not a continuation of Superior Software’s earlier Chess title, but a completely different licensed game with a unique concept.
At this stage, it is not clear how far the BBC Micro version progressed, or if it differed significantly from versions planned for other platforms. Richard Hanson of Superior Software confirmed the game was under development, but unfortunately for “various reasons”, it never came to fruition. So its not clear how far the game had got, or why it was cancelled – but reading between the lines, it sounds like there were some difficulties with the project perhaps.
Stairway To Hell had the following details from various magazine clips, as well as a mocked up advert which we’ve added to our scans:
From A & B Computing, September 1988:
News too at last of One Night in Bangkok, which has been talked about for ages – it is apparently some kind of conversion of the stage musical Chess. As far as we can tell, Superior have the rights to that song and to ‘I Know Him So Well’ also. Sounds intriguing.
From Matthew Atkinson, December 2001:
The programmer had the idea of the game having an isometric layout and being based on the game of chess. All the puzzles would rely on chess moves etc. and it ran in mode 4. It was very ambitious which was its undoing. I was handed the work at a late stage, four months before the rights ran out, to try and whip it into shape to recoup some of the money.
Alas the game was not as developed as I’d been led to believe and it got abandoned. Strangely when I got sent the disc, design etc it came unregistered post direct from him and these were the only copies. It was as if the programmer were willing it to disappear…
From Darren Izzard, December 2001:
Superior were also going to release it on the C64, and my friend Chris Abbott was hired to do the music (he also did the music for “By Fair Means Or Foul” on the BBC). I know he completed at least a version of “I Know Him So Well” before the project was shelved – he has placed the SIDPlay files for it in the HVSC archive, so you can actually hear what the game would have sounded like! (Well, on the Commodore, anyway!)
From Gil Jaysmith, February 2002:
It came to Superior on the Spectrum, and the programmer was a Welsh guy called Bill Percy, who had already self-published a game called Mount Challenge through his company Aasvoquelle Software (my spelling may be wrong there!).
He came up with the Chess idea after seeing a feature about the musical on breakfast TV, so he designed and coded a game and sent it to Superior. This landed him the job of the Repton 3 conversion, since this had just come out on the BBC, Superior was thinking of breaking into the Spectrum market, and it was an obvious conversion.
Bill then worked away on the Spectrum R3 for a long while and as I was working independently on the R1 and R2 ports we got in contact. R3 got finished, and I playtested it in 1988 to make sure it was completable, but Superior took their time over marketing Spectrum titles, and eventually only two were released: the boxing game By Fair Means Or Foul, and ReptonMania (my Reptons 1 and 2 bundled on one tape).
Superior decided that they couldn’t get enough ‘push’ behind further titles and gave up on the Spectrum. Oh well. I don’t know who the initial BBC programmer was, who sent Matthew Atkinson the work-in-progress for him to complete, but I’m fairly sure Bill’s version was finished. (It seems unlikely to me that it was Bill himself doing the BBC version, but it might explain the state it was in if he’d had to learn 6502 & BBC stuff from scratch!) In those days ports were often done by eye rather than by any thorough exchange and conversion of data and algorithms, so it could easily be that someone intervened who wasn’t up to it. Game project management wasn’t then all it is now, either!
So it seems the lead development was the ZX Spectrum – platforms now updated and some developer names too. If you know anything more, then please do get in touch!
With thanks to Christopher Drum for the information, Stairway to Hell for additional details, Richard Hanson for additional info and Archive.org for the scans.
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