Not to be confused with the Commodore VIC-20 game of the same name – this particular Garden Wars was developed in Italy and to be released by a company called JCE.
Andrea Pachetti revealed the game in a great blog post in November 2022 and that the game was first cited back in mid-1984, and remained in the publisher’s catalogue until at least 1986.
So was the game actually ever in existence? Did anyone buy it? The game is still unfortunately at large, even though it was sort of reviewed and is seen in physical forms in catalogue images. A screenshot of part of the game was shown too.
Thanks to Andrea’s post as the original source, the game is described as follows:
Romeo , the protagonist of our game, is the victim of a spell cast on him by the old witch of the woods, since some time ago he had collected magical seedlings destined for mysterious spells. To free himself from the spell that oppresses him, Romeo must go through eight enchanted gardens that separate him from the wall beyond which he will find salvation.
During this adventurous and dangerous journey he must collect all the lucky charm plants he encounters in his steps, while avoiding the poisonous ones planted by the witch in his path. But his escape is also hampered by horrendous monsters who relentlessly pursue him, and if that weren’t enough he must avoid falling into the many bewitched wells .
Once he has reached the ladder , he cannot enter the next garden without having collected all the lucky plants and having touched all the gnomes of the wood which will help him escape. Once he reaches the eighth garden, to pass this last test that separates him from freedom, he will have to contend with six monsters, and once under the wall he will have to look for the ladder blindly , since he will not be able to see it. Find it, it will come down automatically, and Romeo will be free.
Andrea has done a very detailed search and investigation, and so far hasn’t been able to match up the game to any other releases – so it is believed to still be at large. Do you know anything more about the game, and can you help find it?
Contributions: Andrea Pachetti, Fabrizio Bartoloni
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Thank you so much for citing my article and adding “Garden Wars” to the GTW archive! I really hope that in the future someone can provide more information about the game itself, and find it somehow. Garden Wars has been “haunting” me :-) since 1985 when I first saw the ads, and maybe one day I’ll be able to play it.
Hi Andrea, no problem at all and thank you for all your hard work trying to find out more about the title. Fingers crossed something does turn up in the future and we can see it properly preserved.