Ice Age

Firebird

Status: No Download, Findability: 1/5

A very obscure title now, and yet another Firebird title to enter the archives. Ice Age mainly has come to light due to the SID file which is in HVSC that Jeroen Tel did for this game and sound effects from Charles Deenen. However, no game of this title ever made it onto the C64, so it begs the question “What happened?”

After quizzing Jeroen about the game, he suggested that it was a game either programmed by Ian and Mick Jones, or by Ashley Routledge and Dave Saunders. Mick Jones however confirmed that the game was not by him or Ian, so is it therefore Ash n Dave?

We’re digging around now to try and find out more, but at the moment nothing seems to be known. No other game by Firebird was released with Jeroen’s music in it, so it seems like the game was never released.

One suggestion seems to be that the game could have originally been Tyger Tyger, which we will try and find out more about soon to confirm/deny, but the dates don’t seem to add up and usually the sound is done quite late in a game’s development.

The SFX demo from Charles does reveal some clues about what the game may have contained. There are sound effects for footsteps of a man, but also a wolf. Is it possible that you turned into a wolf at certain points? There are also footsteps, sword sounds and explosions. There are no jumping effects, so perhaps this was a side scrolling game of some kind? Pure speculation for now :)

According to contributor Professor Chaos, Firebird did not pay MoN for their services as a penalty for spreading the music beforehand (around May 1988). This is confirmed on page 6 of a November 1988 paper scene magazine at: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=176504  or see scans below.

Then Professor Chaos found another lead, buried within the scroll text of That’s the Way It Is. In the main part with the girl, under $B107-$B19C, Charles leaves a message for Ikari:  “IKARI,I HOPE YOU LIKE THE SOUNDS FOR ICE-AGE. PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THE GAME AS SOON AS IT IS RELEASED. HOPE TO HEAR SOON FROM YOU MARK,NIK OR PAL…”

Now the question is whether members of Ikari were coding the game, or if it was anticipated they would crack it on release to pass on. Well, we then found some old (believed to be Compunet) text which Charles put up back around late 1988 which confirmed that the music and sound effects were done for a game being done by a member of Ikari. Check out the text under the articles tab.

We spoke with Charles quickly in August 2022, and unfortunately he recalled nothing of a game called Ice Age, or the Ikari link after all this time.

Looking at Ikari, there was a Mark who went under the alias of “Just Ice” and was a coder. A co-incidence with the name, or is the developer that we are looking for?

If you know anything more about this game – please let us know.

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Contributions: Jeroen Tel. Michael Jones, Professor Chaos

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Text from Maniacs of Noise regarding Ice Age and use of their music.

“In the last few months we heard a lot of music from us in the demos which you all made (if you take a close look at them you can barely call them demos, but ok….). A few months back somebody used a piece called “ice-age” in a demo. This piece was originally made for a member from ikari for his game ice-age.

We didn’t hear anything from that guy anymore, so we tried to sell it to somebody else (we had no contract with him). After a while a firm called probe software had interest in the piece. It was almost sold when they saw a demo downloaded from compunet with that piece of music in it. Probe called me and said the deal was over.

So we lost the 360 pounds which we should get for it. The same thing happened with Alloyrun (for a game by Ash and Dave). I don’t know from whom the person in this matter got it, but we lost another 375 pounds on it. If the same thing will happen with Gaplus now, then you can be sure we sue the persons who brought it on the pirate market. Thalamus was very angry about Hawkeye and almost didn’t want to pay us. Is this really what you hackers want ??

I don’t know if you realise it, but we have to make a living out of it. It’s not just a game, but a piece of software which is very valuable to us. If you still want to hear our music in games, then please stop using unreleased music’s. If you are not sure about whether a piece was used or not, then please call me. If you get a piece of music from us which is not released, then please tell me. If the information is valuable to me, then you get a reward from me (honest!), but don’t use the music in such a lousy thing as a demo !!!!

I hope you all understand the situation in which we are.”

Update history

  • 11/08/22 – New information and tidy ups thanks to Professor Chaos.
  • 23/05/15 – Added previously unseen SFX demo
Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 8 Comments

8 Responses to Ice Age

  1. Heya,

    In 1987-1988 he was a swapping friend of mine and we meet us in Venlo.
    I try to contact Mark (Just Ice) but i have a wrong adress / email.

    Did someone have the right adress / email ?
    Please write me.

    The Skyfighter TSF of The Darkness TDS

  2. Perhaps another trace, Charles Deenen’s famous demo “That’s the Way It Is”: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=11775

    Go to the main part (the girl), either wait for the scrolltext, or better look directly at $b107-$b19c. Either way, it says there: “IKARI,I HOPE YOU LIKE THE SOUNDS FOR ICE-AGE. PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THE GAME AS SOON AS IT IS RELEASED. HOPE TO HEAR SOON FROM YOU MARK,NIK OR PAL…”

    By Ikari, Mark (or Makk who left in April/May’88), Nik and Pal, he clearly means the cracking group: https://csdb.dk/timeline/?group_id=33&eday=22&emonth=8&eyear=1988&show=member

    Though I can’t tell if any of the members (above timeline only) actually made commercial games? The above message sounds a bit to me like they did. As far as I can search CSDb, none of them ever released music, sounds or similar for Ice Age alone.

    Btw, I read you asked Jeroen, but did you ask Charles too? At the time, he was the businessman of MoN.

    • That’s brilliant! Though its either they were doing the game, or it was anticipated they would crack the game upon its release.

      Spoke with Charles many years ago and he didn’t recall anything, but i’ll check again and mention the Ikari link.

      • Looks like indeed it was a member of Ikari writing the game. See “Articles” tab. Wondering if it could be “Just Ice” (or Mark) who was the developer. Probably too easy a co-incidence with the name :)

  3. > No other game by Firebird was released with Jeroen’s music in it

    Pedantic correction: Savage and Combat Crazy were Firebird titles with JT music, albeit the latter was released under the Silverbird sub-brand.

    Some pure speculation on my part: is it possible that “Ice Age” is actually Tyger Tyger? That’s a Firebird game from a programmer and artist who were active on Compunet (like A&D and I&M), and the GtW entry for it lists it as having music by Maniacs of Noise, and the dates – roughly – match up.

    • Wow, can’t believe I wrote that, as I love Savage! :) … I’ll get that corrected asap, thanks John and thanks for the heads up.

      I think that is certainly plausible! I’ll see if I can find out some more about that and get confirmation.

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