Another game which was said to be released from Kele Line in 1987 (Mentioned in Soft, #1, January/February 1987, pg. 10). It is another title from Kele Line which we knew little about at the time.
The company sadly went bankrupt in late 1987 and as a result any developments were scrapped. Nothing was ever been seen of the game.
Rune Vendler (who had no involvement with the game) got in touch with GTW64 via the comments and confirmed that the game was eventually released by Starvision as “M.A.C.H”, which you can check out here: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=4494&d=18&h=0
More details regarding the name change were then found by Jazzcat in IC RUN 1988 (issue 1). The magazine however contained a stack of factual errors regarding the game’s early history.
Developer Thomas Zelikman got in touch about what really happened and informed us that he and Torben Bakager had started working on the early beginnings of the game whilst they were in touch with Søren Grønbech, who was associated with Kele Line at the time. That was how the loose link with the company was made for the game it seems.
When Kele Line closed, Starvision was started up by Søren and Ivan Sølvason, where many former Kele Line staff switched over. It is at Starvision where the game was picked up properly. At some point the game had been renamed to M.A.C.H too.
Thomas informs us that Worldwide Software later sold M.A.C.H. in the states about a year later under the label “Freebird”, and sadly never saw a dime from the sales. The only reason he know about that was because he ended up at InnerPrise Software in Maryland, which accidentally got involved in marketing M.A.C.H.
So there we have it – the name had basically just changed through development. Case very much closed!
Contributions: Anders, Rune Vendler, Jazzcat, Henrik Matzen, Thomas Zelikman, Andrew Partis
Supporting content
Gallery
Update history
- 31/01/24 – New details and corrections from programmer Thomas Zelikman, plus added scan of Zzap interview with Kele Line that mentions game.
- 10/01/22 – Added Kele Line scans thanks to Henrik Matzen listing the game as coming soon.
- 31/01/16 – Confirmation by Jazzcat via press details.
- 27/12/14 – Details of what happened to the game thanks to Rune Vendler
This game was released as “M.A.C.H.” by Starvision.
Thanks Rune, was it just renamed and released like that?