Games That Weren't^®

Another early game development from Cory Kin. This was a rescue job in itself, as the disks which Pet Rescue was stored on were heavily deterioating. We only just managed to salvage the source code from this abandoned game – which Cory has no recollection about.

Compiling up the sources have revealed just a title screen at this stage, not really giving anything away about the game.

Cory had spent some time modifying one of his block editors to create the Pet Rescue Designer tool, of which there were some sample graphics. This gives a little more clues about the game, showing what looks like a sort of scrolling platformer game… maybe like Super Mario Bros. No sprites unfortunately though. The score panel includes the name “Eric”, so was this the main character in the game?

Although we have compiled the title screen – if you look at the corrupted screenshot – you can see that the sample graphics should be slotted in and scrolling as well. However, we don’t think Cory got to that stage of integrating the graphics. Maybe someone would be up for doing this for us sometime?

Ignore the Ocean credit, as this was likely just a filler for the eventual company that Cory hoped to sell the game to. However, how come the game was cancelled so early on? What was it going to be like as well?

We hope that the compiled title screen and graphics will jog Cory’s memories a little and therefore will find out more soon about this title. Is there another disk waiting to be discovered with a playable game? We shall see…

Our next title is the beginnings of what seems to be a sideway scrolling shooter produced by Cory Kin. The title on the disk for the source file was called Navadon.

There isn’t a huge amount to see just yet, but the game seems to consist of two sprites bolted together top and bottom. The background graphics are just letters, painted to form Cory’s name. There are sprites in the bottom area which could have been intended for the score, powerup panel or maybe just to get all the sprites on screen. Interaction is non existance, the game just scrolls and you can shoot.

So what was this game going to turn into? And why was it cancelled so early on?

We will be speaking with Cory soon to find out more about this early title and what the plans were for it. Was it to be a Transbot clone maybe?
Watch this space!

Whilst sifting through Cory Kin’s disks, one of the (many) surprises was the finding of several demos which were produced by Carl Coffey, who many of you will recognize as the developer of the original Soldier of Light game for ACE and also Wheelies.

Master Blast was one of the findings, which is actually a full game produced by Carl – and feels very much like it could have actually been written by Jeff Minter. It is very clear that the replication of Jeff’s style is intentional. The game itself is fairly simple, but is a fun 5 minute blaster with lots of colour and effects throughout.

It is surprising that a game in this state never managed to surface until now (no trace has currently been found of the game online). Did Carl just write this for fun, or was it ever passed onto anyone?

We are currently speaking to Carl at the moment to try and find out more about the game and what the intentions were for it. For now, check out this cool Jeff Minter inspired blaster!

A pretty cool game which is based on the Jet Fighter game on the VCS Combat compilation. It even has a AI player that you can play against!

This was found whilst sorting through Cory Kin’s personal disks, and we believe was written by Spidey – who did some demos with Cory back in the Compunet days.

It’s uncertain what this game was intended for and if it was just done for fun. But its great to see it preserved and allow others to play it. I suspect Spidey may have well forgotten all about this game! :)

Anyway, if you know more about this title – please let us know!

One of the big surprises of working through Cory Kin’s disks, was the sheer amount of bits and bobs found that were written by Carl Coffey – who was the man behind Wheelies and the aborted Soldier of Fortune.

Flok is one of those surprise findings, and is a early game of Carl’s which seems to have been written around 1985-1986 time. It is a fairly simple space shooter where you fly a large ship over a simple city scape below.

It’s possible that the game was an advert for Carl’s skills, which sadly we never got to see much of on the C64. The game is not too bad, so was it actually intended for a software label? How come this one hasn’t sneaked out until now?

We hope to speak to Carl some day about his work, but for now check out this new game!

UPDATE – Michael from Gamebase64 has confirmed that the game seemingly got a release in limited form by Your Computer. The Spanish edition at least having a copy … http://ver1.commodoremania.com/yc.htm

A slightly bizarre name, which may well have just been a work in progress name set by Cory whilst developing a cool looking bi-directional vertical scroller.

Erik does look pretty neat, even at this very early stage – and has some cool tiles and scrolling effect. It seems the game was to be a sort of Paradroid meets Bounder style game, though hopefully Cory will confirm at some point.

There isn’t much to see, apart from a single enemy which fires at you. There are no collisions or bullets, and test sprites are the only things in place.

It is unlikely that the game got any further than this. Nothing more of the game was ever found. What happened to it, and what was the plans for it? Cory will hopefully shed some light very soon!

Watch this space!

Our next entry is for a title we believe was called Earth Mover, due to its filename, but this could also have been a work in progress name. The game was found and recovered from Cory Kin’s personal disk collection.

In its very early stages, this game seems to be a bi-directional sideway scrolling shooter with a large expanded ship that you must control and destroy things. Here though, you can merely move your ship left and right over a cool looking landscape.

It feels very much like a Tony Crowther game for some reason. Was it produced by him? He confirmed sadly that it wasn’t.

For now, much more information is needed to try and see if this one got any further.

Found on a bundle of disks ported from Cory Kin’s collection, we found what seems to have been a title to a game in development by Scoop Designs for Firebird Software back in 1987 and was downloaded from Compunet it seems.

We are unsure exactly what the game itself was shaping up like, but the scroller describes it as one of the fastest space shooters ever seen. The music seems to be place holder music by Rob Hubbard, but its possible he may have been doing proper tunes for it.

There was no trace of the game to be found anywhere else, so do you know any more about it? Check out the title demo for now!