Games That Weren't^®

More Activision for GTW, and this time a graphic adventure game called "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", based on the Science-Fiction novel from Robert A. Heinlein ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress ).

All we know is that Charles H Weidman is linked to the game through doing the graphics, though its listed on the Eager webpage as being for the PC version ( http://eager.back2roots.org /PROG/W/WEIDMAN.html ). So was he involved on the C64 version? Would his graphics have just been ported, or would it have been a text only game?

John Burns who maintains Eager mentioned to GTW64 that there was no mention of any version other than the PC version. Charles apparently only said that the PC version was ever started, which was mentioned on his old website that sadly no longer exists. So was anything ever started?

It’s possible that the reason the game was never released was that Activision at somepoint closed their Infocom section, but wasn’t this in 1989/90? Otherwise its unknown just why this game was cancelled, and we could probably speculate all day :-)

More soon on this one…

This was a SEUCK game released commercially by Compass Software and reviewed by Commodore User in June 1988 in their Cheapo Round up section.

According to the review, the game acked in gameplay and suffered from too many bullets.
The game itself was simply described as a “Run up the garden shooting insects and die a lot” game and got 1/10 for its troubles. Seemed also to be part of a series, with “The Future Zone” reviewed in another issue.

Compass Software were more known for their adventure games, and in particular on the ZX Spectrum. But did Compass decide after the review that it was not worth releasing, or were small numbers released and sneaked out into the world?

We’d love to find it, even if just for the SEUCK vault. But are interested to see also if it had enhancements like Wheelies did back at the same/similiar time.

More soon on this we hope…

Briefly mentioned in an issue of Commodore Cracker, there was a brief news item saying that the conversion of Theme Park for the C64 was looking seriously delayed.

It never surfaced unsurprisingly, and was most likely vapourware. Note in the news was that it was looking seriously delayed.

There honestly isn’t anything to add at the moment. Likely to be nothing, but interesting none the less!

We have added scans from Commodore Cracker, which suggests some names behind Retros – including a Matthew Withers. Can they be found?

More soon on this one we hope!

The Magic Roundabout was a tie-in with the TV show of the same name, CRL published the Spectrum version and were working on a C64 version (As mentioned in an issue of Your Commodore). The spectrum version can be found here: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002985

The game itself was a simple collect them up and received average reviews.

We are not 100% sure of what happened to the C64 conversion though. According to the ex-head of CRL, Clement Chambers, it is thought that not much was done on the C64 version due to it not being able to handle the scrolling used in the game. We will need clarification of this from the developers to be sure though.

Jay Derrett had thought that the game was actually completed and believes that he transcribed the music. He did recall that the game was coded by a chap called Peter Jobate – a name not very common on the C64 platform, with no other games released.

Where is Pete now? Can the story of this game be solved as well as us find something?

A fantastically recieved RPG was recieved by Zzap 64 when they reviewed the first game back in 1991, giving it 90%. The reviewer enjoyed the game very much and was looking forward to the sequel.

But what sequel?… Well, The Magic Candle 2 sadly never quite made it… but was it even started? We have to put an entry in for this game, as the reviewer could have known that Mindcraft were doing a sequel for the C64. A sequel there certainly was, but only for the PC in the end. Even the Amiga version never got released.

According to one online source, the Amiga version was cancelled early on… which we assume could have been the case with the C64 version too. We can understand why the C64 version may have been cancelled, as it would have been into 1992 and very late for the likes of Mindcraft or Microprose to release a C64 game. But the Amiga was getting at its peak and surely not releasing the sequel because the platform was aging would be a bad mistake?

Anyway, we know little more of the C64 conversion, as the first game’s Zzap review seems to be the only reference to the sequel. It may well be vapourware, but we have to be sure…

Do you know any more?…

The Legend Of Prince Valiant was to be a platform game based on the cartoon series shown on BBC television in the early 90’s. Ocean bought the licence and had planned to do conversions across a series of platforms.

Commodore Power magazine confirmed a C64 version in issue 2, whilst various other platform magazines did the same.

Out of all the planned conversions (including a scrapped Amiga version), it seems only the NES and Gameboy versions made it out and was very well recieved in the end (On the NES at least, the GB version seemed to be more like Zelda). The game seemed like your typical platform affair with sniffs of a OP wolf style shooting sub section with a crossbow.

This was very close to the end of the C64’s life, so it would be easy to say that it was just too late… but the Amiga version fell a similiar fate, so what happened?…. Was it the same developer behind both versions, and did they both come out pretty crap?

We’re not sure just yet exactly what happened, but will be doing more research to find out just why – firstly by getting in touch with the Ocean guys to find out more.

Early days just yet…

Part of a series of Power House titles which never quite saw the light of day, or at least are not picked up in Gamebase 64.

Did this game ever get a release?

Certainly this title although mentioned in Zzap 64 September 1988, never actually got reviewed, but only mentioned briefly with a series of other Power House titles which were on the way.

The Legend Of Crollo was deemed an arcade adventure with a hint of puzzling, concerning the collection of fuel crystals for a crashed spacecraft. This was all the information given out on this interesting title.

The quality of most Power House titles left a lot to be desired, and it is possible that this also would have been dire like many of their other games. But the curiousity is still there to find out exactly what it was like… Who knows?…

More research needed.. thats for certain!

Can it be found, or is it lost forever?…

Very early days for this entry, but this is based from a conversation that GTW had with Alan Botwright (Who worked on Brides of Dracula), who mentioned what C64 titles he worked on including Judge Dredd and a game called “The Last Stuntman”

This was a game that was unreleased and meant for CRL in the late 1980’s via their new label Actual Screenshots. We assumed it to involve cars, but were not sure of the perspective of which the game was to be played, or any other details.

Alan mentioned that the game was split into 6 parts, essentially mini games which were developed independently by different developers. Alan produced the last level which involved jumping from a plane and fighting for a parachute in mid-air.

Mark Semczyszyn got in touch to say that he had seen the storyboard for the game around 1987/88. He had a telephone conversation with Mike Hodges, who was putting people from Compunet together. It was confirmed the game was going to split into parts and Mark was offered the parachute sub-game, crashing into a barn.

Mark said he was interested in doing artwork for the game on the Commodore 64 version after speaking with Mike on the phone, and got a design storyboard in the post with a contract for about £250. He never got to speak to a programmer, but the remote coordination and lack of time meant that Mark wasn’t able to commit. So the design document was returned along with the contract.

Unfortunately not much else was known just yet, but we hope to get some more developer names soon!

There was primarily an Amiga/ST version in the works though, which Drew Northcott worked on though. Thanks to Brendan Phoenix, a very short preview was shown in Amiga Action issue 1 of the Amiga edition of the game. This shows the part that Alan mentioned working on.

If you know anything more, please do get in touch.

“As good a danger-filled dungeon as you could wish to expire in” – Personal Computer News describes The Greedy Dwarf.

The game was a text adventure that apparently had a very powerful command structure. It seems that the primary releases were for the BBC and Electron. The C64 version is completely missing.

It could be a case that the game just hasn’t turned up yet, or it was cancelled because the developers struggled with it. A lot of research needed – Goldstar doesn’t seem to be a well known company, so did they fold early?

Thanks to contributor Strident, we learn the following:

Talking to Mark Hardisty, in issue 5 of the Classic Adventurer magazine, Greedy Dwarf author Simon Ainsworth said:

“I seem to recall that Dorling Kindersley got another programmer to port the game to the Spectrum. I’m not sure what happened to the CBM version, but both ports should have been fairly simple since there was no graphics and the only machine code was for quick table searching. I think I was working on another adventure at the time, so did not get a chance to help out. So, they would have been straight ports, with no extra locations or puzzles.”

So was anything ever started, or did perhaps the company collapse before the other versions could be completed.

The Great Space Race was to be a huge game across many platforms, especially after the success of Valhalla by Legend.

The game was advertised quite heavily with large black space backgrounds with text “The Great Space Race” in large white lettering. For ages people waited for the game, and eventually it was released on the ZX Spectrum and people were very disappointed overall. It wasn’t quite the mega game that people were expecting, and people felt very let down.

Legend tried to rectify things later with some other games which were pretty good – but sadly the damage was done and eventually they faded away.

According to Home Computer Weekly, The Great Space Race was also to be released on the Commodore 64 – but as you can probably tell, this didn’t quite happen for reasons unknown. It is possible that the C64 version was running late after the Spectrum version, they saw the failure of the game on that platform and decided to scrap the C64 version. Or did it even get started at all??

We got hold of Trevor Inns, who tells GTW64 that the game was originally being developed alongside the Spectrum edition. As things were beginning to fall behind due to this, they decided to focus on the Spectrum edition first and get that finished to ensure it was released asap.

After the game so spectacularly failed commercially, they decided to shelve the C64 edition. As a result, it means that there is a C64 conversion partically complete out there – but we’re not sure if it will ever be found. According to Trevor, the developers would have been the same as the Spectrum edition, so we’ll continue to dig to find out more!