Games That Weren't^®

Advertised in BigK magazine, Spacestation Alpha was sadly another title which was never to see the light. The C64 version was stated as coming soon.

The game was described as follows on the advert:

"A graphical space battle – The deadly cylon fleet has reached its destination. Their objective – destroy planet earth. Each ship in the fleet carries a single devastating lithium torpedo. Earth sheilds are up but their power is beign drained. You, as commander of earth’s last remainign space station are all that stands between the cylons and earth’s total obliteration."

The game we assume is a Space Raiders style game which was quite popular around the time. This could well have been a clone of somekind. The BBC version was released and apparently well recieved.

We don’t know much else about the game apart from these details, so there is a long way to go to get any information on it.

Do you know any more about this game?

A very short entry for now for a game that was one of many that never quite made it from Crystal Software back in the later end of the 90’s.

Space Rogue seemed to share a lot in common with the game from 1990, as this too was an RPG. Was it the same game, or a completely new game?

We know little more about the game, but ex-CEO Alex de Vries of Crystal Software had the following to say which explains why all of these titles never made it:

“I used to be the CEO of Crystal Software back when it was developing and publishing games for the C64 and Amiga platforms before making the transition to PC only. The Legend of Kyril was actually an Austrian project we signed up as a last effort to see if we could sell decent volume on the C64 if the quality was there for the title. Our involvement was purely in sales and marketing and we were never involved in the creative side of things. I wish I could remember the names of the developers but it’s just too long ago.

Code exists for some but I have moved halfway across the world since those days so I don’t know whether anything survived. I don’t have a copy anymore in any case.

We packed it in after 1996 and cancelled all projects for the C64 in Q1 1997. Titles we did (re-)publish were McRat, The Zinj Complex, Target, It’s Magic, Colorzone, Riddles and Stones and a few others. Not the greatest stuff but it was fun while it lasted.”

Do you know any more about this game?…

An interesting title which could well be crossed off the list very early as a hoax, but should be reported anyway due to its mention in Issue 19 of Commodore Format.

Space Monkeys was potentially Commodore Format’s duff April Fools entry into the magazine, just mentioned briefly as a new title coming soon, but no details about the game itself. It might just be co-incidence that the game was announced in an April issue, but it is here to be found out.

No company was around called Fosters on the C64 – most likely a reference to the Australian Lager company instead to be funny. But maybe (just maybe), some homebrew UK developer was making this game or decided there was a gap in the C64 market and money to be made.

Do you any more?… can you confirm this to be an April Fools? This is all we can currently say about a game which could well be vapourware…

April Fools?…

Released on the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, Spaced Out was a puzzle game that was produced by Steve Cain and John Gibson back in 1987 for Firebird Software.

The game had a mixed reception, but was a good solid budget title overall. Zzap 64 in June of 1987 first mentioned that Spaced Out was coming soon to the C64, mentioning John Gibson, but most likely he only ever wrote the Spectrum version and someone else did the CPC and C64 versions.

Sadly as you can tell, the C64 conversion never surfaced, and we are now hunting for the game. The back of the Spectrum release shows some rather C64 ish looking screenshots, but these may have just been the CPC ones.

So what happened to this one?… Do you know any more?… Who was the developer behind it?

Potentially this was originally thought of as vaporware until we had received confirmation that it wasn’t. This was thanks to early adverts for Space Ace by Empire/Readysoft, which reported a C64 version as coming soon.

Additionally though in recent times we have knowledge that indeed a deal was being thrashed out for a C64 conversion of Space Ace by Empire software. With a ton of game design document information and notes recovered by Paul Cawley and scanned in. Check out the downloads for a massive PDF showing a ton of information and specifications for the C64 edition being proposed.

Basically, Empire were trying to arrange conversions for not only the C64, but also the Amstrad and ZX Spectrum. We know at least that the C64 version was being pushed for UK based development during late 1989. They also wanted the game to be kept to around a 512k product to maintain portability at a later date to the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The document carefully explains what key sections would be focused on and converted, and how they could be converted – i.e. using vertical scrolling, switched perspective etc. It wasn’t going to be trying to emulate a laser disc game at all, but do something akin to Drgaon’s Lair, and make an interpretation/demake of some of the scenes.

Later adverts (and at least the ones we have seen) do not have C64 listed, so it was clearly scrapped off the list early on. It seems that discussions got stuck in a bit of a loop between the owners of Space Ace and Entertainment International UK, who were trying to negotiate the 8-bit conversions.

Things dragged well into mid-1990 and the owners of Space Ace got a bit fed up and even started to pitch to other companies to do conversions. They wanted to ensure that development was started asap, so they could get a Christmas 1990 release. It never happened, but we don’t know if anyone actually started any kind of conversion or if an agreement was ever made. The information ran dry at this point.

Readysoft did eventually release a C64 title in the form of Wrath of the Demon, which has a kind of laserdisc feel in its graphics for some strange reason. Maybe because of the large cartoony graphics. Maybe a proof of concept was done with Space Ace in Wrath of the Demon’s engine to start with, was scrapped and Wrath of the Demon grew out of the C64’s proof of concept?… A bit far fetched speculation?

More I feel is yet to be uncovered on this conversion, and something may well have been started – not only on C64, but Spectrum and Amstrad platforms too!