Games That Weren't^®

Q-Castle is an old C64 game which was mentioned in an old magazine, along with a screenshot (Though we assume this, as the game details comes from the entry currently in Gamebase 64).

From the looks of things, this would have been a kind of Adventure (Atari) and Gauntlet clone with crude graphics.

It hasn’t surfaced at all anywhere, and we believe that the game is infact unreleased… maybe the company went under before it could surface?

We know nothing about the game itself, the author or any other details… so its going to be tough work trying to find much on this one.

But maybe you can help?

This game and Break Street were supposed to be Firebird’s proof that budget games could be quality games too according to Martin Defries, who was sales manager of Telecomsoft at the time. Pyramid of Time was for 1 or 2 players and was “quite spacey” according to Soft magazine (pages 9-10, issue 2, 1988 for reference).

Zzap first mentioned news of the game in issue 26, along with a few others:

“Hot on the heels of the latest Activision re-releases come four more golden oldies – Futureball, Pyramid of Time, Pitfall and Break Street.

The former is an odd sort of game, where the player takes control of a ball and has to escape from a network of pipes before water floods the whole system. Strange but true, and you only have to wait a month to find out more!

A whacky and way out experience is to be had in Pyramids of Time, written by Russell Lieblich, the author of Master of the Lamps.”

Even stranger is the fact that ZZAP printed a full review in issue 31 (page 134, November 1987), awarding a mark of 78%.

But what was it like? Only one screenshot remains, with the text of the ZZAP review left to explain what you had to do:

“Set some time in the future, sports are played in huge arenas in space. Pyramid of Time is one such game. When the brilliant title screen appears you have the option to choose a one or two player game. Each contestant then jetpacks down to the arena and boards his chosen vessel from the three available.

The game continuously cycles between two main stages; the Pyramid screen [pictured in the ZZAP review] and the bonus grid screen. Entering the former sees the central spinning pyramid surrounded by four layers of revolving diamonds, which randomly turn into glowing gems and planets.

Shooting the gems gains points, and blasting a planet alters its colour to that of the contestant’s ship. Warping to the bonus level causes the grid to appear. This is a strange, colourful pulsating network of pathways, along which the two vessels move. During this section, the object is to collect the available gems before being returned to the Pyramid screen.”

The review went on to comment that the game was strangely addictive and extremely well presented – especially in the sound department.

So what happened to it?

Richard Hewison found out from Colin Fuidge (who worked on the budget range for Firebird) that the game couldn’t be converted to tape, which made it impossible to publish. The game was apparently very weird overall.

The game was (according to Glyn Anderson) the brainchild of the late Russell Lieblich, who was the main programmer. He was doing all the sounds and music too. Glyn however helped with a bit of navigation code and wrote the bonus level where you navigate a moving grid.

We are told that the game was never released due to Activision thinking that the market would not accept the game. It seems that Firebird had the best opportunity, but due to it probably being a set of master disks – this may have made it hard to transfer by the company. It is odd though that it was sent to Zzap before this was established.

It is hoped that Glyn may have something of the game, but it is unlikely. Any copies sent to Firebird and Zzap seem to be long gone too, and it could be a miracle now to see anything turn up.

Yet another Martech game into the archives, and one which is surrounded in mystery!… Just what exactly was this game about? CVG had this to say about the game, along with some screenshots which you can find under “Scan shots”

“Martech is set to release Pulsator, a multi-maze shoot-em-up with a challenging puzzle, for the Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64/128 and MSX. The game offers 5 game levels, each consisting of 49 rooms. On each level is a “Pulsy” who has to be rescued. This is done by finding the key which unlocks the door to the prison. The aliens on each level become progressively more intelligent and will deplete your power if they touch you. The landscape of each level also becomes increasingly more difficult and hazardous to negotiate.

The game is far more complex than simply finding your way through a maze. various pathways are blocked by gates, of which there are six types, numbered one to six. The gates cane be opened or closed by passing over sensors. The sensors are also labelled one to six. if a particular type of gate is closed and you pass over its associated sensor then it will open. if a gate is open and you pass over its sensor it will close. it is this element of the game which makes it far more exciting than simply solving a maze. Pulsator will sell for £7.95 on the Spectrum and £8.95 for the Commodore, Amstrad and MSX. Commodore disk versions will cost £12.95 and Amstrad disks for £14.95.”

The game was also advertised around the place, but its the C64 screenshots in CVG which all but confirm that the game was well underway and almost completed.

So does this mean that Martech scrapped the game because it was too poor?… We are not sure just yet, but we are speaking with some people who used to work for Martech to try and find out more and see what happened here.

Seems a shame that this “Metaplex” style game was never to see the light of day. The Spectrum version did get a release… http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003933

One recent finding thanks to Jan Harries is that the music was confirmed to have been composed by Rob Hubbard. So yet another Rob Hubbard tune we hope to recover as a result of finding this one as well – and it could well be the final lost Rob Hubbard tune left to find on the C64.

But we mention “Metaplex”, and it may not be a coincidence that the game is very familiar in style. That is because Metaplex was actually done by the same development team as Pulsator – called Softeam. Softeam is actually credited to the C64 release of Metaplex, so we believe that the coder could be the very same coder who worked on Pulsator. If you look at the score panels between both games, then you will see that the screen area size is identical. It is very likely that Metaplex also shares similar code to what was used in the C64 edition of Pulsator.

Sadly the clues are limited at present to who Softeam were, and who were behind all the conversions. One potential lead is that the loading screen is credited to “Malcolm Smith”, who may well have done the screens for all versions. Can he be traced, and can he shed light on who were behind the C64 editions of Metaplex, and ultimately, Pulsator?

Oddly there was an advert in May 1987 issue of Swedish magazine Datormagazin, page 11 (see scans), which had the game listed as for sale. Maybe jumping the gun a bit too much?

We have bought the Spectrum edition of the game to make scans (to get the extra C64 screenshot), and interestingly you will see that the C64 gets prominently mentioned in the instructions. It seems the game should have been released! Why wasn’t it?