Games That Weren't^®

Unknown to many people apart from those at Ocean Software, Liverpool FC was to be also developed by Ocean Software in the early 90’s, and the team were hard at work on the title.

It seems Grandslam must have kicked up a bit of stink considering they had the licence, and Ocean were trying to cash in on it, so the title was axed… but not completely it seems.

Liverpool FC eventually turned into what is now Adidas Championship Football… well, at least part of it. Liverpool FC was to be a management/action game which featured a lot more arcade feel to it than most football/management games at that time. Kind of like a Sensible World of Soccer if you like.

Ocean decided after the mess of Liverpool FC and its licence being held at Grandslam, they quickly wanted to cash in on the up and coming World cup 90, and so got Nick Taylor and his team to turn the action part of the game into what is now known as the Adidas game, minus the management section.

However, Nick had been working on the Management section, and had not done much to the action side, so basically in the 6 week period they were given to finish the game, Nick had to write most of the game from scratch.

But to this day, there is a rather large chunk of the game that remained to be unseen, which was the management section. It now has been uncovered for GTW for the very first time… A very big glimpse of Ocean’s unknown Liverpool licence…

All the management features, almost complete, are in place in bits and pieces. We offer all the remains for you to download, including many executable bits and pieces from the management section, early parts of the action sections which turned into Adidas Soccer, and a load of graphics… possibly some unused.

Another BIG finding was the selection of Matt Cannon tunes for the game which were unused. Some of them were actually used in Adidas Soccer, but a fair few sub tunes were not. These have been uncovered here, along with a load of management SFX. HVSC were quite happy :-)

Regarding this rather shocking conversion… Nick said this about the game…

“With regards to the Liverpool license there was one – I think there was some confusion as Granstand (?) also had a Liverpool license and it turned out that one company could use the name of the club and the other one could use the badge or something like that.

The Adidas switch was due to the need to get a game out for the C64 pack for World Cup 1990, and we were to push on with Liverpool once that was out the way. Thing is, the Amiga/ST version took an eternity to finish and so Ocean lost interest which was fair enough.”

Nick went on to produce other games for Hi-Tec and Codemasters, most famously Bee 52 and Bugs Bunny (Which sadly didn’t get released either).

When originally quizzed about the game, Gary Bracey couldn’t recall any conversion… especially because the head of Ocean was an Eveton fan. We hope that Gary will shed some light if he recalls any of the game from the screenshots.

Found… a piece of Ocean history we were not mean’t to see…

Little Hero is a simple platformer, in the style of Giana Sisters and in a very early phase it seems.

At present the demo which has been floating around seems to just be a quick test of the graphics, with very little interaction and just a main character that can scroll the screen and jump around (Not being able to jump on any platforms).

We’re not entirely who was behind this game, who it was being produced for and how far it got. We need a lot more information on this one.

Overall its doubted that it got much further than this small demo, but can anyone confirm?

Do you know any more about this game?

Weird little platform game featuring a cute looking duck (Or what is supposed to be a duck anyway).

You collect various little gems and jump over holes in the ground, and that’s currently about it in this preview.

It’s currently at a fairly early stage, and lacks probably a lot of features which the final game would actually have.

Graphically its slightly poor, but do fair well for the game. It’s not too playable just yet either.

Promising though, and a game which could have given a few hours of fun.

The game was never completed, and its unknown exactly why this was. No credits are known as of yet, so no chasing up can really be done. More information needed.

Bit of a dead duck at the moment…

This is a bit of an obscure title which was never really mentioned in any magazines, that is apart from Games X magazine in 1991.

This game was a Wonderboy 3/Alex Kidd clone done by the team behind Escape From Colditz. Sadly, the game was never properly taken on by Digital Magic, as they went under before it could be released on the Amiga, though here is a video of it running. Instead, the game later surfaced as Kid Gloves 2 for Millenium in 1992. As with Colditz, Little Beau was also planned for the C64 and was put into development.

Not much else was known about the C64 conversion, until a little discussion with Jason (TMR) Kelk. After a visit back to his home city, Jason spilled the beans about various GTW titles, and mentioned a particular cutesy platformer he had a sprite demo of. It was being developed for Digital Magic, it was a conversion of an Amiga title, which was a rip off of Wonderboy 3…. But Jason could not remember the name. It struck a chord with me though, and instantly I offered the name “Little Beau”, to which Jason instantly recognised.

Miles Barry was behind the game and wrote the scroller, multiplex routines and simple sprite handling. Jason was given a preview which had multi-directional scrolling under joystick control and a few sprites sitting around the map to prove they knew where they were supposed to be.

The graphics were started, and the demo had background graphics, which according to Jason, may have been cleaned up wires from the 16bit versions, but with no sprite definitions. It apparently looked ok, but wasn’t anywhere near ready. Overall it was little more code wise than a technology demo of the plex and scroll code to prove that it was a viable port for the C64.

Really as the tech demo was being written, there was already a playable preview of the ST and Amiga versions on the cover disks for the popular magazines. So you can see how far behind it really was. Maybe 10% complete, if that.

Now Jason has kindly uncovered a very early demo of the game which demonstrates the game’s first level map. It is not playable, and you simply move the map around to get an idea of how things would have looked. Jon Law (artist from Escape From Colditz) has done a great job so far, and it certainly looks good, although it is too early to say how the game itself would have been. Unfortunately things didn’t move too quickly with the game, and this didn’t help at all for getting anything near completion by the time DM went under.

According to Jason, more does exist of the game, with sprites apparently created and more level graphics complete (According to Jason, all the graphics were ported across and so were the sprites – suggesting that only sound and the game engine were required really). The chances of finding the other remains are slightly slim, though there are some exciting developments regarding Miles’ old work.. so who knows what might be uncovered.

Sadly we will never see anything playable, but we are pleased to have something salvaged at long last for this game which was only briefly mentioned in Games X magazine. We hope that soon we will hear from Miles himself about the game, and maybe
even Jon Law too. For now the search is on for more remains.. but nice find Jason! :).

More soon on this interesting title…

This was planned as a late release for the Trojan Lightgun, featuring Archery as the theme.

Featuring some fair graphics and additions to make it playable for joystick users in this preview, it isn’t too bad. It’s certainly not the best light phaser game i’ve seen.

It seems a little late for a light phaser game, a few years after the lightgun was actually sold.

Not many people had a light gun, so it was a gamble whether this game would make much money.

It was probably decided that the game would lose money, and therefore it was scrapped.

It’s not known how complete this game was, though its possible the game’s creator released it onto the scene once it was scrapped.

Can you help us find out about this game?…

Liberation was a game similar to Turrican, and was in development for quite some time by Profile Entertainment. Danish based Profile Entertainment are also known under their demo name, Camelot.

The game had a brief mention in the pages of Commodore Format, under the European Invasion article for Denmark. The game was put down that it was in production and coming our way. The game sadly however was never fully completed and no preview was ever released.

To maybe shock you all, GTW proudly presents a first ever look at the impressive looking Turrican clone. This has deliberately been kept under wraps for sometime now, while the game has been pieced together to get something you can look at, and even briefly play.

GTW brings you a rare look at two playable levels, which are in a very early stage. They are not really playable at all, but you can have a wonder around some simple backgrounds to get a feel for how it was shaping up.

Then you also have two graphical slideshows, which really show the intentions of the game. There are some awesome graphics in here, which show a game which had a lot of ambition and would have maybe kicked some serious butt.

To round off, there is a very brief sprite demo to show some of the sprites. And for those who wish to have a mess around, the game’s level editor is also included. Don’t ask me though how to get any levels running! If you know how, then please do let us know.

Sadly it seems that the game was cancelled as support in the C64 and its games drained away. A huge shame, and a potential classic lost. We’ll find out the real reason soon straight from the horses mouth in hopefully a “Creator Speaks” page some day.

There is more to come too. Note the V1 on the preview. There was more planned, so you will have to watch this space, but it has been quite a few years now and may have stalled. Its possible we could see something slightly more playable, or even more graphics…. maybe even Jeroen Tel’s unreleased music, if Commodore Format’s reports were right that he *did* do the music.

Check out some of the amazing art and get a small glimpse of a potential classic. An oil painting which sadly didn’t quite get there…