Games That Weren't^®

Already we have a few entries in GTW which are Apex based games, and here is another one. Not too much to say at present, apart from that this was a game being developed around 3 years before Creatures in around 1989.

The actual game itself isn’t really well known, and all we have is the following quote from Apex from the Mayhem diaries (part 1).

“This was a game which we designed three years before Creatures and was in the playable demo stages before we decided to abandon the project (because of the technical limitations of the C64). Since its initial design we’ve developed it into an awesome game, which is unfortunately just in our heads. Ho Hum. Look out for it on a more powerful machine in the future. Virtual Reality would be nice.”

Indeed it sounds very interesting, and we hope to find out more from the Rowlands about this game. Was it a space game?… Was it a cute game?… We don’t know just yet.

Well, thanks to an unpublished Apex interview intended for issue one of Commodore Format, we learn the following:

“After RETROGRADE was completed, the lads took a well-earned break from the programming scene, during which they rustled up several ideas for their next project. Many of these were later coded into short demos. They included GENESIS (a two player shoot ’em up based on a vast parallax play area), a WARDNER type platform game, a SPACE WARS clone with countless bolt-on weapons, plus a technically excellent parallax scrolling routine (which was sadly never developed into a game). All of these ideas fell by the wayside.”

So a bit more detail – a two player shoot’em up based on a vast parallax play area – so perhaps a top down multi-directional scrolling game? Does anything of the early demo still exist?

More soon we hope…

Steve Bak (author of the Cuthbert games as well as Hercules and C64 Ghostbusters 2) was one of the first Atari ST programmers, owning the UK’s first development kit and working on games before its official UK release.

His 16-bit games included a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up called Goldrunner, not released for 8-bits.

Issue 2 of Soft magazine reported that he was working on a horizontally-scrolling follow-up (direct or indirect, we are not sure) called Genesis, but this time a C64 version was mooted. The game (now called Return to Genesis) surfaced in 1988, but not for the C64. A 16-bit game called Goldrunner II was released for 16-bits in 1988, but this was vertically-scrolling and not directly coded by Bak.

Was a C64 version really planned, who was behind it, how far did it get, and why was it not released?

This one’s over to you…

After the first great puzzler, Demonware decided that a sequel was in order, and so the C64 version was put into planning… but how about production?

We are not sure, but Peter Thierolf tells us that he remembers not much, but that a group from Berlin was developing the C64 conversion. This was all he knew (see Creator Speaks).

We are not sure how much more the sequel would have offered from the original game, though it will be interesting to find out and see how far this game ever got. Mentioned in Commodore Format as one for the future, we know that plans at least were certainly made for its creation.

Jazzcat additionally found some notes on a Youtube video (no longer available at the time of 08/11/22) which said the following:

“This was an unreleased Sokoban/Bomberman-like puzzle game and one of the few games made by the German company Kaiko. It was supposed to be the successor of Gem’X. Unfortunately, a copy of the Amiga version got stolen at a fair in Cologne, Germany. So, it was cancelled as well as the versions for Commodore 64 and PC, although the latter two were almost completed. The music was done by Chris Hülesbeck, who also composed the music of games like Gem-X, Turrican, The Great Giana Sisters and R-Type.”

Chris was questioned about his involvement on the game and he didn’t recall anything sadly. It is assumed that he would have composed the music. Well, after a bit of browsing through HVSC, we find that it seems to be Matthias Hartung who was behind the tune. We have added the music (Dated 1993) to the archive. Could Matthias know more?

Well, he did… and he was the original composer for the game. He confirmed that he was asked to compose the music by Frank Michlick, who was based in Berlin at the time (which ties up to Peter’s story).

Frank commented in September 2021 that he did indeed do some work on the game, and recalls some very basic gameplay being finished – but never getting very far with it. Unfortunately he couldn’t recall who the graphic artist was. We have asked to see if anything exists of that very early development – but it is likely to be long gone.

In 2009, Hungarian musician Peter Nagy-Miklos (NecroPolo) – with the help of iAN CooG – released several previously unheard tunes. Included among them was all the music for an unfinished game known as “Geister”.

Peter describes what happened: “My second (and last) game tune, written for an odd software developer guy called zOnE in 1994. Geister was a minimalistic and badass sci-fi horror strategy placed inside of a huge spaceship, a bit similar to Laser Squad but with very fast turns and short (1-2 minute) levels. Besides SID torturing, I wrote the story and worked on game concept. zOnE wanted short aggressive background music, so that was it. The game had no FX, I had all 3 channels to let loose the filters.”

As for the game itself, the reason it was unfinished is quite sad.

“All the source code was destroyed when zOnE’s place burnt to dust in October, 1994. He had been so afraid of being ripped off that he didn’t let a byte out of his house, not even for me. After the fire, zOnE stopped writing games and I stopped writing C64 music soon after.”

Full details of each tune:

• (#1) NAME: Intro
• (#2) NAME: Start/title screen
• (#3) NAME: Reactor level
• (#4) NAME: F’n big droid level
• (#5) NAME: Scanner level
  • COMMENT: There is some off-beat “beep” for zOnE’s request as a scanner-like sound. That
    was zOnE’s fav track, especially the concrete breaker part from 1:30.
• (#6) NAME: Abductor level
• (#7) NAME: Dreadnought level
  • COMMENT: Riffs were used in the first Wackor EP in 1999 in the song “Iced”.
• (#8) NAME: Time out! /last turn/
• (#9) NAME: Level complete
  • COMMENT: Riffs were used in the first RKH album in 1995 in the song “Curable”. I wrote the
    whole song around that little piece.
• (#10) NAME: Weapon shop
  • COMMENT: Riffs were used in the first Wackor EP in 1999 in the song “Iced”.
• (#11) NAME: Highscore

Necropolo in 2020 then got in touch to say that he had worked on the game. It was described as a sort of fast paced sci-fi horror strategy game, and Necropolo did the above tunes for this game, along with some others back in 1994.

The developer sadly passed away in December 2019, so we will never know the full story about the games. Necropolo uploaded a YouTube video of the music here:

So a tragic end with the passing of zOnE, and sadly we may never learn anything more of the game or find anything.

Case closed.

Denton Designs are possibly one of the most famous developers for the C64, producing the excellent Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Shadowfire.

As part of one of their later titles, Denton Designs were producing a interesting title called “Gargantuan”. This was to be developed over several formats, including the Amiga, ST and 8-bit computers.

The game was to be a 12 level scrolling shoot-em-up based on the legend of Hercules, where some levels were horizontal scrolling, some vertical, some freeform. All levels however ended with a mid-level boss and big end of level bosses.

The main ship expanded with power-ups and multiples etc. Overall the game was sounding very tasty, and one for the shoot-em-up fans (TMR/Cosine included ;) )… However it was not to be.

The game was sadly cancelled after the publisher went out of business, and Denton never managed to sell it to anyone else. This was around the time that both Stuart Fotheringham and Steve Wetherill left Denton (Steve was behind the game’s design, and coding on the Amiga).

Andreas Wallström has helped to confirm that the coder for the C64 edition was very likely Terry Sanders (likely Saunders), and was the last C64 game he worked on. So hopefully more soon! If it is Terry Saunders, then they are the same developer who did Troll for Outlaw/Palace.

Not much more is currently known about the game. It will probably be very hard to find out or get in touch with anyone who may know more. So its fingers crossed something comes up.

A promising title with a powerful name!…

A very quick entry for a title we know little about, but which was highlighted by contributor Hedning.

This is a game which was meant to have surfaced on the cracking scene back in 1987 from a guy called Doctor Bit (Who may be known also as Dr Bit in CSDB), whose real name we don’t know.

Nothing ever surfaced it seems apart from this tune:

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=97338

We are unsure what type of game it was to be or anything like that. We assume that it would have been some kind of space SEU.

Do you know any more about this one?…

Not much known about this pack i’m afraid, apart from that it was to contain games like Snakes and Ladders, and possibly other board games.

We think there was some adverts for this compilation briefly, but we are needing confirmation of this.

Because we don’t have any information, we can’t say too much about the game. Maybe the game compilation idea was realised to be too weak for release?… Or the programmers did a runner?

We don’t know, but yet another title in the archives we need to start digging for information.

Do you know anything about this game?…