Games That Weren't^®

Based on the Cartoon classic where a bunch of Chipmunks have a band and make loads of money while being exploited by their human (!) father. It was good when I was 10 years old anyway!

Alternative Software, never a company to miss a Cartoon licence, grabbed onto one for Alvin and the Chipmunks, and mention was made throughout several issues of Commodore Format in their Early Warning scanner.

Nothing else was ever mentioned about the game, so we can assume from past patterns of licenced games from Alternative that it was a Arcade Adventure, or a simple platform affair. Thanks to contributor Edwin Drost in October 2021, we learn that the game was to be a “platformy shoot’em up and collect’em up type of thingy. At first glance it looks a bit nobby.” according to Amstrad Action magazine.

Spectrum users almost saw the game when Your Sinclair declared that Alternative reported to them that the game was complete and ready to release. At that time they were evaluating the Spectrum scene. Maybe they were at the same stage with the C64 version too?

Thanks later to Marco Das and an old forum thread, we learn that a play tester “Toll” was at Alternative and remembered playing a complete game on the likes of the Amiga, Spectrum and C64. It was a standard sideways scrolling platformer game from left to right. It didn’t have many outstanding features, but had a very bad summersault for a jump. It wasn’t known who developed it exactly.

In October 2017, contributor to a C64 group on Facebook – Nathan Thomas-David Brown shared a competition scan from a comic book (currently unknown), which shows an actual screenshot of the game in action. It looks too hi-res to be C64 based, and is probably Amiga/ST – but a first glimpse that many will have seen of the game.

Sadly, even if the game is released – then Alternative may not allow the game to be released into the public domain. We’ll see, but first we need to figure out who was behind it.

The Alternate Reality series was a huge set of RPG based titles by Datasoft in around 1986, with two titles released. The City and The Dungeon were both released, but the rest of the series never made an appearance. In total there should have been 7 parts.

Considering the engine was probably there, you could assume that the game series was not a success and was cancelled after the two games. If true, we are possibly looking at only one game maybe being completed, or less to look for. But it seems strange, as the Alternate Reality series is quite highly regarded and according to the PDF article from Zzap, it was selling very well. Maybe 7 titles was too large a commitment?

The other known games for the series were to be (confirmed via Aktueller Software Markt. Issue 05/1986):

• The Arena
• The Palace
• Wilderness
• Revolution
• Destiny

The idea would be that the character you develop in the previous two adventures, could be used in The Arena and The Palace, and the subsequent adventures. You could play the games individually, but it was recommended to carry your characters across.

For The Arena, it has been revealed in the CRPGBook that only a design document for the game was produced, with no coding done at all.

We are hopeful that something was started of the sequels, mainly in code form – but any plans/storyboards would be very cool too to give a glimpse of what might have been.

Can you help us find out more about these sequels?…

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.

Alpha Zone X was to be a shoot-em-up game, though we are not sure if vertically or horizontally scrolling.

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?…

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.

Alpha Runner was deemed as a shoot-em-up with very little plot, but plenty of blasting. 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?…

Jason Aldred confirmed that he created the game with his school friend Steven Derek Green. It was their first ever commercial title, which sadly never got released. We hope to learn more soon about the game, but sadly Jason confirms that he no longer has it. Maybe someone else can help us find it?

Jason recently in 2017 released a new C64 game called Galencia, which we recommend checking out! … https://galencia.itch.io/

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

Yet another Alternative Software game, and this time based on the popular BBC series of the late 80’s and early 90’s, ‘Allo ‘Allo. This was a comedy set in France during World War Two, and featured a bald French character.

A bit of a strange licence if you ask me, but nevertheless, Alternative set out to do a licenced game based on the series, and so it was announced again in Commodore Format and was prominent in their Early Warning scanners.

If I remember rightly, the game was advertised briefly in some Alternative adverts, and finally made an appearance on the Amiga. This was a sideways perspective arcade adventure and was fairly well received.

David Tolley was the artist on the Amiga version and confirmed that nothing existed of a C64 conversion or was ever planned

Au Revoir ” ‘Allo ‘Allo” … Case closed!