Games That Weren't^®

Taxar was described as a “Mysterious Odyssey” back in 1984, on a loading screen created by game developer Erwin J. Knöll.

The game was highlighted to us by Baracuda, who has recently released a slideshow dedicated to art works by Erwin J. Knöll. Picture 12 shows us the loading screen for Taxar, but unfortunately there is nothing else related to the game. Baracuda later provided an advert screen for the game – which promised a “fast machine code action game”.

At this stage, all we know is that it was being done by Erwin, and for Substract Software – which may have been Erwin’s own label.

It’s early days, but do you know anything more about this game? If so, please do get in touch. Hopefully we can get to learn more from Erwin in the future.

We were sceptical at first, but an article surfaced at Hard Core Gaming 101 (Link = web archive) which suggested that a C64 conversion of Wreckers was in production, with eventually only 16-bit editions released.

However, there was no news of any C64 conversion, and it seemed that the game was only intended for the ZX Spectrum and 16-bit platforms from Denton Designs. The ZX Spectrum game was to be 128k, and likely would have hit the same issues as Where Time Stood Still being converted to the C64, hence why an attempt may not have been made.

Additionally – the ZX Spectrum game was never released, although actually completed. It is hoped that version can be found, which would be very special indeed.

Therefore, any such C64 conversion was considered as vapourware – so we were completely blown away when in December 2022, developer Mike Lyons got in touch and revealed that he worked at Denton Designs for 3 months before moving over to Active Minds to work on Total Recall V1. It was during this brief period that he worked on a C64 version of Wreckers.

Denton gave Mike one payment overall, but he never got any proper graphics or music for the game. Very little was done – just a basic scroll with some test graphics, where Mike recalled getting map data and cannot remember getting any animation frames for the character. He pretty much gave up after 3 months after not being given any materials to continue.

Although Mike found a number of his disks with other productions, it was felt extremely unlikely that anything of his brief Wreckers development would surface. However, although nothing much was done – it at least confirms Denton were serious about having a C64 version.

Then in May 2023, when searching through some old work disks – Mike encountered a file called “WDEMO”, and upon loading up was hit with the last build of Wreckers when the project was abandoned. After making a copy, it was sent over to GTW to fully preserve.

So here is a very very early glimpse at Wreckers on the Commodore 64. It is merely a proof of concept at this stage, with a dummy panel area and a map that you can move around with some limited collisions. There is no actual gameplay, and the main character is just a quick port from the Amiga with no proper colouring – but surprisingly some limited animation.

Did the C64 version continue once Mike left? We don’t think so – though who knows what may come to light in the future. For now, take a glimpse at something that was once thought as vapourware.

A video game adaptation of one of my favorite movies of all time. Total Recall is a game that many of you will say was released … and it was! However, not this particular and very different version for a development which has a history much deeper than you may think.

Eagle-eyed Zzap!64 readers may recall a feature on programming team ‘Active Minds’, who gained licences for both Gazza 2 and Total Recall. The Total Recall licence had been acquired by Ocean, and Ocean called on Active Minds (also based in Manchester) to develop their Christmas No.1 hopeful.

Looking closely at the screenshots they showed, you will see that its significantly different to the version we ended up with. The original game was being developed by Mike Lyons, who had previously worked on War in Middle Earth for Maelstrom.

Artist Simon Butler was hired by Active Minds not long into the project to work on both Gazza 2 and Total Recall. After seeing the work that had been done so far, he was less than impressed with the quality of the game design and the graphics produced.

Ocean were unknowingly on the verge of a Christmas disaster instead of the hit anticipated. Simon therefore kicked up an almighty fuss and changes were made, with the lead artist/designer let go after his poor work.

The design was overhauled and work finally began to pick up, but still the game across the board was not going to plan. Simon kept informing Ocean of the game’s poor progress, but would apparently fall on deaf ears at first. Read Simon’s own personal account of the game in “Creator Speaks”.

Eventually, Ocean saw the state of the developments, and panicked. Simon offered a lifeline by pulling together existing Ocean team members and some from Active Minds. They set to work from scratch for some of the versions, and completed the actual released C64 game in only 2-3 weeks! And it even made it to number 1.

However, for years the first incarnation was at large – even though the first version on the ZX Spectrum snuck out in the form of a magazine demo. The Amiga/ST editions were seemingly close to the original Active Mind developments – seeing a long play of the game running gives a rough indication of how the C64 edition would have played or been structured.

Over the years GTW would try different routes to find something of the early demo that was shown in Zzap. There was of course the potential of finding some long lost C64 tunes by David Whittaker, which would be a huge bonus.

Simon no longer had anything, so it was down to seeing if Mike Lyons had anything – though Mike was proving difficult to find. Mark R. Jones on the other hand would uncover some documents relating to the game’s development, namely the Active Minds conversion, and we compiled these together into a PDF for you to check out. This gave some inside information about the structure of the game and plans which were scrapped from the final release.

When all seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere – we finally got hold of Mike Lyons in December 2022. Mike revealed he had only worked on the game for around three months. When Active Minds couldn’t pay his wages, he left and ended up working at John Richardson Computers for 3 years. It was revealed that he was never given any music, only limited graphics of the main character and bad guys.

When asked about remains of the game, Mike told us that Active Minds retained all the source to the development and that he didn’t have anything any longer. He had other things from other projects, but not Total Recall.

Hope was seemingly lost, but when Mike was hunting through his C64 disks for other work, he found a strange file called “RDEMO”. Loading up, Mike was greeted by a final build of his Total Recall work and sent GTW a video quickly.

After a week or so, Mike sent a disk over with the demo for GTW64 to preserve – and so after what must be 23 years of hoping/searching, we are proud to present the long lost first edition of Total Recall!

We will say early on, that this is a relatively early build with plenty of glitches and a lack of refining, but it is playable – and you can complete the first level by finding the 5 objects in the panel that are dotted around the map and by going off to the right to exit (touching the phone box).

There are remains of what seems to be Level 3 (Level 2 was meant to be a top down driving level) which is even more glitchy and has no objectives (just allowing you to move around the map). This seems to be it – no sound at this stage either. But this is the result of 3 months of work.

Interestingly, it seems that this is a later build than what was shown in Zzap’s preview article. In the Zzap screenshots, Arnie’s hair and trousers we think are red, and there are hi-res elements in the background which have been seemingly switched off in this build (maybe due to scrolling/update issues?).

You’ll see for instance that the Taxi/Phone text is incorrectly formatted in low-res. The Zzap!64 shots also seem to depict Arnie in one of the black windows … so that could still remain in the charset! Something for hackers to have a play with? ;-) The score in the version we have here is active, suggesting it is a later build.

Sadly it seems that if David Whittaker did start any C64 music, it may never be found. Mike was never sent any music at that early stage, and it isn’t recalled (sorry!) if any C64/Spectrum music was started. Chris Abbott confirms that David got rid of all his work disks many years ago. It will be a huge surprise if anything was to now turn up.

For now, please enjoy having a play of the demo and I hope that you enjoy seeing those Zzap!64 screens finally in action as much I have done!