Games That Weren't^®

Thanks to Peter Weighill for highlighting yet another C64 title that seems to have got away.

Lordlings of Yore was a strategy game that was released on the Apple II and seems to be available, but the Commodore 64 version was listed as coming soon and never surfaced.

It’s early days yet, but was the game ever finished and did it see any kind of release at all? Or did Softlore Corporation collapse before it could make it out?

A lot more research needed, but if you know anything more – please get in touch!

A short entry for now on what was likely to have been a C64/C128 release back in the day by Infocom.

This was to be a sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and was in development and design for a number of years. A sequel was mentioned in the ending of the game, and certainly light shed by Andy Baio confirmed this in 2008.

The game was plagued by delays, with no solid design or anyone to program it at one stage. Eventually it was moved over to British developers Magnetic Scrolls, with Infocom fighting to try and get it back to work on themselves internally.

In 2008, an Infocom archive was found with many details about the game, which Andy Baio wrote a detailed article about, including sharing remains of the game itself. More details about the findings can be found at https://waxy.org/2008/04/milliways_infocoms_unreleased_sequel_to_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galax/

On the website are a number of design notes and details as well. Two builds can be played from May 1988 and April 1989, but there is no C64/C128 version available. Just the Z-machine code, which should be possible to get working on the C128 at least. Maybe someone will do this some day.

I’ve left the developer credits here blank, as no actual C64/C128 build was seemingly done at any stage. I’ll update the page if anything changes.

This was a competition entry in the Swedish Adventure Game Championship, held by a gaming magazine. Completely finished and coming third place, the game was never actually released anywhere it seems, as apparently it was written just for the competition and never intended for release.

Still – seems like a complete waste of a game not to be enjoyed by many? Hopefully we can find out a bit more about this title soon and see something of it digitally preserved. Maybe the author themselves would be keen to play it again after all these years?

Thanks to Anonymous Contributor, it seems there might be a mix up and this looks to have been a ZX Spectrum game only, which also won first place and not third. See more details at https://www.lysator.liu.se/tolkien-games/entry/sagan-sv.html

The creator therefore would be Peter Tjernström and the game remains unreleased. The article with the winners can be found in the scans section, and was in Swedish magazine Allt om hemdatorer (All about home computers) issue 2/3 1985, page 35.

According to the article, the contest was announced in late 1984 with the following details:

The results of our Swedish Adventure Game Championships contest

First prize

Peter Tjernström in Boden [a city in the north of Sweden] has, on his Spectrum, created an amazing text adventure based on Tolkien’s ”Lord of the rings”. There is a lot to recognize from the book, among other things he has really managed to capture some of the atmosphere, e.g. at the start you see a rider approaching from the distance. If you’ve hidden he’ll ride past you, if not it’s over.

The game is the winner due to being exciting as well as entertaining. Another advantage is that the programmer has really succeeded with the feat of getting all the major events of the book in there.

Looks like this a case closed, and you can now find a separate ZX Spectrum entry now here.

A short entry for a title that was flagged up by Fabrizio Bartoloni.

In an interview with developer Gunnar von Boehn, Gunnar revealed that he had worked on the C64 scene and had done some tools, and even finished a clone of the arcade game Dragon Spirit called King Of The Air.

We don’t know anything more at this stage, but hope to get hold of Gunnar to find out more details and see if there is any possibility that something of his game could be digitally preserved.

More soon we hope!

A short entry for a title that was due out by the demo crew turned game development team – Ambush . More details on them can be found at https://csdb.dk/group/?id=768

The game was an unofficial conversion of the PC game, and was listed as being in the planning stages within Commodore Tribune magazine.
It isn’t known if the game was actually started or if this was just a plan on paper.

The game was likely cancelled due to very poor sales of games on the C64 at the time, which was a particularly dark period for the machine as a whole. It would be good if something could be recovered to show though.

Do you know anything more about the development?

A short entry for a title that was due out by the demo crew turned game development team – Ambush. More details on them can be found at https://csdb.dk/group/?id=768

The game was an unofficial conversion of the PC game of the same name, and was listed as being in the planning stages within Commodore Tribune magazine.
It isn’t known if the game was actually started or if this was just a plan on paper. It was not related to the Megastyle development we don’t believe.

The game was likely cancelled due to very poor sales of games on the C64 at the time, which was a particularly dark period for the machine as a whole. It would be good if something could be recovered to show though.

Do you know anything more about the development?

A short entry for a title that was due out by the demo crew turned game development team – Ambush . More details on them can be found at https://csdb.dk/group/?id=768

The game was described in an issue of Commodore Tribune, with you having to climb to the top of the World Trade Center by using different elevaotrs going up and down. You’d have to watch out for monsters running around the building and must collect health, bombs and different letters which will form words for some nasty effects.

It isn’t known if the game was actually started or if this was just a plan on paper.

The game was likely cancelled due to very poor sales of games on the C64 at the time, which was a particularly dark period for the machine as a whole. It would be good if something could be recovered to show though.

Do you know anything more about the development?

A short entry for a title that was due out by the demo crew turned game development team – Ambush . More details on them can be found at https://csdb.dk/group/?id=768

The game was described in an issue of Commodore Tribune as being similar to the tunnels level of Platoon. The Ambush write up on the game suggests that something may have been started and was running.

They mentioned that the game was to feature random levels, and you would have to run around and collect different items and kill opponents.

The game was likely cancelled due to very poor sales of games on the C64 at the time, which was a particularly dark period for the machine as a whole. It would be good if something could be recovered to show though.

Do you know anything more about the development?

A short entry for a title that was due out by the demo crew turned game development team – Ambush.

This was to be an unofficial conversion of Worms by Team 17 (yet another one!) which we don’t believe has any relation to the Alter/Quantum development from 1997.

Ambush had about 8 members, but we don’t know if anything was ever started. For Commodore Tribune magazine, Ambush suggested that a preview would be ready soon – but it was never to be.

The game was likely cancelled due to very poor sales of games on the C64 at the time, which was a particularly dark period for the machine as a whole. It would be good if something could be recovered to show though.

A later issue of Commodore Tribune suggests that the game was renamed to Snakes to avoid legal issues.

Do you know anything more about the development?