Games That Weren't^®

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 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?

Released on the Atari, Vic 20 and TI-99/4A, this was an educational spelling game.

The game was additionally advertised for the Commodore 64, but has never surfaced for reasons currently unknown. At present, the only known Romox game that has been preserved for the C64 is Princess and the Frog.

Certainly the lack of a conversion isn’t due to the company collapsing, as they lasted into 1985. So did the C64 conversion hit development troubles, or did it infact get a release which is yet to be found and preserved?

Only time will tell.

Released on the Atari, Vic 20 and TI-99/4A, this wasn’t a clone of the arcade game of the same name, but was closer to Dig Dug in many ways.

The game was additionally advertised for the Commodore 64, but has never surfaced for reasons currently unknown. At present, the only known Romox game that has been preserved for the C64 is Princess and the Frog.

Certainly the lack of a conversion isn’t due to the company collapsing, as they lasted into 1985. So did the C64 conversion hit development troubles, or did it infact get a release which is yet to be found and preserved?

Only time will tell.