Latest news and posts

19 Boot Camp Part 1 early build

Thanks to Gaetano for highlighting which is something I hadn’t noticed before. In Zzap 64’s review of 19 Boot Camp Part 1, it seems they either reviewed an earlier build of the game, or they used screenshots provided/from a preview (taken some time before).

The shots are clearly different to the final game, with the assault course showing a hi-res layered main character, and a far more complex climbing frame. The shooting gallery part is different too – with a more simplistic zoomed target viewer.

Contributor Alex Edge mentioned in the comments that John Menzies (coder of Traz) had written the initial game, before leaving Cascade, where Joe Booth and Mark Greenshields took over to complete the game.

Posted in: Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Prototype | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Dizzy 7 design docs + more added

A huge thanks is required for Duncan Kershaw, who was recently clearing out and found a bunch of design docs and odds and ends. Rather than dump them, he very kindly asked us if we’d be up for scanning and preserving them for the site – which of course we dutifully obliged!

As well as an interesting design document for an unreleased Football game for Zeppelin (which you can read more about here), there is an early design document for Crystal Kingdom Dizzy. Synergy produced the Dizzy document.

Additionally there is an early concept drawing of DJ Puff by Jonathan Temples (who used to be Jonathan Smyth), a letter from Synergy regarding development work on Stuntman Seymour and a contract for a C64 proprietary assembler written by Ashley Hogg- which was used a fair amount by Ash for doing audio drivers/music for various games, and ended up evolving into a 65816 assembler that was used at Codemasters for SNES work. See comments below directly from Ash about what it eventually turned into.

UPDATE: 08/11/22 – Fixed broken links.

We hope you enjoy taking a look!

Posted in: Commodore 64, GTW64 news | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Lost Freescape demo games and bits

Not really an unreleased game, but some bits and bobs that could be nice to save if they still exist.

Looking at the preview screens in Zzap for the 3D Construction Kit, as well as an earlier editor kit, there is a hospital ward scene using a very early edition of the editor. Both Andrew Fisher and Robin Gravel confirmed the hospital scene was from Castle Master (which may have been a demonstration of the tool’s power)

freescape

As I cocked up with the Castle Master inclusion, I may as well add the CF office screens that were produced. No doubt long gone and just done quickly to accompany a review.

Posted in: Commodore 64, Features, GTW64 news | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Chase HQ 2 unused assets

Reading through some old Zzap’s when I spotted this intro screen from the preview of Chase HQ 2 on the C64. This screen apparently was meant for the intro sequence (accurately ported from the arcade), but looks like it was never actually used.

chase-hq-2-intro

I have checked through the entire game and it wasn’t even used as an in-between stage screen or ending screen. Did they run out of cart space?

Then this was found in issue one of Commodore format, showing a person out of the car…

chasehq-cf

Somewhere out there could be a full recreation of the intro which didn’t make the cut. Sadly though Grant Harrison couldn’t recall anything about it, so why was it cut??

Posted in: Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Stormlord early edition

Not massively different, but thanks to Luca Bertoldi, here is a screen showing a rather different looking main character for Stormlord – looking more elvish and beardless.

It’s possible that more early screens exist, so if you spot any – please let us know! Main graphics seem to be the same as the final game, though Compounded (see comments) has spotted that there are minor parts which are not present in the final game.

stormlord-v1

And another shot thanks to Patrick de Zoete, showing just a bit further on from above:

stormlordv1-2

Posted in: Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 3 Comments

Frankie Goes To Hollywood early screens

I recently picked up some Sinclair User magazines at a market stall, and whilst browsing through I had a look at the Frankie Goes To Hollywood advert on the back. Nothing unusual you might say, as it was pretty much plastered around in the press back then.

What was strange was the screenshot of a scene I had never seen before in the final game. Looking at the others, there were a number of differences. I’m not sure how I hadn’t noticed them before! When I got back home and did some more investigations, I found that the advert was in fact an earlier advert featuring what seemed to be screens taken from the graphical editors directly – most likely whilst the game was still early in development for both the Spectrum and C64. The give away seems to be with the white cursor squares in the corner of most of the screenshots.

Comparing against the final release, here are the screens I found which are quite different. The most interesting of the images has to be the Frankenstein/dungeon scene, which is clearly C64 based and didn’t make the cut. Hopefully we will learn soon what this part may have entailed. Is anything of it still tucked away in the final game?

Recently I checked with Karen Davies and Ally Noble if they could recall what it was. Karen couldn’t remember it at all, but Ally recognised it – but couldn’t place it. Ally suggests that it may have even been for another game by Denton that didn’t make it – which seems very plausible considering the material doesn’t seem to “fit” in the FGTH design.

In July 2015, Vinny Mainolfi found a magazine snippet which shows another early screenshot of the puzzle room.

Posted in: Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Scooby Doo game recovered and more updates

First update for August, and an almost complete Scooby Doo game has arrived from nowhere thanks to the game’s creator via the Lemon64 forums…

scooby-doo5

Check it out at … Scooby Doo

4 other new entries added

Aircat, Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, The Jetsons

5 updates added

Captain America (Picture recovered!), Flashback (New picture), King Of Chicago (Advert), SDI (Advert), Vale Of Shadows (Minor details update)

Tribute to Martin Holland

And finally we have produced a tribute to the late Martin Holland, which has been well overdue…

Martin Holland tribute

Posted in: Commodore 64, GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Martin Holland – a tribute

martin-holland-photo2
Picture of Martin, possibly from his Software Creation days.

For years i’ve been talking of setting up a page to showcase and celebrate the artwork and life of the late Martin Holland, but have rather ashamedly never got round to it. When finding an old email from 2006 when I was still talking about sorting something out, enough was enough… Martin sadly passed away at the far too young age of 35 back in August 2003, and it was a massive shock at the time – as we had only been emailing previously a few days before.

I was privileged to have known Martin for a few years – who was very influential in helping me when I first started up the Games That Weren’t website around late 1999 – gathering information (and even help find) on titles such as Solar Jetman and many more. He also had a cracking sense of humor too – demonstrated by many a funny email over the years.

I’ve only really been aware of Martin’s C64 work specifically, so searching across the web for games that included Martin’s artist works was a huge eye opener for me – mainly due to the variety of platforms that he had covered, which must have required a huge level of skill and patience getting to grips with each machine’s quirks and flaws. Continue reading

Posted in: Features, GTW64 news | 12 Comments