Games That Weren't^®

Xoanon (released as Xoanon Reptilia – which we’ll come onto shortly…) seems to be an early version of Xenon, or at least Gamebase makes the link with the game. So, are they indeed the same game?

This preview just seems to be a simple prototype vertical scroller, with Xenon’esq backgrounds. But one of the key things to note is that the score panel matches most of the Xenon panel.

GTW64 researcher Gaz Spence flagged up this game in our archives in December 2022, and that the C64 versions likely came out in July 1988. First release of this demo seems to be early March 1988, which more or less falls into the same release time-frame as the original 16-bit game. Seems there could be more to this preview than meets the eye.

Another thing is that the game was very likely misnamed as “Xoanon Reptilia” during its leak/crack. We believe that Reptilia is just the name of the development team (Reptilia Design) that was behind the work (RD are also initials in the score panel), and was included within the score panel as credit. “Xoanon” may have been a deliberate attempt at moving away from the final release name.

At the moment we’ve been getting in touch with some ex-Reptilia Design members to try and establish that this was one of their works, and what the story is behind it. Ian and Mic have confirmed that it was not one of their developments, and Rob Whitaker and Steve Snake also confirmed it wasn’t theirs. Rob doesn’t think it is Warren Mills’ work, and both Rob and Steve suggest that it could be Andy Mucho.

We’re now just waiting to hear back from Andy to see if it was indeed his – as there are really no other candidates at the moment and we’re pretty certain it was done by someone in Reptilia. Rob informs us that Reptilia Designs was never a formal company but just a name used on games and demos by a bunch of programmers.

It seems very possible that this was an early development of Xenon that was being done in parallel with the 16-bit versions – but was abandoned, and passed straight onto a cracking crew to release (but with a slight name change to go under the radar). However, Rob says that although one of the Reptilia Design people may have put this together, at no point was any Reptilia person officially hired to work on a conversion.

Of course, an official and finished version of Xenon would appear some months later, created by Chris Caress, who was nothing to do with Reptilia Design.

We hope to have more on this all soon, but thanks to Gaz for giving the kick to investigate in more detail about the title, which has helped lead us to this stage.

A silly name for a simple two player game (or the beginnings of one) where you must thrust around and destroy each other.

The preview features some hi-res graphics and working ships, but no real interaction between the two just yet.

There are no credits attached to the game, but as its a more recent title – we’re hopeful of finding out more about it and what the intentions were.

Did it ever progress past this preview point?

A simple and quick preview, but one which has been done very well and features a sort of wizard that you have to guide to the end of a room, avoiding some sort of raindrops.

We believe that this was just a single screen preview, and that the full game would have featured multiple screens with different types of obstacles to avoid. It may have even been a flip screen arcade adventure in the making.

There is little else known about this slickly produced early preview, so we need your help to establish who was behind the game and start to see if we can recover anything more of it.

Vitrus sounds like a puzzler, but its nothing of the sort – and is actually a sort of Fly Harder/Thrust clone, where you must guide your ship through some tight caverns.

It’s pretty unforgiving at this early stage, but it looks very nice and slick and has plenty of promise.

We’re unsure what ever happened to this game, as nothing more was ever heard after the preview surfaced.

Was it ever produced any further, or was this it? Who was also behind the game??

Well, thanks to Gaz Spence, we find that the game was just a quick hack of a title released 5 years earlier called Mission 2 – http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=4903&d=18&h=0

Question is now whether this game was intentionally being enhanced as a new title, or if this was a quick rehash to get some cheap cracking points?

TWO is an early sideways scroller by Carl Wade of Gemini Wing fame.

It is a cool looking preview, with some cool backgrounds, but borrowing sprites from Into Oblivion for the time being.

Carl’s note suggests that this was to be a proper game, and nothing something to tout to potential employees.

We believe that Carl got picked up by Sales Curve, and was put onto Gemini Wing instead of finishing this game. It will be hard to really find out, as we believe that Carl passed away some years ago.

Does anyone know anything about this game?

Trailrunner is an interesting preview, mostly because it seems to be lifting a lot from the C64 conversion of Stun Runner, at least in the main sprite form anyway.

I wonder if Trailrunner was being developed in response to the poor C64 conversion, as the scrolling looks a lot smoother (even though nothing is really turning and there are no tunnels). But then the level does start with the title – “The Big Roundabout”, which is probably a bit of a joke.

Was it a serious game? Who knows? There is no coder credit to attach to the game just yet, so it could be a while until we find out.

Toms Revenge seems to be a sort of Load Runner clone (at least in terms of looks) where you must run up and down ladders to collect items.

The game has been written in BASIC, so its a little on the clunky and slow side – but its good for what it is.

For reasons unknown, the game was never properly finished and has been languising in preview state ever since.

What happened to the game? Only Michael Hartig will know…

This is the start of what seems to be an odd conversion of a title released on Amiga and PC – an icon driven graphic adventure game which was called “Telekommando II – The Return of the Telekommando”

Nothing is really present in the preview at all, so it seems this was abandoned very early on. It isn’t clear if this was an official conversion, or something done as a bit of a joke.

Contributor Professor Chaos went through the code, and found that the music was just ripped from a Vibrants demo, but hidden within the code was some music demo from a tune called “ingame_jingle“. Was this perhaps what was intended for the C64 conversion?

The crack intro states that the game was from “Art Department”, who was an advertising company that also did the Amiga and DOS editions of Telekommando 2, but only in German and to advertise German telecom. It seems odd that the C64 icons are in English.

Professor Chaos suggests that the only other Art Department game on the C64 was Karamalz Cup, but I’m not sure if actually they were only behind the Amiga edition of the game. If the team was part of Art Department, then perhaps they were to be involved on Telekommando 2 as well?

There was nothing else found in the game at all – the icons don’t do anything, there was no more graphics, text or anything else. If you know anything  at all about this conversion – please let us know.

A nice cool preview now with Super Bouncer, which is sort of a cross between Cauldron 1 and 2, with a bouncing ball that needs to bounce to the end of the map to progress.

There is one level in total of what seems to be a well polished preview.

Sadly it seems that nothing more of the game ever came to light, and it has been left gathering dust ever since.

We’re not sure if the game was intended for any particular label. We hope to get hold of the developers to find out the story behind this cool preview, but for now, check it out for yourself.

This may have just been something knocked up to score some cheap points, but then there was a Super Ball game released a year previously: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=7559&d=18&h=0

Super Ball 2 just seems to be the same game, but turned on its side. There is no actual game though, and just a play field with a logo underneath.

Very early days it seems for the title, so hopefully the developers can elaborate a bit more about whether anything more was done.