Games That Weren't^®

An early days entry for a title which was being written by Glyn Williams, who wrote Cholo and Starglider on the C64.

This title was a currently unknown Helicopter game which was to be released by Island Logic (a short-lived software arm of Island Records) back around 1985.

The game was to use a technology called Polyscan, which was developed by the mathematically brilliant Caspar Bowden.  He had created a proof of concept on the BBC Micro, which showed solid-filled 3D polygons.  He managed to get Island Logic to pay him for the technology.

Glyn Williams had just graduated from University, and was brought in along with Joey Headen to take the technology and turn it into a game.  “The Helecopter Game” was born as a game design document and the two worked on trying to get the game working on a C64.

Unfortunately the algorithm wasn’t that efficient, solving the hidden surface issues in an expensive way.  It meant that Glyn and Joey didn’t get any further than technical demos, rendering a Channel-4 style ident with a handful of polygonal shapes was painful according to Glyn.

Joey suggests in a Sinclair User that Island decided they didn’t want to spend any more money and closed it down.  Joey confirmed to us that Glyn and himself estimated how long and how much the game would cost to make, but the board thought that it was too much and cancelled the project.  They then let Glyn and Joey go also.   Joey does not recall the game ever having a title.

Glyn and Joey developed Advanced Music System software for Rainbird on the C64, with Joey developing the MIDI section.  Glyn clarified that as the Polyscan technology was unworkable, they abandoned it when setting up his own company with Joey to produce games.

They however switched to a wireframe based approach, and took advantage of some of the 3D tricks they had learnt.  This would help to produce Cholo and Starglider on the C64.

Sadly, both Glyn and Joey have nothing of the Helicopter game in any shape or form.  It would really be a miracle if something was to surface after almost 40 years.   So its almost very much a case closed for this one.

A very small entry for what was an earlier edition of 3D Pool being written for Firebird, by none other than Paul Hughes.

Nick Pelling had just completed the BBC Micro edition, and Paul was taken in by the amazing achievement by Nick. So Paul took it on himself as an exercise initially to convert the game to the C64.

It seems that the 19yr old Paul had got pretty far too, actually almost complete – all bar a front end. The game apparently also ran very closely to the same speed as the eventual C64 version, even looking very close in look and style. Once things got to a great stage of completion, Paul then decided to pitch it to Firebird – but unfortunately Nick Pelling had already just about completed his own C64 version – and went with that version.

We are also not sure if anything exists of this earlier edition, but Paul has recently found some hand scrawled notes from around 1988, which hopefully he will soon scan and we’ll be able to add to here. Could the game itself be found to show what alternatively the game could have been like?

Unfortunately it is very likely that the game has gone forever – Paul doesn’t hold much hope of it turning up. But you never know! At the very least, we may get to see some notes regarding the game’s development.

For the completed game that was released, check out the game at Gamebase64: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=4563&d=18&h=0

More soon we hope!

A very quick entry until we get more details, but this was to be a planned 3rd game in the series of the Yesod games by Odin.

Unfortunately it only got as far as a proposal on 3 sheets of paper and was never actually started. The game was inspired by The Lion and The Witch And The Wardrobe, and Mr Ben. Your hero was to be able to explore distanct worlds via a portal in his attic with 4 costumes to change into.

The game would have been a vertically scrolling platformer with a greater variety of foes and environments – with references to Manic Miner and Heartland in places.

All sounds brilliant, but it was literally only a document that was produced. It would be great to see this document (most likely Steve Wetherill), but we need to find out who created it and if it still exists to be able to see it possibly preserved here.

Do you know any more?

A bit of a lazy covering entry for a range of potential cartridges that were meant to have come out for the C64GS.

Back when the C64GS was launched, there was a strong list of support from the likes of Ocean, US Gold, System 3, Domark and more. Only really Ocean were true to their word, with many projected titles falling by the way side.

Already we have more complete entries for Spy Who Loved Me V2, due to extra content, but there are what are thought to be straight conversions to cartridge that never were. Could some of these ever be found in prototype form? Maybe there is extra music or content to be uncovered?

Here is the list of some titles so far, which will grow over time. This initial list is thanks to Ross Sillifant, who found a list in RAZE magazine and various other sources:

• Rampart (Domark)– Chris West confirms a cartridge version was developed.
• Moonwalker Arcade (US Gold)
• Turbocharge (System 3)
• Putty (System 3)
• Battlechess (Mindscape)
• Ultima VI (Mindscape)
• Crime Does Not Pay (Titus)
• Wild Streets (Titus)
• Greatest Hits (Thalamus)
• Space Rogue (Origin)
• Buggy Ranger (Dinamic)
• Plotting (Ocean)
• Addams Family (Ocean)
• Puzznic (Ocean)
• Hard Drivin’ (Domark)
• Venus Flytrap (Gremlin)
• Wrath of the Demon (Readysoft)
• Armalyte 2 (Thalamus)
• Hook (Ocean) – Confirmed the cartridge version was cancelled, but did exist!
• Barbarian 3 (Palace)
• Golden Axe (Virgin)
• Racing Game construction kit (US Gold) – Using Turbo Outrun engine
• Kick Off 2 (Anco)
• Gazza 2 (Active Minds) – Confirmed nothing started
• Turrican 2 (Rainbow Arts)
• X-Out (Rainbow Arts)
• Spy Who Loved Me (Domark)
• The Games – Winter/Summer edition (Epyx) – Confirmed nothing started
• California Games (Epyx)
• Subbuteo (Electronic Zoo)
• Orcus (Electronic Zoo)
• Prohibition (Infogrames)
• Bubble Ghost (Infogrames)
• Rick Dangerous 2 (Microprose)
• Starglider 2 (Microprose)
• Bloodwych (Mirrorsoft)
• Falcon (Mirrorsoft)
• IK Deluxe (System 3)
• Vendetta (System 3)
• Last Ninja 3 (System 3)
• Battlestorm (Titus)
• Crazy Bikes (Titus)
• Crazy Cars 2 (Titus)
• Dick Tracy (Titus) … thank god that didn’t make it…
• Fire and Forget 2 (Titus)
• Wild Streets (Titus)
• Armalyte + Sanxion double pack (Thalamus)
• Hawkeye + Quedex double pack (Thalamus)
• Delta + Hunters Moon double pack (Thalamus)
• Creatures + Summer Camp double pack (Thalamus)
• Snare, Retrograde and Heat Seaker triple pack (Thalamus)
• Pro Tennis Tour 2 (Ubi-Soft)
• B.A.T (Ubi-Soft)

It has been confirmed that Turbocharge (System 3) and Hook (Ocean) had cartridge instructions printed in the released manuals. Both seem to have been constructed in a view to be released on cartridge, but changed at the last minute to just disk and tape. Last Ninja 3 is known to have had prototype cartridges built, and Turbocharge probably did too – all are long lost now.

It was confirmed in June 2020 that Hook was intended for release on cartridge. Developer Andy Mucho confirmed it was developed for cartridge and worked fine on actual cartridges that had RAM pretending to be a cartridge. Apparently there was a problem when running out of an EPROM on an actual cartridge board. Andy feels it would have been mere days to find the cause, but there was little motivation to let him fix it. It was decided by Ocean to bin the cartridge version, probably partly due to the flop of the GS and poor cartridge sales. Andy feels it was a shape, as it was the best version by miles and is puzzled as to why time wasn’t allocated to fix it.

Many more to add soon. It is very unlikely that many were ever started or got to a prototype phase, but at the very least we will get them documented.

Watch this space!

Another title gets added to the archive of Firebird/Silverbird games that never were. This time with a conversion of a pretty naff Gauntlet clone in the shape of Droidz from the Zx Spectrum platform.

The game was royally panned in the magazines at the time as being very dull to play and glitchy as hell. Even at the price of £1.99 – it wasn’t really seen as a bargain.

No adverts seem to ever have surfaced for a C64 version of the game, but it was recent contact with Andrew Graham in 2014, where it was revealed himself and his brothers Robbie and Stewart Graham (known as The Highlanders) had done a conversion. And it seems a completed conversion too!

For reasons currently unknown, Andrew suggests it is another title along with their Software Projects title Heebie Jeebies, which was oddly never released. It is very plausible that the game was not released due to the very poor scores it had received in the likes of Crash magazine. It would be good to confirm this some day.

It is hoped that Andrew might be able to find something of the conversion, which could even feature music by Steve Barrett – who did a lot of tunes for their C64 based games. It is very much a case of watch this space!

Yet another Thalamus title goes into the archives after a feature in Zzap Italia on the company. Here it was mentioned that Restrictor was coming to the C64 – with the following (translated thanks to Luca Bertoldi):

“Arc decided to work on an original game, Restrictor, in which you can have fun by driving and flying. Since the game is in an early development status, we do not know if we will first see the 8-bit version or the 16-bit one, but you can see in the picture that the game will let you control a super car and a flying vehicle along a 3d landscape. There will be 4 planets to explore and many alien waves to fight. Right now the scrolling looks very smooth, who knows what we can expect in the final version.”

So at the time, only the 16-bit version had been seen – it isn’t known if the C64 version was ever even started. The 16-bit versions also never saw release in the end.

Well, Arc Development’s Richard Underhill set the record straight in early 2021:

“There was never any C64 version in development and as far as I remember it was never considered. After the disaster trying to get something substantial in terms of sprite scaling on C64 Overlander at the cost of good gameplay, I’d have considered it a non-starter.”

So there we have it. You can in the meantime read more about the 16-bit editions here, but for the C64 edition it is case closed!