Games That Weren't^®

Body Slam was a SEGA arcade game featuring female wrestlers doing battle in the ring. It was fairly obscure, not not obscure enough though for Firebird to take up the licence it seems, with Software Creations behind the conversion work.

A conversion was completed by Jonathan French, who had previously converted Agent X 2 to the C64, with Wayne Blake (Mermaid Madness, Psycho Pigs UXB, Raw Recruit) on graphics and Tim Follin on music.

Oddly though, the game doesn’t seem to have ever got a full release – though it has existed on the scene for many years for download. Richard Hewison of the Bird Sanctuary website believes that the game was earmarked for released on the new Silverbird label (in the same way that Atari’s Peter Pack Rat was, also written by Software Creations). For reasons unknown, it just never happened. Maybe the licence expired?

The game never got a conversion for the other 8-bits, so this seems to have been a C64 exclusive, though a conversion did appear for the Master System (as Pro Wrestling – thanks to GabeMoralesVR for flagging up) – but was nothing to do with Firebird or Software Creations.

Interestingly, collector Mat Allen found a master disk some time back – and has dug out and created a G64 image of it for the archives, which you can find in the download links. Just why didn’t the game get a release though?

Here it is anyway – we hope to hear from Jonathan French at some point to confirm what happened. Watch this space!

EDIT – Developer eventually completed game and it can now be found at csdb.dk/release/?id=166946

I loved the original Rent-a-cop game when it was released in the 2012 RGCD games competition. It was a brilliant tribute to Activision’s Keystone Capers game on the Atari VCS.

So when I heard about a new “reloaded” edition coming out, I was naturally quite excited. This time only some of the Keystone Capers feel was to be kept, with the reloaded edition to feature more shooting/platform action… maybe not too different to Lethal Weapon on the C64?

James Monkman was giving input to the creator Achim Volkers, who suggested having different stages like harbour, storage depot, museum and more. The Harbour level was done, with the AI almost complete. Enemies weren’t quite shooting, but it wasn’t far away.

Work paused whilst Vice Squad was finished off, and then after starting Darkness and other titles – Achim lost interest and decided to sign off the project and release what was started.

It is a huge shame to have to add this very promising preview – but sometimes you have to ditch the things you don’t want to work on. It is part and parcel of doing game development in limited time as a hobby on the C64 – you have to enjoy the game you’re working on :) But here it is for you to check out!

Case closed!

A surprise entry into the GTW64 archives thanks to the work of Fix, Bieno, Pugsy, Jazzcat

Single Extreme Freedom was to be a strategic game developed by Alice Software Studio from between 1992 and 1994. It featured action and interactive fiction using a turn-based engine for two players where you play the King of Soregno and Saratosa in a fight against each other. Most of the game’s description comes thanks to the game’s creator – Tamás Tarnóczky.

In the game itself, the screen is divided into portions, which can be scrolled from right to left – the map; the hot spots of the events mentioned above are also bearing the name of their fictitious cities and ports. Between these lands, the players can move troops and ammunition, which can be traded, or navigate ships in the coastal area between.

Throughout the game, there are various distractions which sometimes require the player to read a newspaper, or to bear children during that time. One aspect is that if you don’t have a child and if a king dies without an heir, then the game is over. There are three different periods in the kingdom’s history and each has its own text handler, players can also choose the destination at the beginning of the game and other conditions.

The developer describes a slightly unusual (and, as such, is perhaps unique) feature: one of the four-page sheets fills out as a text adventure game. A sort of “playing the game” type thing that is a side mission compared to the main game. The text adventure mission is to incite a rebellion to demoralise and finally take a city of your enemy (which can be found in the main menu in the “Market” and then “Rebellion”.

Surprisingly, Single Extreme Freedom was actually completed – but sadly was never to be published and released. It only required testing it seems, which is a huge shame – as the game would have appealed to quite a few.

Well, now the game has been saved from obscurity and can now be released to the world for the first time. Not just a promising preview, but a complete game for all to check out. We hope to maybe learn more about the game’s development sometime soon!

But for now… enjoy!