The games that never got released

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
Swainy
Manic Miner
Posts: 235
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:10 pm

The games that never got released

Post by Swainy »

Towards the end of the Spectrums life there was a game due to be released called Hands Of Stone by Brian Cross and was supposed to be published by Beyond Belief Software but it never made it out of the door despite being reviewed.

Image

What games were you looking forward to but never were released?
User avatar
Alessandro
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1908
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:10 am
Location: Messina, Italy
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Alessandro »

Last Ninja, Judge Death, Halo Jones, Star Trek (I enjoyed it a lot on the Atari ST) and of course Mire Mare spring into my mind first.

By the way, in case you didn't it already you could also check the comprehensive page on the TZX Vault website about the "games that time forgot". The title you wrote about is not listed, maybe you could tell Steve there about it?

Edit: And The Great Giana Sisters, which was reviewed as well. It didn't seem to be that much spectacular, but I would really have been curious to see what Rainbow Arts would come up with after I tried it on the Amiga.
Last edited by Alessandro on Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
redballoon
Manic Miner
Posts: 390
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2017 3:54 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by redballoon »

Denton Design’s “Wreckers”, which was even reviewed in Crash 88 http://www.crashonline.org.uk/88/wreckers.htm
User avatar
Juan F. Ramirez
Bugaboo
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2017 6:55 am
Location: Málaga, Spain

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

As said before, Mire Mare, but also:

Saboteur 3
Fairlight 3
Conan, we only have this loading screen by F. David Thorpe:

Image
Nick
Manic Miner
Posts: 591
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:18 pm
Location: Market Deeping, UK

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Nick »

The Heavy On The Magick sequels The Trials Of Theron and The Tombs Of Taro.

Based On The adverts alone, I would have liked to have seen what Super Thief would of turned out like.
User avatar
8BitAG
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1487
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:25 pm
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by 8BitAG »

On the homegrown adventure side of things...

Absolution (The Hermitage II) by Tony Collins.
Night of the Demons by Jon Lemmon.
Caldor the Woodcutter by Scott Denyer
A Handful of Snow by Garry Cappuccini.
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
User avatar
Andre Leao
Bugaboo
Posts: 3102
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:28 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Andre Leao »

Tomorrow we will present at Planeta Sinclair a game that was never released. It is in basic, but the idea is very good and it is fun. ;)
Ralf
Rick Dangerous
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:59 am
Location: Poland

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Ralf »

Well, I wasn't actually looking forward to any games. In Poland, where I live, we lacked proper original games that you could buy in shop. All you had were cracks, 10 or so on C60 cassette without inlays or instructions. We had some computer press but it never dealt with upcoming games. You you never knew what it supposed to appear soon.

Later I learnt all these stories about Mire Mare, Giana Sisters and Bandersnatch.

So I'll allow myself to reformulate the question - which games seem quite advanced in development and promising in quality but never appeared in final form, apart from the previously mentioned:

Solar Jetman
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12083

Little Beau
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11857

Thunderjaws
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=5252

Wreckers
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12242

Daffy Duck
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=9651

Super Wonder Dog
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12480

Mega Twins
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=9949

Kung-Fu Warriors
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=9890

You can read magazine references about them and see on screenshots what they were supposed to be.
User avatar
Vampyre
Manic Miner
Posts: 833
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:51 pm
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Vampyre »

Fornax and Gath - sequels to Marsport.
The original Scooby Doo game that was supposed to be like Dragon's Lair.
ZX Spectrum Reviews REST API: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/
User avatar
Juan F. Ramirez
Bugaboo
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2017 6:55 am
Location: Málaga, Spain

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Crystalis by Dinamic, the fourth and last game in the Jonny Jones series: Saimazoom, Babaliba, Abu Simbel Profanation.
Swainy
Manic Miner
Posts: 235
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:10 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Swainy »

It does make me wonder how many of these games still exist in development form somewhere.
Swainy
Manic Miner
Posts: 235
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:10 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Swainy »

Ralf wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 1:23 pm Well, I wasn't actually looking forward to any games. In Poland, where I live, we lacked proper original games that you could buy in shop. All you had were cracks, 10 or so on C60 cassette without inlays or instructions. We had some computer press but it never dealt with upcoming games. You you never knew what it supposed to appear soon.

Later I learnt all these stories about Mire Mare, Giana Sisters and Bandersnatch.

So I'll allow myself to reformulate the question - which games seem quite advanced in development and promising in quality but never appeared in final form, apart from the previously mentioned:

Solar Jetman
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12083

Little Beau
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11857

Thunderjaws
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=5252

Wreckers
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12242

Daffy Duck
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=9651

Super Wonder Dog
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=12480

Mega Twins
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=9949

Kung-Fu Warriors
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=9890

You can read magazine references about them and see on screenshots what they were supposed to be.
I contacted programmer Dave Semmens earlier via Facebook regarding Little Beau. He doesn’t recall a Spectrum version of the game ever being coded so I’m guessing the screen shots were just mock ups.
User avatar
Juan F. Ramirez
Bugaboo
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2017 6:55 am
Location: Málaga, Spain

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Swainy wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:19 pm It does make me wonder how many of these games still exist in development form somewhere.
I have the theory that somewhere there must be a cassette/microdrive cartdridge with some routines of Mire Mare, sketchs of the characters, maps, etc. as I don't think the game was completelly finished.

I think that was discussed before, but when speaking of Ultimate, these people used to plan things in (much) advance. But it's just my theory! :)
Ralf
Rick Dangerous
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:59 am
Location: Poland

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Ralf »

I contacted programmer Dave Semmens earlier via Facebook regarding Little Beau. He doesn’t recall a Spectrum version of the game ever being coded so I’m guessing the screen shots were just mock ups.
Well, some discoveries were made recently about C64 version, they didn't have final version ready but much more was done than just mockups.
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/little-beau/

Eventually only Amiga version survived and it was released as Kid Gloves 2:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/kid-glov ... creenshots

It seems that Dave Semmes that you mention worked on Amiga version. Spectrum version could have been developed by completely someone else.

And if these screens are mockups, then they are careful mockups as they have different score and time ;)
Swainy
Manic Miner
Posts: 235
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:10 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Swainy »

Well Dave Semmens was mainly a Spectrum programmer and he designed the game and says that he would have been the best person for the job. He also said that he might well have forgotten all about the Spectrum version as it was such a long time ago.
User avatar
Vampyre
Manic Miner
Posts: 833
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:51 pm
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Vampyre »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:19 am
Swainy wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:19 pm It does make me wonder how many of these games still exist in development form somewhere.
I have the theory that somewhere there must be a cassette/microdrive cartdridge with some routines of Mire Mare, sketchs of the characters, maps, etc. as I don't think the game was completelly finished.

I think that was discussed before, but when speaking of Ultimate, these people used to plan things in (much) advance. But it's just my theory! :)
Sorry to rain on your parade but it never existed beyond a few ideas on paper. I know there's legions of Speccy fans who cling on to the hope, even nearly ten years after it was all but confirmed of its non-existence in any form, but an old friend of mine who worked at Rare from 1995 to 2009 confirmed it.

https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... re-mare/p1 was the original post I put up on WoSF all those years ago and my friend also got interviewed by Retro Gamer about it (Sep 2012). This isn't some hearsay based on an obscure web page (that guy who claimed he had seen it running, and the Wikipedia Mire Mare page has some bull too), but a guy who 100% worked for Rare and asked Tim Stamper about it.

http://www.funspot.it/mire-mare/ has some excerpts from my mate Trev's interview.

I do realise that there's many who won't believe until either Tim or Chris Stamper confirm it - even then I believe some will still think it's out there somewhere.
ZX Spectrum Reviews REST API: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/
User avatar
Einar Saukas
Bugaboo
Posts: 3070
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:48 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Einar Saukas »

The Mire Mare entry currently says it definitely existed.

I'm considering to update it as follows:
At the end of Underwurlde, the player can escape through three different exits. Each exit then names a different game in which Sabreman is to take part. The first two are Knight Lore and Pentagram. The third is Mire Mare. Despite numerous rumors otherwise, the game never got past the stage of being a title.
Any objections?
User avatar
Vampyre
Manic Miner
Posts: 833
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:51 pm
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Vampyre »

Einar Saukas wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:37 am The Mire Mare entry currently says it definitely existed.
Yes, that's from the obscure web page I mentioned. Unfortunately it's all bull.
Einar Saukas wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:37 am I'm considering to update it as follows:
At the end of Underwurlde, the player can escape through three different exits. Each exit then names a different game in which Sabreman is to take part. The first two are Knight Lore and Pentagram. The third is Mire Mare. Despite numerous rumors otherwise, the game never got past the stage of being a title.
Any objections?
I think that's a very good description, I have no objections. I really, really wish there was something out there - it's one of those Speccy myths much like the whole "what happened to Matthew Smith" saga. Turns out the true stories for both are sadly mundane.
ZX Spectrum Reviews REST API: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/
User avatar
druellan
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1466
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:19 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by druellan »

Einar Saukas wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:37 am
At the end of Underwurlde, the player can escape through three different exits. Each exit then names a different game in which Sabreman is to take part. The first two are Knight Lore and Pentagram. The third is Mire Mare. Despite numerous rumors otherwise, the game never got past the stage of being a title.
Any objections?
Well, there is confirmation that some early development took place, including the cover art. So, perhraps?
At the end of Underwurlde, the player can escape through three different exits. Each exit then names a different game in which Sabreman is to take part. The first two are Knight Lore and Pentagram. The third is Mire Mare. Despite numerous rumors otherwise, the game never got past an early development stage.
User avatar
Juan F. Ramirez
Bugaboo
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2017 6:55 am
Location: Málaga, Spain

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Thanks for the link, [mention]Vampyre[/mention] , I didn't even remember that old thread!

I agree with the last Druellan's remark. Seems logic.
Ralf
Rick Dangerous
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:59 am
Location: Poland

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Ralf »

Personally I would quote completely the mentioned post and let everybody make his own mind about it.

Or maybe include some comment like "Some early design was made but the game never reached coding stage". Or something like that.
User avatar
Vampyre
Manic Miner
Posts: 833
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:51 pm
Contact:

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Vampyre »

druellan wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 1:18 pm Well, there is confirmation that some early development took place
There really isn't. No one from Rare has ever come forward and and said anything of the sort - it's all pure conjecture or made up BS. What we do have though is the word of someone who worked at Rare, has spoken to Tim Stamper about Mire Mare and been told by Tim Stamper that MM was nothing more than an idea on a piece of paper, although the artwork existed. Yes, this person is an old friend of mine, but I 100% believe him (by the time I spoke to him he had recently left Rare under very good terms and had no reason to lie) and his interview with Retro Gamer was enough to convince them too.
ZX Spectrum Reviews REST API: http://zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/
toot_toot
Manic Miner
Posts: 675
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2018 7:17 pm

Re: The games that never got released

Post by toot_toot »

There's lots of things written about Ultimate, one good source is The Story of US Gold by Chris Wilkins where it does mention that Mire Mare was originally going to be released on the Kixx label (which does tie into Kixx being launched in 1988 and Ultimate essentially being finished by that point).

But I think there's another theory behind Mire Mare...

The releases by Ultimate from 1986 onwards, apart from Gunfright, are thought to be developed by external coders. This website even lists Mark Betteridge as the author of Bubbler (1987 and Cyberun (1986) and I think that's true as the menu for both games are very similar to his other game, Batty.

However, Martianoids is a game that's still thought of being developed by somebody else than the Stampers, but I don't think that's the case, I think it was developed by the Stampers...

First, the menu and the start game selection causing music to be played is very similar to their previous games. Second, the control scheme and keys (rotate with N and M, go forward with A, fire with Q) is exactly the same as Nightshade and Gunfright - both of which used the Filmation II engine. Third, the game itself looks (and plays) very closely to both of those Filmation II games, except the screen layout looks "mirrored" to those two games.

So here's what I think... I think Martianoids was developed by the Stampers originally as Mire Mare.

Except it wasn't deemed good enough by them to be the concluding chapter of the Sabreman series, so they redid the graphics and called it Martianoids before anyone knew it had been Mire Mare. But I also think they didn't tell the new owners of Ultimate, US Gold, that - instead telling them that Mire Mare was still in development, when the Stampers were instead focused on creating games for the NES under the Rare name (they'd been given "unlimited" budget by Nintendo in 1986 to develop games for the NES).

Why did they say it was still in development? Because I'd imagine that as part of the sales deal to US Gold there was a required number of games to fulfil. It would also explain why they were essentially repurposing old games from when US Gold bought Ultimate in March 86 (Pentagram, Gunfright) or using outsourced developers but likely claiming it as just Ultimate developed games.

By the time it reached 1988, Rare had already released 5 games on the NES and the Stampers probably weren't bothered about having to fulfil any contract with US Gold, because the revenue from the NES games was so big compared to the Spectrum and then released the "Collected Works" compilation as the final obligation to the contract - kind of like when a band releases a Greatest Hits or Live album at the end of a contract!

Go back and play Nightshade, Gunfright and Martianoids and you can tell it's the same people behind them (there's also an editor for all three by Matthew Carrier, maybe he'd know more?!?!?)

On another note about games that never got released. If you go to Sinclair User June 87 on this page - https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 3&page=108 you see Mire Mare being mentioned as an upcoming game from Ultimate. But US Gold also say that Ultimate were also going to release "Jet Pac brought up to date". I don't think this would be Solar Jetman" as that wasn't released until 1990 on the NES and it was developed by John and Ste Pickford, who were still developing games for the Spectrum in 1987.

An enhanced Jet Pac, or Jet Pac 3 :D , would have been a good send off for Ultimate.
Bizzley
Microbot
Posts: 124
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:47 am

Re: The games that never got released

Post by Bizzley »

toot_toot wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 5:06 pm But I think...
thought to be developed...
and I think...
thought of being developed...
but I don't think...
So here's what I think...
But I also think...
Because I'd imagine...
the Stampers probably weren't...
I don't think...
Any chance of some actual facts because this all sounds a lot like one of those cheesy 'Did Aliens from Outer Space use anti-gravity rays to build the Eiffel Tower?" type TV shows.
"He made eloquent speeches to an audience consisting of a few depressed daffodil roots, and sometimes the cat from next door."
User avatar
MatGubbins
Dynamite Dan
Posts: 1237
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:45 am
Location: Kent, UK

Re: The games that never got released

Post by MatGubbins »

toot_toot wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 5:06 pm Go back and play Nightshade, Gunfright and Martianoids and you can tell it's the same people behind them (there's also an editor for all three by Matthew Carrier, maybe he'd know more?!?!?)
Hmmm....
Sadly, I have no knowledge of who wrote the games or further tidbits...

The reason that I wrote all 3 editors for thse games was down to pure luck with finding the Nightshade map data, decoding how it was stored and how thing were done. I found them when messing around with SGE, a graphic editor program, I was looking through the mess of data and saw what looked like a map of the game so I poked a few random values in the area and found that it either crashed or created a new house where it shouldn't be. After writing down a lot of values to decode the house type and the door structure a map editor was written in Basic and compiled so that it ran a bit quicker - the screen redraw was slow.
Each house in the map takes 1 byte, this is referenced to a set of data tables that has the door exits + house type + upper floor type + antibodies.

At the time of writing the editors I had very little knowledge of writing machine code or understanding what it did. It was just a lot of trial and error to make it work properly.
The great thing about the Nightshade game code is that the map can be made a lot smaller by filling the map with brick walls and creating a 5x5 play area with a few houses of each antibody type to kill the nasties. The game code will plonk all 4 main weapons with the 4 main nasties in that area, the hero and a few of the normal nasties. The game will play
as normal and is a lot quicker to complete. I enjoyed the game back in the day.

Gunfright was the same, just a smaller map size. I do recall writing the map editor from fresh but kept it in the
same style as the Nightshade editor. The problem I had was not knowing how the cactus locations were stored, this is why they are hard-coded into my map editor.

Martianoids, again the map stood out with SGE and after a few weeks of messing around, that map editor was created.
Exploring the outer boundaries of the map, placing more cone things and even walking through the actual game code
was possible with a few pokes - it does crash the game though. It is a horrible and dull game to play too.

I also decoded the map to Cyberun, but the editor would've been (at the time) a huge pain to write directly for the Spectrum.
The entire map (from what I remember) is about 400 bytes. The problems were that the platforms, fuel dumps,
collectables and the laser beams (in the sky) were hard coded somewhere else and I couldn't find them.
I do recall writing a few bits on the Amiga with Amos to edit the map. I put a z80 snapshot of the game into a databank and then edit the map, moving tiles around that poked to the databank area. Once completed, the z80 file was saved and could be loaded into an emulator with the new map. As with my Amiga stuff, this editor has been lost to time.
Cyberun, what could've been a great game was destroyed by being killed every 5 seconds. The game required pokes just to get anywhere, and a few hours to collect the rocket parts, then another few hours to go around the map again to collect the crystals. 3 lives - impossible!

All my handwritten documentation/notes for the all the editors has been lost to a huge clearout that I done a few years after writing them.
Post Reply