Spectrum Computing

I'm continuing posting some uMIAs.

Today something from my local turf, a text game from Poland

Title: Tumitak z Podziemnych Korytarzy
Genre: text game with graphics
Inspired by: Charles Tanner story "Tumithak of the Corridors" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Tanner )
Made with: Graphic Adventure Creator ( https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6391 )
Year: 1989
Language: Polish
Authors: Sławomir Gębka, Leszek Szamocki



The download:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/gxymr7

Cheers Ralf, will get it added tomorrow. I wonder if I'll ever get around to learning Polish.

Just for interest, what would be the most likely life cycle of a game like this? Presumably it was distributed for sale, if so by what routes? Shops? Mail order? Would it be played and discussed by many?

The history of this particular game is known.

It wasn't published, you couldn't buy it. Two guys created it, maybe looked for a publisher but nothing came out of it (although I would say that the quality was good enough for commercial release). Later, in the middle of 90s they gave the only existing copy to another guy. He kept it in a closet for 20 years. Around 2016 he remembered about it, published it on local Polish forum and you know the rest

Being unable to find a publisher was a serious problem in Poland. Till 1988 some titles were published by state owned companies for example this: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=8156

Later there was a time of some chaos as we changed from socialist economy. It was also a time of big software piracy that nobody tried to fight with. Being a software publisher or developer seemed a nonsense as nobody would buy from you, buying from a pirate was always cheaper.

Still some people tried to make and sell software, usually selling by mail order or at "electronic markets", something similar to car boot sale in UK, if I were to compare. But it were just dozens of original copies sold, I would say.

Eventually things started to civilize and in early 90s we got prolific publishers of games for 8-bit Atari and Amiga. Unfortunately it was not a case of Spectrum which somehow became commercially dead earlier than Atari.

That's how it looks. We didn't have so much Spectrum software so every recovered title is a success.

Thank you for your efforts with these MIA titles [mention]Ralf[/mention] . Great work!

Whole story about the game, what we know, what KrisZX knows and remembers (the owner of the tape I have "rescued" the file from and then Krystian "Tygrys" Włosek did the normal loader/conversion to .tap/.tzx)

http://www.speccy.pl/forum/index.php?topic=3047.0

Basically - it was only distributed by the authors on compilation tapes, maybe with other software. KrisZX got it even with kind word permission of ownership, but it waited many years to be "rediscovered". I wonder how many more games lay somewhere like Tumitak. It was generally the time without Internet, websites here, so it was only direct distribution.

I have scanned maps and some stuff that were intended as help for gamer - all hand drawn etc.

And the game is of course in Speccy.pl archive:

http://speccy.pl/archive/prod.php?id=398

if any new stuff will appear, it will be first there (I mean maps etc.).

cheers