Games That Weren't

[dcdrac]

the Double dragon Mystery

Double Dragon Dojo: The Amstrad Mystery

[sigh]

There are other factors too; my friend wrote a C64 game, got the contract sorted out from Mastertronic for publishing on their the £1.99 range, cashed the cheque and they had a shift in focus so the budget arm was only being used for re-releases and the game never went on sale. (They were very good about it too, the money stayed with my friend and the people who'd helped him and they released him from the contract to sell it elsewhere if he wanted.)

That sort of gesture would be hard to find now.

[Shaun M. Neary]

the Double dragon Mystery

Double Dragon Dojo: The Amstrad Mystery

Going from memory, i remember there being a significant delay with Double Dragon's release. I remember seeing the promo posters for it to be released on all formats in C+VG, All versions surfaced as per original release except the Amstrad CPC.
Melbourne House acquired the licence (post Mastertronic buyout, pre Virgin buyout). The poor version never saw the light of day on a full price release, however did surface on a number of tape compilations around the same version of Richard Aplin's version saw release in 1989. First time I remember getting it was on the 100% dynamite compilation, and it was so sluggish that all playability was sucked out of it.
However, it gained popularity as it worked on the 64k systems, while Aplin's version only worked on 128k systems.


So between budget re-releases on tape, and compilations. It's not really surprising at the time that few people knew about Aplin's version of DD.

[Nich]

I've been quite lucky working in games - in 5½ years, I've only spent a total of 9 months working on 2 different games that got cancelled fairly early into their lifespans. But I've got friends who worked in the games industry for over 10 years before a game they were working on shipped and have 7 different games listed on their CV with "unreleased title" that they can't even talk about because it's still covered by NDAs! It seems strange, but it's actually fairly common.

That's interesting. When I was at Revival 2013, one of the guest speakers (I think it was Philip Oliver - one half of The Oliver Twins) said that he knew someone who had worked in game development and programming for 12 years, and every game he had worked on was never released, for one reason or another. I was astonished to hear that!

[Puresox]

Maybe he should try a different career??

[redbox]

That's interesting. When I was at Revival 2013, one of the guest speakers (I think it was Philip Oliver - one half of The Oliver Twins) said that he knew someone who had worked in game development and programming for 12 years, and every game he had worked on was never released, for one reason or another. I was astonished to hear that!

Was probably talking about himself (or an employee of Blitz Games)...

[TMR]

Maybe he should try a different career??

It's frustrating when that happens, but the people involved are paid for their time and all experience is good.

[ralferoo]

Maybe he should try a different career??

Why? You can be a very good games developer and still be unlucky enough to spend 2 years working on a game that gets cancelled for a reason other than you as a person not being good at your job.

Sometimes the project is obviously going to fail, so it's probably time to move on before it does, but things do often get cancelled a long way into development because they no longer fit with what the company wants to do. The games I worked on that were cancelled weren't cancelled because they weren't any good but because the publisher decided they no longer wanted to work in that gaming sector as they didn't see a future in it beyond a couple of years. One of our games would have been out within the year and almost certainly still turned a profit, but releasing it would have been making the opposite statement to what they'd announced publically and so it was cancelled just because it no longer fitted with their lineup. Several years later, there are still fans asking for it!

[ralferoo]

Was probably talking about himself (or an employee of Blitz Games)...

Heh. Surprisingly Blitz Games were amazingly prolific at getting games out of the door. I'd never heard of most of them, but from what I understand they usually had about 5 6-month projects on the go at any given time.

[robcfg]

Well, I've been working for 13 years now as game developer, and sadly it's true I think that there has been more games cancelled than released.


The bigger the company, the worse it gets...

[arnoldemu]

I've been working in games for 17 years and it just happens. The reasons vary.

[Puresox]

It's frustrating when that happens, but the people involved are paid for their time and all experience is good.

It was a flippant comment not meant to be taken seriously. Should have stuck a smiley at the end.

[Xyphoe]

Hi all,

I'm currently researching games that were earmarked for the CPC but which, for one reason or another, never got a release.

Anyone have names/developer details of such games that I need to check out and track down?

Love to hear. Best wishes.

Dave

Hi David,

The link posted (Category:Vaporware - CPCWiki) is pretty comprehensive but a few could be expanded, mostly cart games. Which reminds me I need to do a proper article/section on GX4000 games MIA for the gx4000.co.uk site! So I'll do a big post that'll help me get started on that anyway! But firstly....

The big one first of all is Street Fighter 2.
I covered the saga of it comprehensively in my video on my channel here -



Actually you might be of assistance here seeing as you did write for Amstrad Action occasionally freelance I believe?.... a lot of people and cynics assume that Amstrad Action's coverage and constant news article that the game was coming was false and a way to keep people interested in buying the magazine! Is there any truth to that at all?

Now - controversy time!! The Amazing Spiderman! Was nearly complete! In fact review or more likely preview copies were sent out to certain magazines - or worse just screen shots - because the ACU magazine did a whole REVIEW of the game! Of a game that was never 100% complete which Amstrad Action found out and posted with glee in their news pages!

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/File:ACU9103-039.jpg

So GX4000 games...

The BIIIIIG one is of course Special Criminal Investigations : Chase HQ II!
I'm sure Martyn can give you all the details about that from his own Retro Gamer article!
Or see here - http://gx4000.co.uk/gamebase/games.php?game=specialcriminalinvestigations

The other big one, and I'm surprised this hasn't shown up yet is the GX4000 version of Gazza II!
There IS a finished version of this because review copies were sent out, played and reviewed! And the Pickford Bros also confirm this on their own site!

http://www.zee-3.com/pickfordbros/softography/index.php?game=44

I cover the magazine coverage of the game in the first minute of my video -



Next up are 3 that were very nearly in the can but pulled at the last minute before completion -

Toki - there's screen shots in an Amstrad Action magazine which I'll find later, there is this advert for it too - http://cpc-power.com/PictureZoom.php?extra=pub&fiche=3705&slot=3&part=A&type=.jpg
A news article in Amstrad Action confirmed that Ocean informed them they've decided not to release it despite being far in development.

Similarly with Robocop 3 which was planned and being worked on, but pulled probably less than 50% done into development. The only details to find about this game is 2 Amstrad Action news articles announcing it's being worked on, then announcing it has been cancelled.

There's a possibility of near completed version out there.
Battlestorm - supposedly a release for both CPC and Plus/GX4000 machines! It was advertised in French magazines by Titus for several platforms, however didn't even get released for Spectrum or C64 either. Amiga and PC definitely got one, and it was a rather dull multi-directional shoot-em-up. Can't see it being much better than Copter271 was on the GX.

http://cpc-power.com/PictureZoom.php?extra=pub&fiche=3700&slot=1&part=A&type=.jpg



Cougar Force - this is interesting. Looks like a scrolling beat-em-up with first person flying bits, advertised for the Amstrad 'console' from Tomahawk who also released the awful No Exit GX game. Actually from looking at the PC DOS version it looks like a cross between No Exit and Aigle D'or: Le Retour!

http://cpc-power.com/PictureZoom.php?extra=pub&fiche=3797&slot=1&part=A&type=.jpg



The following were advertised for console release but was probably a misinterpretation by mail order companies - Crazy Cars 3 (the game was pretty awful on the CPC release and felt unfinished, I can't see how Titus would have bothered tarting it up for the GX), Double Dragon (I remember reading somewhere that OCEAN of all companies was releasing this given that they did the C64GS cart release - http://doubledragon.kontek.net/games/dd/rddc64-2.html), Kick Off 2 probably came from the fact that a C64GS was planned (http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/kick-off-2-cartridge/) and the following were almost certainly mistaken information with mail order companies possible again because C64GS ports were planned - Escape From The Planet Of Robot Monsters, Outrun, SDI, Shadow Warriors. There's probably an advert from Amstrad Action you could pull up showing the above games for mail order in the early days of the GX4000 release.

[arnoldemu]

About Toki, Dave Looker of DJL worked on it.
He said he asked Ocean for a larger cart and they refused.
Sometime after that it got shelved/cancelled.
He believes he has something of it sitting in the back of his shed.
I've not heard back from him about it recently, worth looking into?

[arnoldemu]

Add to the list Never Ending Story by Linel and Judge Dredd.

Both appear to have been part way through development.

[arnoldemu]

I think a lot of this highlights what we saw from UK companies, or at least in the UK press.

There may be more Games that Weren't from French, Spanish or German companies.

[TFM]

Well, I don't even know one example from Germany. Anybody any idea? IIRC what they advertised, finally got sold. But my memory may have a leak somewhere. 

[Joseman]

There may be more Games that Weren't from French, Spanish or German companies.

Well, I remember 2 possibly games, not cancelled, even not started (i think), but... in 2 of the bests games that dinamic did here in spain...

In freddy Hardest in Manhattan south (not a good game, but freddy hardest 1 is one of the bests from dinamic), in the end of the game it says "We'll see in forbidden planet", this game was never released, but it seems that a "freddy hardest 3" could exist if the 8-bit market lasted more years...

same with the trilogy "army moves", "navy moves" and "artic moves", the last was not released on amstrad, but the pc version is a tipical arcade that could be made on amstrad without problem, I think that, same with freddy hardest, if the amstrad market lasted 2 years more, this games could  see  the light of day.

[TFM]

Same with Trantor II - The revenge of the Storm-trooper.   

[ivarf]

About Toki, Dave Looker of DJL worked on it.
He said he asked Ocean for a larger cart and they refused.
Sometime after that it got shelved/cancelled.
He believes he has something of it sitting in the back of his shed.
I've not heard back from him about it recently, worth looking into?

Not Ocean France? Interesting

[TFM]

Would be great to finish that Toki.

[Gryzor]

Same with Trantor II - The revenge of the Storm-trooper. 

First that I hear of this. That's one I'd LOVE to see!

[TFM]

Oh yes, when you complete Trantor, then it states it in the end message. 


Honestly got no idea of development.

[Gryzor]

Ahhh ok then, that's different, I thought there had been some development...

[Xyphoe]

The article is in this months magazine (released to shops last Thursday)

Some interesting stuff about Toki! They found a disk of sprite designs! And Dave Looker confirms the first level WAS completed, so that disk may turn up too!


I'm really surprised the article didn't talk about The Amazing Spiderman though given all the controversy with ACU 'reviewing' it etc when it must have been in a playable state somewhat.