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Unreleased games by Clockwize

Started by Nich, 20:54, 27 May 17

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Nich

Quote from: Joseman on 14:28, 27 June 17
Another game MIA of clockwize has been dumped!!:

Thankyou to @SyX that fixed some things and the generosity of Dean Hickingbottom this game has been recovered!

Nice! 8) I played it yesterday evening and it's a great little game.

The game was released for the Spectrum and C64, but not the CPC (until now). I wonder if this was because of the bugs that @SyX has fixed?

deepfb

Quote from: Nich on 18:59, 28 June 17
The game was released for the Spectrum and C64, but not the CPC (until now). I wonder if this was because of the bugs that @SyX has fixed?


No, the game was fully playable when Dean sent us the .wav. But it was still possible to return to the PDS debug system by pressing the TAB key, so Syx disallowed it. AFAIK, that's the only fix we added to it.

Nich

Quote from: deepfb on 19:26, 28 June 17
No, the game was fully playable when Dean sent us the .wav. But it was still possible to return to the PDS debug system by pressing the TAB key, so Syx disallowed it. AFAIK, that's the only fix we added to it.
Ah, OK.

There's a note from Dean in the game's entry on World of Spectrum:

Quote from: Dean Hickingbottom
Dean recalls: "This game was originally entitled 'Mission Icarus' and was demoed on ST/Amiga by Power House at Video Images who I think found a buyer in Psygnosis. A multi-platform conversion deal was struck with Clockwize and ZX, CBM64, PC (and an unwanted Amstrad CPC) versions were completed (the CPC, a port by Dave Bradley from the ZX was excellent!). We had to get the game text translated into the other languages required by the spec."
Given that the CPC version is of high quality, it makes it all the more mysterious as to why Psygnosis chose not to release it.

SyX

Well Nich, it's simpler that you think, Psygnosis wanted a c64 and zx version; Clockwize thought that at the same time, they could deliver a CPC version too...

... but when they showed the 3 versions, Psygnosis said that what they really said was "we want a c64 and zx versions, and we DON'T want a CPC version"...

Yes, it was a super stupid move by Psygnosis, but they were the guys paying and Clockwize had to respect that, even if it's so difficult to understand why they would not want an extra port for a system that they had released games before and after Captain Fizz.

Because of that negative, everybody should understand that Clockwize had to stop any extra development time in Fizz CPC, because they would not get any money of this great CPC game. And that is the reason because all the loading screens, except the one for choosing language, come from zx; they were temporary screens, and if Psygnosis would have bought the CPC version those screen would be very different.

And i can tell you that Dean and me spoken about making a nice mode 0 pictures of those, but at then end we thought that it would be much better to preserve the games as they were, because after add the screens, we could fix more things and more, ... and then we will reach a point where we would have crossed the limits of preserving the original game.

Of course, now that the original release is preserved, if somebody wants to make new screens, feel free and use those in your cracks/HD installers/...

One thing, that i would love to say is that all those Clockwize games looks finished, but that is not really true, those games remain in the same state that when they were brought to possible publishers, if the publishers would have given the go on, then extra time would have been taken for polishing/improving those games.

For example, because Ninja Grannies never got a publisher (*) and new games contract came, then Clockwize never had time for improving the playability/difficulty (that trick kick :P) or adding a two players mode, ...

(*): Not getting a publisher for Ninja Grannies is another thing that i will never be able to understand, because NG is a lot better than a lot of CPC fighting games... I love that wink to "Hell's Grannies" Monty Python's sketch, hehehe.

At the end of the day, i enjoyed to help discovering/preserving those games, but i loved even more to discover about the dynamic duo, Dean and Dave, and about the story of Clockwize, one of the less known game developers from the 80.

A company that thought that the CPC was a great machine, something that you can see in those MIAs games, games with a lot of polishing and nice details that are not usual in CPC versions of games designed originally for other machines. And even after Clockwize closed, while Dean and Dave were adjusting to their new lives outside of game development, they made Frogger and Unpredictaball for CPC, even if they liked and coded for all the 8 bits machines, those guys chosen to code for the CPC in their free time.

I promise that has been a big inspiration to discover about a company that loved the CPC, so much, that maybe a few choices, that they made, were not the best for business, but when we were young, we used our heart a lot... Thanks Clockwize! Thanks Dean! ;)

dboddie

Nice to see this game appear for the CPC after all these years. Does anyone know why the C64, ZX and CPC versions had a different title to the BBC/Electron version of the game?

Carnivius

Cool games but is there a way to load CDT's really fast on Winape or other CPC emulators or do you always have to wait like it's a real cassette?
Favorite CPC games: Count Duckula 3, Oh Mummy Returns, RoboCop Resurrection, Tankbusters Afterlife

Phantomz

Quote from: Carnivius on 14:14, 29 June 17
Cool games but is there a way to load CDT's really fast on Winape or other CPC emulators or do you always have to wait like it's a real cassette?

Save a Snapshot in winape after the game has loaded, then just load that when you want to play it again instead of reloading the tape;)

I can't convert " Ninja Grannies " to cpr, but I have converted " Acolyte ", " Frogger ", and " Unpredictaball " and remapped the controls to make them gx4000 friendly, I'll upload them later if this is ok.

Hopefully " Captain Fizz " will be released on disc and I'll look at that game too.  :)

VincentGR

Quote from: Carnivius on 14:14, 29 June 17
Cool games but is there a way to load CDT's really fast on Winape or other CPC emulators or do you always have to wait like it's a real cassette?


You can set the emulator to unlimited speed in General tab.

Acolyte

#33
in reply to the question 'why were the C64, ZX and CPC versions called Fizz rather than Mission Icarus?', well that was Psygnosis who came up with that title and they were paying so who were we to argue!  Fizz was brilliantly converted by Dave from Keith's excellent ZX version.


We also did a PC version, a horrible looking CGA job - I'm sure it was released but I've no idea what happened to that one.  There may be some source code though...


Also, I'd like to point out (for the record and clarity) that a lot of the recent MIA games were not necessarily Clockwize releases (but I understand they have to be discussed together somehow - hence this thread). 


My 'Frogger' was written after Clockwize ('Deanysoft') as was 'Unpredictaball' which was completely written by Dave.  I think 'Acolyte' was started at Video Images but finished at Clockwize (Dave and I brought it with us).

[/size]I wanted to get these games backed up and out here for all to play because they're good (mostly) and worthy of release after all these years.  I didn't want them to rot away on 3" discs and finally got the time and equipment to digitise the data.  The games also represent the result of a lot of fun times (and hard times!) we all had back then nearly 30 years ago and I didn't want them lost.  I have resisted the temptation to redraw things even though some bits didn't look quite finished as I wanted them authentic - as SyX mentioned, if anyone wants to mess about with them now - feel free!
I'd like to thank SyX for his 'patient and occasional bothering' ;D

<time passes.  Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold etc...>

Ha! I Found the IBM Fizz that Keith converted from the ZX version.  I'd forgotten all about it too.  Wow it runs fast!   Now I just need an ibmwiki or equivalent to give that too...

Nich

Quote from: Phantomz on 15:05, 29 June 17
Hopefully " Captain Fizz " will be released on disc and I'll look at that game too.  :)
Here you go!

zeropolis79

With that attitude from Psygnosis, I'm surprised we got Lemmings.. (I'm still suprised we did get it)

Joseman

#36
Hi pals

I'm writing this to let you know that i just finished a dsk of Ninja Grannies, mass storage compatible with hardware that supports the CNG way to detect the mass storage ROM (M4).

Well I think that is compatible because it works on b drive and the roms are correctly initialized, but i can't try this version where i'm now (no cpc no party).

This version use an updated version of my firmware loader, in a way that is used on my version of UNSquadron.

It wasn't easy to do, the game has a lot of levels and a lot of uncompressed data, first problem: the data didn't fit on a single dsk---> aplib party!!

the dsk has 25 files on the final version!!

Next problem, the game load the data from 3 different location depending of the situation: level 1 from one location, level 2,3,4 from another location AND game ending from another location.

It was a real pain to patch the game to make it work on all the situations, and when the game seemed to work... another problem... the game didn't reload the first level when you die!! because the game tried to reload level 1 but in a way that contradice my own loader (that relay on a level variable) not on the pilot of the cassette, ANOTHER patch to reconduce the situation and initialice correctly the level 1 again.

As you can suspect, the game is only 128k compatible, i can't even think on how much job need to be done to make it 64k's compatible (or even if it's possible). The game scoreboard and the decoration lines are loaded as a simple screen on #C000 and NEVER redrawn, a great problem on 64k's machines, than can't use the screen data for temporal load, and even if you use this area without bother about this, there isn't virtual no space to do this, you need to save the firmware zones that are overwrited, you need to load de data, you need to load the loader, if you comprime the data, you need the decompressor, and at the end, the game will OVERWRITE the screen memory with sprites and data, sending your loader and variables to hell!!... so much data overwriting the firmware, so much patchs... I'm tired and there isn't any plans to do 64k's compatible (sorry gx4000 users).

The game itself is a great great game, as @6128 said, very "spitting image" and at pair at least with it! I'm totally sure that this game deserved to be released and us as a kids will like it a lot!!

The problem with the game is that it can be ended with 2 fingers and nothing more... is WAAAAY easy.

I'm thinking on correct this not letting the fighter to inflict so much damage with the round kick... I'll try to do it before release the DSK, because the game degrade a little with the easiness...

i hope to give you more news soon!!!!


Joseman

Hi!!

As promised here is the dsk of Ninja Grannies made by me.

I spent the afternoon searching where the round kick was taking the live of the opponents, and as many other aspects of the game is made ON ANOTHER location than the other kicks!!!

All the kicks drain 1 part of the energy bar, but the round kick was draining 9 parts!!!! too much!!

i changed the value, and now the round kick of Mabel takes alot less energy of the enemy.

Howewer the round kick of the enemies still take 9 parts of Mabel ;)

Now the fighter need to change a little the tactics to win, the fights are more equal.

Hope that i didn't introduce a bug changing the value of the round kick...

and, i didn't play so much with the new patch, please tell me how hard the game is now!!

Here is the dsk: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=25429463761814444258

Please, don't upload the dsk to any site until the game is fully tested bug/difficult.

Please test on a M4 to know if the game works in it!!

Remember that the M4 is more compatible with the files on a folder, not inside the dsk!!



Duke

Quote from: Joseman on 20:36, 13 July 17
Please test on a M4 to know if the game works in it!!

Works for me, thanks. But only from a folder as you suggested. I only got to the 2nd screen, so don't know if it did any reloading, I could have used the old round kick you mentioned :)

Puresox

Hey Hey , after being absent for a few months I return to find stuff like this ! Really stoked to see this development and have great respect for those that helped bring these releases about. Really appreciated. Great to hear the back story also. Great to hear about the MIA games. Cheers

Puresox

Quote from: Acolyte on 20:40, 29 June 17
in reply to the question 'why were the C64, ZX and CPC versions called Fizz rather than Mission Icarus?', well that was Psygnosis who came up with that title and they were paying so who were we to argue!  Fizz was brilliantly converted by Dave from Keith's excellent ZX version.


We also did a PC version, a horrible looking CGA job - I'm sure it was released but I've no idea what happened to that one.  There may be some source code though...


Also, I'd like to point out (for the record and clarity) that a lot of the recent MIA games were not necessarily Clockwize releases (but I understand they have to be discussed together somehow - hence this thread). 


My 'Frogger' was written after Clockwize ('Deanysoft') as was 'Unpredictaball' which was completely written by Dave.  I think 'Acolyte' was started at Video Images but finished at Clockwize (Dave and I brought it with us).

I wanted to get these games backed up and out here for all to play because they're good (mostly) and worthy of release after all these years.  I didn't want them to rot away on 3" discs and finally got the time and equipment to digitise the data.  The games also represent the result of a lot of fun times (and hard times!) we all had back then nearly 30 years ago and I didn't want them lost.  I have resisted the temptation to redraw things even though some bits didn't look quite finished as I wanted them authentic - as SyX mentioned, if anyone wants to mess about with them now - feel free!
I'd like to thank SyX for his 'patient and occasional bothering' ;D

<time passes.  Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold etc...>

Ha! I Found the IBM Fizz that Keith converted from the ZX version.  I'd forgotten all about it too.  Wow it runs fast!   Now I just need an ibmwiki or equivalent to give that too...
Have you been pestered for an interview on your 8-bit era? (I haven't read this thread fully so may well have missed pieces)

Acolyte

I have been asked, I can't say I've been pestered.  I've agreed to do one at some point, it's just fitting all these things in.  I've still got lots of CPC disks to look through yet!

Puresox

That's good to hear, Look forward to future developments , this stuff is gold . And the stories of the behind the scenes , is dead intriguing.


6128

Joseman, many thanks for Ninja Grannies DSK.  ;)

Joseman

Quote from: 6128 on 10:45, 22 July 17
Joseman, many thanks for Ninja Grannies DSK.  ;)

Thankyou!

Remember that there is a bug in the dsk with the 464/664.

Here is the post where i explain it, anyone knows the answer?

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/programming/strange-behaviour-between-cpc464-cpc6128/

regards


Nich

Here's a YouTube video from The New Retro Show which offers opinions on some of these games from Clockwize:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYJERTMfaNc

This guy has also uploaded a few other videos showcasing homebrew CPC games. He's Canadian, so it's rather interesting to see what he thinks of the CPC and its games, given that the CPC was probably pretty much unknown in Canada.

Gryzor

Ooh that's interesting! Thanks!

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