Features category posts
Click other categories in the right column to list other available posts on Games That Weren't.
Interview with Craig Kelsall - August 10, 2009
When doing a bit of research for the C64 mirror of GTW, we got in touch with Craig Kelsall regarding any of his unfinished C64 work and got asking a few questions. In the end it seemed sensible to turn it into a small interview, and so here it is!
Craig developed late into the C64’s life, working for Hi-Tec and Codemasters on titles such as Turbo the Tortoise and Crystal Kingdom Dizzy. We ask him a few questions and find out what happened next after moving on from the C64.
Posted by Frank Gasking in :
Features, Interview | 
add a comment‘FLOOD 2′ (Bullfrog) - so close, yet so far… - May 3, 2009
1992 Bullfrog
ST, Amiga, PC, SNES, Mega Drive
Code - Paul (Paulie) Hughes
Graphics - Mark R Jones
Music - N/A
Ah "Flood", the memories had with this awesome Amiga game back in the day. With it’s groundbreaking speech effects throughout, Flood proved to be a huge hit on the ST/Amiga back in 1990, and so it was inevitable that a sequel would follow. This time the main character, Quiffy, would also look to make an appearance on 16-bit consoles which were starting to take a hold on the gaming public alongside home computers.
The game was being developed by non other than ex-Ocean coder Paul Hughes with graphics by Mark R Jones (Who also worked at Ocean).
Flood 2 promised more of the same of the first game, with a multitude of additional features and bits to improve further on the original (Which sadly and undeservidly never had the full spotlight treatment on its original release).
Posted by Frank Gasking in :
Features, Reviews, GTW general | 2 comments‘The Mindwarp’ - a lost Maxis game - April 1, 2009
Not too much is known about The Mindwarp, but this was a nice looking Descent style game from 1996/97 which was being produced by Maxis software on the PC and which was advertised in a few places and magazines.
The game was reported by SEC as looking very unlikely to be released, and reports in 1997 confirm that the game was canned. It’s not entirely clear why, but possibly the game was well overdue (as was Simcopter at the time) and it was felt that the game would not recoup enough money.
One of the designers, Garrett Smith, has the game listed as one of his credits - but no material of the game unfortunately. The YouTube clip demonstrates some rare footage of the game which came as an extra to a Pinball game that Maxis released. The same YouTube entry mentions that there was apparently a playable demo released on a Maxis compilation, but the compilation has not been located.
It is hoped that more can be found out about the game, and even playable versions located. With one credit already, maybe there is a chance of digging this up someday.
Many thanks to Clint Basinger for highlighting this one! … We hope to have more on this one soon!
Sources
Posted by Frank Gasking in : pcGTW, Features, GTW general | add a comment“Meantime” a top RPG GTW - February 22, 2009
We’ve seen countless many games disappear into the myst without a screenshot or even a title left behind. This is not the case of Meantime (you may remember this title from GTW64’s coverage), one of the most popular vapourware (not so whimsical actually) according to gamers expectations.
This Interplay RPG evolved from Wasteland engine while sharing same development team, yet it’s not a follow-up. It came to a hault when the 8 bit market collapsed, bringing the end to the AppleII and C64 editions. It was then later revived in DOS just to come to the same conclusion. With the debut of advanced engines like Ultima VII , the competition would have been very unfair we guess!
Sources
Posted by Fabrizio Bartoloni in : Features, GTW general | add a commentA trio of unreleased Atari games… - February 11, 2009
A general post and old news really, but something that may interest followers of all things prototype/unreleased…
Piracy harmed a lot the software industry (and still does of course) - so normally its a negative thing… but in this case a positive thing!… Piracy managed to preserve three Atari 8 bit games that would be lost otherwise.
- Hunchback by Ocean
- The Last Guardian by Tynesoft
- Tagalon by Tynesoft
Source: http://atari.fandal.cz/
Features, GTW general | 2 commentsIMEC Design games on Atari ST - January 23, 2009
All we know about IMEC Design is that they produced what we see in these screenshots. We can safely assume that there was the duo J. Lewis and J. Wood behind the name and that most of the games you’re about to see were developed around 1990.
If they are half as hot to play as they look, then it’s worth keeping hunting for them!
First off we have the cute looking Junk Buster…
Posted by Fabrizio Bartoloni in :
Features, GTW general | add a commentLost in a “Midi Maze”? - November 5, 2008
Here we’re talking about one of (if not the very) first multiplayer FPS games. Perhaps it was due to technical difficulties, but besides the well known Atari ST and Gameboy/SNES releases (the latter under the name of "Faceball 2000") - many other platforms lost out on their conversion.
First to miss conversion boat was the Atari 8 bit edition. Lacking the built-in MIDI port of ST, it used several tricks to exploit MidiMate and a couple modem models.
DOS and Windows prototypes followed but halted lacking funds. GameGear port was only made available in Japan (so technically it isn’t a GTW!) whilst Virtua Boy version saw its development die with the demise of console itself. Let’s hope they can be rescued from the maze any time soon!
Posted by Fabrizio Bartoloni in : Features, GTW general | add a commentJohn Romero’s GTW Secrets - October 14, 2008
Given the huge success of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom I/II and Quake - regretfully some of John Romero’s early AppleII/C64 titles were unreleased with 1983 being his annus horribilis when only 2 out of 15 games planned that year survived and were published. Check out John’s wiki for more details:
http://rome.ro/wiki/index.php/John_Romero’s_Games
More close to home, John also worked on a C64 conversion of 2400AD, and recently got in touch with us to confirm that infact he had worked on an early version in 1988 which was cancelled and later restarted by another development team (Ocean Software’s Allan Short)… An interesting story which can be checked out here - http://gtw64.retro-net.de/Pages/0/Review_2400AD.php … and one where the game we hope will be found soon!
Features, GTW general | 6 commentsTwo incredible Amstrad CPC titles - September 29, 2008
"Primal Fight: Prehistorik 3" and "Ping Pong"
If you ever see something technically impossible on a platform, chances are that the authors originated from the Demo scene.
These two titles are no exception, graphically impressive "Primal Fight" is the third installation in the "Prehistorik" saga from AST System developed as late as 1996, little seemed to survive besides splash screen, a few logos for it and its developer team.
WIP codename "Ping Pong" from 1998 left us with just a beautiful menu screen sadly.
Our attempts to find out more about these titles have gone unanswered so far, but we hope to bring you more soon!
Posted by Fabrizio Bartoloni in : Features, GTW general | add a commentA look at some PC-FX based GTW’s - September 7, 2008
PC-FX was the Japan-only 32 bit successor to PC-Engine (a.k.a. TurboGrafx-16 in the States). Quite likely this is the first time you may have heard of it but this platform, almost unknown in the West, enjoyed wide support from legacy NEC developers. A facts and rumours collection on unpublished titles can be found here, you may be lured in by names like:
A useful resource and one well worth checking out…Posted by Fabrizio Bartoloni in :
Features, GTW general | add a comment