A big thanks to Philip Bee for the recording of these rare clips of ‘Trojan’ (Durell) on the ZX Spectrum.  Basically Clive Townsend recently had all his Microdrive disks backed up, and recovered was the remains of the unreleased Capcom conversion ‘Trojan’.

This here is an early colour beta of the game:

Unfortunately, although looking very playable and pretty much complete - World Of Spectrum is unable to release the game into the wild due to copyright issues from Capcom, so you’ll have to make do with these clips in the meantime.

These two remaining clips are much later versions of the game

Clip 1.

Clip 2.

Not a bad looking game!

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A while back you may remember when we mentioned the ‘Zap’ BBC game which was being uncovered by Jamie Woodhouse (Creator of Quak on the Amiga/PC and GBA) which never got released,  well Retro Software have recently picked up the game and have made it available and for sale in proper inlays very much in Psytronik style with professional quality and duplication.

I had my first experience of playing ‘Zap’ at Retrovision 2010 and I must say that its a very good blast if you are into your shooters like me.  It has quite a harsh scoring system which makes posting a high-score quite a challenge.  Graphics and sound are very good throughout and for the very cheap prices which Retro Software are charging, there is no excuse not to pick up a copy. (And on a variety of formats too!)

Additionally we were presented with another game called "The Krystal Connection", which is a very addictive platform/puzzler affair for the same price.  This is yet another game that was never released and was saved from the developer’s disks.  It originally was due for release by Melbourne House in 1986, but never quite happened (We think because support was dropped for the Beeb by Melbourne House at that time).  The guys have Retro Software have had things tidied up and released in proper inlays and tape/disk.  Graphics are nothing spectacular, but are very functional and the game tune I found very catchy.  Overall its the playability that shines through, and this was very popular on Dave Moore’s BBC at Retrovision 2010.

And there is more to come - and the theme of saving unreleased games continues, with the next title looking to be Repton: The Lost Realms.  More about this up and coming release can be found here: http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Repton:_The_Lost_Realms

At present, there is a bit of a debate about offering digital copies of the games for a smaller charge (Though at present people buying the game physically are given a digital copy to play with - but i’d check this first with R.S, as I may have got my copy as a favour).  Hopefully it will happen, as some people may not want to buy a physical copy of a game when they don’t have a BBC Micro, and would prefer to play them on an emulator.  We’ll see how that pans out.

For more details on ordering, check out: http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk

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Thanks to Peter Weighill for highlighting, but the World of Spectrum have recently recovered another unreleased game, this time an early version of Basket Master called Fernando Martin Basket Master…

 

Now, this particular version was in development with support by Dinamic, but the owners decided that deadlines were being missed and the game was reassigned to another programmer.  The game used the graphics that were already created, but the new programmer did the game code itself from scratch.  Apart from a mention in Micro Hobby magazine in 1986, the original BETA version has never surfaced until now.

It begs the question now if a similar fate happened to C64 and Amstrad conversions,  with the C64 version being done I think in-house by Gari Biasillo. 

But for Spectrum owners, check out the findings and read more details over at the WoS entry here:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0024365

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Before my annual leave is up,  here’s another update for GTW64…  this includes some nice findings on a few Beyond Belief titles (Beyond Belief were a company that came around late in the Spectrum/C64’s lifetime and tried to fill the gap that Codemasters/Ocean etc left)

Full summary:

• ‘Kayde’ special (8 new entries from the obscure 1983 software house)
• ‘Jimmy’s Grand Prix’ major update (Clearer screenshots, developer details, game details)
• ‘Shove Off’ / aka Pushover update  (Another Beyond Belief title, more details from Jonathan Cauldwell)
• ‘Caveman Ninja’ and ‘Flimbo’s Quest 2′ tunes added (Caveman Ninja in particular was a surprise)
• ‘Thundercats V1′ new entry added (What turned into Beyond The Ice Palace…)
• ‘The Secret Path’ new entry added

http://www.gtw64.co.uk

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Catalypse was a pretty nifty C64 sideways shooter which challenged the likes of Armalyte and Delta towards the end of the C64’s lifetime.  Sadly Zzap 64 were strangely critical of the game and gave it a low mark, although the game is quite awesome from its intros, the game and the end sequence.

 

Recently the guys at ready64.org interviewed Andrea Pompili and managed to get an unreleased version of Catalypse which features a number of bug fixes,  some including a level 2 loading screen, fixes to the bosses of 1st and 2nd level, etc.

Grab the new version from here:

http://ready64.org/giochi/scheda_gioco/id/2710/catalypse-1.1

If also you wish to read the interview with Andrea Pompili, then check it out here: (Note that its all in Italian, and you may need to run it through a translator!)

http://ready64.org/articoli/leggi/idart/79/intervista-ad-andrea-pompili

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The guys at World of Spectrum have just worked with Dean Hickingbottom to recover remains of a rather neat little game called ‘Ninja Grannies’ which was developed by Clockwise Developments.  Well, its a one on one beat-em-up which isn’t Street Fighter 2, but its quite a comical little game.

 

Unfortunately no publishers wanted the game, and so it remained unpublished.  Spectrum and CPC versions were developed in parallel, and its believed a C64 version was also in development (Of which an entry exists on GTW64).  Hopefully other versions will follow through in the future.

Grab it here, and enjoy!

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A nice large update just before the xmas break,  enjoy!…

(*) ‘Arkanoid V1′ - Pre-Ocean licence preview found and added
(*) ‘Brainleak’ - Preview found and added
(*) ‘Starglider 2′ - Full game coming soon!
(*) ‘Toxic’ - Rare preview added.
(*) ‘Live and Let Die V1′ - Full story added
(*) Cartridge confirmations for the C64GS that never were
(*) 33 new GTW entries added (Too many to list)
(*) 15 existing GTW entries updated

Full details can be found on the website at http://www.gtw64.co.uk

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After a long rescue mission, at long last the lost C64 conversion of The Bubbler has been found and released. The added bonus is that the game is fully complete, containing the loading picture, music and sfx.

Developer Matt Young, Sailor/Triad and Jazzcat have been busy at work and reconstructing things into its final state, whilst compressing and bug fixing. The download contains two versions, a trained version and the standard version. All instructions are included.

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Although the frame rate suffers due to Ultimate’s demands on how the display worked, it is a massive finding and still as playable as the Spectrum original. It’s yet another one for the archives! Go check it out!…

http://gtw64.retro-net.de/Pages/t/Review_Thebubbler.php 

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After almost becoming a GTW, in 2009 and after just over a year of development, the C64 conversion of the excellent Amstrad/Spectrum Firebird game "The Wild Bunch" is now complete.  

The Wild Bunch was a superb classic Firebird release which never strangely had a C64 conversion back in the day.  Jon Wells has risen to the challenge some 25 years on, bringing along a series of additional features/updates, including new improved graphics, sound, gameplay features (Including a vastly improved Gunfight scene with speech).

 

The game is being sold in a limited edition form with authentically and professionally produced inlays and tape labels, replicating the Firebird original release of old, all for the budget price of £3.99 (Not including p&p).

 

The official release date is due sometime later this month, which will be a date set in October (TBC).  The game will now be shipped with the bonus of two versions of the cover printed on both sides.  So you can choose which version you wish to display on your shelf.  Previews of the cover can be seen on the project website.

There is currently still a pre-order competition running for the game where 20 people can win a free professionally produced Wild Bunch audio CD.  The competition will close by Midnight on Friday the 11th September, and the winners will be announced on the website by the 18th September.  

For development diaries + ordering details, please visit:

http://www.gamesplaygames.co.uk/thewildbunch/

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A bit of a surprise we hope, but coming up soon will be the complete conversion of "The Bubbler" on the C64, the conversion of Ultimate’s infamous last Speccy game. Check out the ingame shot below…

In the recovery of the game there have been one or two surprises, but the biggest has to be the fact that the game was finished. It seems the only thing which stopped this one was the slow framerate, which is a shame.

Anyway… things are progressing well and we should be seeing it very soon! (But there is more to come … something with a bit of an "Ocean" theme to it.. a disk is in the post as we speak )

In addition to this, we’ve updated GTW64 with the following…

• Two new entries added… Halloween, Pegasus
• Phalsberg (French edition) added to archive
• Rob Hubbard confirmed as musician to a number of GTW’s… Food Feud, Pulsator, Trojan, Wolf
• Original files added to archive - Bee 52, Grell and Falla, Starburst
• Other Updates … Armageddon, Epsilon

Full details of update can be found at:

http://www.gtw64.co.uk

Posted by Frank Gasking in :   GTW64, News  |   1 comment so far