aGTW Update: Nobby the Aardvark, X-Fighter CD32 and Lone Wolf: the Mirror of Death
 

Amiga Games That Weren't covers three games in this update:

The Nobby the Aardvark is a famous C64 game that was in development for the Amiga. Sadly, the Amiga was about half complete and was affected by Thalamus' liquidation. aGTW speaks to developers Jonathan Temples and Ashley Hogg.


aGTW talks to the elusive Kwok Man about his game X-Fighter CD32. X-Fighter was the commercial successor to PD game Mad Fighters II, was due to be published by Thalion and was reviewed by a number of Amiga magazines before it mysteriously disappeared.


Finally, we query Ian Upton, the designer of Lone Wolf: the Mirror of Death. This action/platform game was based on a popular series of gamebooks and was released on a number of 8-bit platforms. Although advertised for the Amiga, Atari ST and DOS, only the PC saw a release.

Thanks for the update. Especially for the playable Nobby the Aardvark Demo. :great

It's playable to an extent e.g. there's a big bug on the first level!

I'm curious about Lone Wolf, is it EGA mixed with CGA?

Thalion had closed their doors and all had joined BlueByte almost a year before this demo was made. Whoever this was, it wasn't Thalion Software GmbH in Germany, i.e. those who made Amberstar, Ambermoon and Lionheart etc.

Kwok said that he was in touch with Tony King at Thalion, so perhaps it was a UK offshoot?

I'll ask but I feel it was either a different Thalion or some new company which bought the name when the Germans closed.

Nice update on Lone Wolf.

Good work guys, as always! :great

Maybe a little marginal thing but...
what's the thing about Jonathan's name change? Is the one a sort of stage name and the other is his real name?
Thought it could have had something to do with marriage, but that's individual for every country per se.

Something confuses me re: Thalion. IIRC, Amiga Power reviewed both X-Fighter and the English version of Ambermoon within the same issue (AP51). If Thalion GmbH had already been defunct for (almost) a year by then, how was the English Ambermoon able to make its way to reviewers, deals done etc? Did this supposedly alternative Thalion obtain the English Ambermoon rights at the time or something?

The last build of the beta version of English Ambermoon (1.07) was assembled over a year prior to AP51 being published and the first German version of Ambermoon (1.00) had been on sale for almost two years!

From what I recall, everyone who developed for Thalion had left months before July 1995 (AP51).

When they closed lots of rights were sold off to pay bills. Mostly to magazines for coverdisks. I do have some emails somewhere regarding how these magazines got their rights and also how the CD32 versions of Chambers of Shaolin & The Seven Gates of Jambala by Unique came to exist in 1993 (again work not done by Thalion GmbH).

There may have been someone trading under the name Thalion in 1995 but it did not included anyone from Thalion GmbH.

I don't know but you can probably work out dates of when the Thalion team joined BlueByte from the age of the files on the two Albion demos for Amiga.

You know, I always wondered why Ambermoon looked so familiar in parts to Albion (which I played lots in the past), haha. I take it it pretty much started off as a Thalion project before BlueByte got involved (and used the same engine programmers)?

Yes, same everyone. It was to be an A1200 game at first, even a bluebyte but the bottom dropped out of the Amiga market and commodore went bankrupt etc.

There are two Albion demos on the Amiga, one is very early and looks nothing like it but the second above ground has similar / same graphics as the released PC version.

http://eager.back2roots.org/DATA/A/ALBIO.html

No big bug, first level is fully playable. WHDLoad slave for seven levels is available on the WT page.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

@Don_Adan: Thank you very much for that WHDLoad-install. Is it possible to include a trainer or level-jump? That would be great!!! 1st Level is a bit hard for me or is there an option to destroy the enemies?

Perhaps enemies can be killed with ants (must be collected).

Thank you, that was the important hint. I didn't know that I can collect ants. ;)
Level 1 already completed, but Trainer or better a Level-Jump would be great. :great
BTW would it be possible to include some nice music or are there any SoundFX? Maybe it's possible to add the music from the C64-version?
Thank you.

For me this game is too easy to be trained. Music or SoundFX perhaps can be added, but I don't have access to other (even damaged) beta or demo version of this game.

Small trainer added fo the new slave.