Magic Carpet (Bullfrog/EA) - Unreleased Amiga CD32/AGA pics found for HOL!!!

[Retro1234]

I don't quite believe what has been said I think someone somewhere did say there would be Magic Carpet for Amiga weather they discovered the Amiga just wasn't powerful enough......
it appeared more than one occasion and the publishers back then could have said at the time no this won't be released for Amiga etc

I'd rather see that horrible Resident Evil removed from HOL this is quite misleading.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

I don't quite believe what has been said.

You don't believe what the actual people in charge of the game said? Well buddy what can I tell you, you must have a load of trouble in life

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Plus where does HOL draw the line, there are 324 unreleased games on the database, many are just rumours and going on hearsay, either leave Magic Carpet or remove it, but do the same with any other game that has nothing to back up its existence.

I agree! This was mainly my point.

MAYBE it is time for HOL to have an extra category besides Unreleased/MIA, which is "Vaporware" or something, for games that really never existed or for which factual evidence is little or none. Then you can keep all those.

If this was all made by me I would have never included any entry for which verifiable 100% trustworthy data (ie NOT from magazines but straight from the horse's mouth: developers, publishers) was not available for the game, but we're in this boat now and have to do something with reports like that of Magic Carpet.


I don't mind the entry as much as I mind its categorization and inference that it might have existed, boosted by the FAKE screenshots the entry still has today, all based on fake news that spread like wildfire.

[idrougge]

Aren't cases like these more in the domain of AGTW?

[Amiga1992]

All games in AGTW are present in HOL, I believe. They are different entities anyway.

[kikems]

Here the information and scans of the spanish magazine that i'd talk about , with an interview with developers of megarace and lost eden, announcing their development about Amiga Computers and CD32.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xH6...ew?usp=sharing

[RCK]

Keeping thoses HOL entries with a new "Vaporware" banner seems the best way for me

[scifi]

IMHO, the entry should be kept on HOL and a new category should be established to classify this and any other entries are out there delving in the sphere of non-existence.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Akira

Sorry to necrobump, I just read Glenn Corpes story, great insight!

With that in mind, wouldn't it be correct to strike this entry form HOL altogether? As he says, the screenshots are from PC, and this was NEVER mean to be an Amiga game, not even planned.

The entry is still up here:
http://hol.abime.net/4423

Or is HOL also gonna keep track of all fake entries magazines lied about at the final days of Amiga?

(I see also Megarace is there, is there any ACTUAL PROOF that it was at any point planned and development started for it to the CD32? Because taking a magazine's word for it is not good as proved many times. They were outright making shit up by 1995)

Megarace was definitively developped for the Amiga CD32.
In fact, the first technical demo of the game engine was made on an Amiga 500 by Sohor Ty

In this preview you can see CD32 pictures of the games and a devs speaking about the conversion. You can think that this is all made up bullshit by The One, but I don't think so.
Plus Mindscape was very active on the CD32 at that time.

http://amr.abime.net/amr_popup_pictu...ilesize=398328

http://amr.abime.net/amr_popup_pictu...ilesize=390571

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Akira

[...]
MAYBE it is time for HOL to have an extra category besides Unreleased/MIA, which is "Vaporware" or something, for games that really never existed or for which factual evidence is little or none. Then you can keep all those.

If this was all made by me I would have never included any entry for which verifiable 100% trustworthy data (ie NOT from magazines but straight from the horse's mouth: developers, publishers) was not available for the game, but we're in this boat now and have to do something with reports like that of Magic Carpet.

I don't mind the entry as much as I mind its categorization and inference that it might have existed, boosted by the FAKE screenshots the entry still has today, all based on fake news that spread like wildfire.

Originally Posted by scifi

IMHO, the entry should be kept on HOL and a new category should be established to classify this and any other entries are out there delving in the sphere of non-existence.

Originally Posted by RCK

Keeping thoses HOL entries with a new "Vaporware" banner seems the best way for me

I agree with these kittens.

Even though the game was never ever meant to be developed on the Amiga (and specifically the CD32) there is some historical data tying it to the machine by way of (incorrect) magazine information.

So, in a sense, the game is very loosely and shakily tied to Amiga history and could thus deserve a HOL entry.

Of course, such an entry should be explicitly and very visibly marked as "false information / misunderstanding" and "development never considered" with links to the relevant proofs (*) so that there is no confusion nor perpetuation of the provably false myths.

(*) A recent interview on the RetroHourUK podcast with Glenn Corpses also clarifies in no uncertain terms that development never even started nor was considered, I recommend listening to that episode (and all others!) and not just to hear about that particular point.

[kremiso]

just readed for the first time all this
really a shame
i like a lot the first Magic Carpet, and it would have been lovely to see it on some pumped miggy config too

[Seiya]

i remembered to have read something about this game and it seemed mostly complete but never released with the promise that will be released free for all. Maybe it was a fake news.

[TCD]

Found a preview with one a half (one is a slightly modified version of an existing one) new screenshots: https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/magic-carpet#scans
Only three lines about Magic Carpet.

[kremiso]

knowing the Bullfrog Amiga backbone is hard to believe they didnt attempt something also in the Commodore ground

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Plus where does HOL draw the line, there are 324 unreleased games on the database, many are just rumours and going on hearsay, either leave Magic Carpet or remove it, but do the same with any other game that has nothing to back up its existence.

I agree. Just having read the whole thread I've added Glenn's comment and notes to the screenshots on the HOL entry. We keep it for the three magazines (falsely) mentioning the Amiga/CD32 version for reasons explained in the thread. We are getting rid of entries that are based solely on rumors or just one point of reference.

[Gzegzolka]

I wonder maybe Bullfrog were using Amigas to create graphics, sprites, textures and somebody catch that on photo and that's how this rumour started.

[TCD]

Glenn Corpes' post explains it quite well: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php...812#post903812
In the preview that I added today there are exactly those three games mentioned (Magic Carpet, Syndicate, and Theme Park) and (as posted before) there are only 3 lines about Magic Carpet.

[kremiso]

slight offtopic, but the PC CD version also had some 'strange' things :

The original CD-ROM release of the game inexplicably includes a large chunk of unneeded development files as outlined above, such as the original unpacked level files, level manifests, an alpha build and other revealing items. More practically, it also includes an executable called MAPHACK.EXE which lets the player replace the surface of the first level with a 256 x 256 pixel image of their choice. All Thing placements remain the same, only the level appearance changes. All of these extras were removed from Magic Carpet Plus. Reportedly this release was actually the wrong master disc that was duplicated, as the final level mana bug fixed in the patch had already been detected and fixed prior to the release of the game[2]. As such it's possible the above files were present purely as this release was never meant to be seen by the public.