Database Of Unreleased Amiga Games

[Tim Janssen]

... Then it has to be March or February 1991. (And I thought I knew Zzap! out of my head...)

[DrBong]

I talked to my man Julian and he tells me that Amiga RamRod is previewed on p95 of the Feb '91 issue. Not bad Tim if that was off the top of your head!

[Codetapper]

Well done you two - it is indeed in Feb '91. Scan from Zzap now in the zone!

I merged the small blurb from the previous page into the picture aswell...

[7-Zark-7]

Yes, quite correct regarding the 2nd preview. Just checked my February 1990 Zzap 64/Amiga issue, page 81 & you'll see an earlier Ramrod screenshot, alongside an early shot of Venus the Flytrap.(Venus being reviewed October 1990). Unfortunately, no scanner to scan the pics with though!

BTW-think I've unearthed an unamed game too. Zzap 64/Amiga September 1990. Pg 81, there's a picture with a caption "The sequel to Infogrames's Hostages features simultaneous two-player action in the assault on Alcatraz prison (Amiga)"
It's alongside another infrogrames Amiga screenshot, for a game called Metal Masters,Light Corridor,(Also both Infogrames),& Escape From Colditz from Digital Magic.

Not sure if its been mentioned but Zzap! July 1990 Pg 56 had preview shot of a game called Restrictor supposed to come from Thalamus developed by the team Crackdown & Forgotten Worlds, described as a cross between Afterburner,Outrun & Galaxy Force.

Zzap August 1990 Pg81. Dammit that page is in tatters, but there's the screenshot of that Psygnosis game Dr Mallet, alongside shots of Shadow of the Beast II,Awesome, unnamed shots of Nitro & very early dev shot of Walker. It's next door to preview Pgs 79 & 80 of Time Machine by Vivid Image.

[fredflint]

Hello all,

Here is a list of games I suspect are unreleased, some I think have been mentioned in other threads, but they do not appear in HOL.

Different Pre Release Names but were released.
Death Mask was known as Deathmasque - source The One(may have been a name The One Imposed)
Fightin Spirit was known as Perpetual Craze also the company is listed as Dynamic Style - source The One April 94 page 39
Brutal Sports Football has a working title of Beast Ball - Source The One April 1993 page 36


Suspected Unreleased Games
Breach 3 - Impressions - Previewed Feburary 1994 The One page 40

Chess Through the Ages - Black Legend - Previewed June 1995 The One page 28
- Cool looking Chess Game, with different background styles
- Initiated April 1993
- set to be released June 1995
- This may have been released and I think its been mentioned before.

Chinto's Revenge - Millenium - Previewed in Amiga Power Issue 4 page 57
- Very Japanese cartoon adv. Guide the unfeasibly large sprite of Chinto into an evil
castle.

Cyberwar - Sales Curve Interactive - Previeed September 1994 Issue of the One page 30
- It was Initiated December 1993
- Set to be released November 1994
- Did it ever happen?

Dark Blade - D.E.X - Previewed in The One January 1994 page 43
- bike racing game
- mentioned in another thread, dont think its in HOL yet though

Discworld - Previwed in the September 1993 Issue of the One page 14
- Doubt much work was done though

Embassy Siege - Gremlin - Previewed in The One January 1994 page 48
- set to be released Winter 1994
- loosley based on the Flag engine (mentioned earlier)

Saurus - Cryo - Previewed in The One January 1994 page 49
- This was cd32 I think

Air Rescue - Thalion - Previewed in The One January 1994 page 49

Evasive Action - Mindscape - Previewed in The One January 1994 page 49
- Set to be released Early 1994 for cd32 and 1200
- This was a 3d game
- mentioned in another thread, but not in HOL

Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge - System 3 - Mentioned in the One October 1993 page16

Front Lines - Impressions - Previewed June 1995 The One page 36
- This was a war game. I think it was Hexagonal.
- Initiated November 1994
- Set to be released July 1995
- developers complained that this was proving difficult to convert across becasue the PC version used Virtual Memory

Kult of Speed - Electronic Arts - Previewed in The One April 1994 Page 32
- Initiated October 1993
- Set to be released June 1994
- racing game

Nascar - Distinctive Software - Previewed in the September 1993 Issue of the One page 15
- Based on the North American sports car championship and co-designed by top driver
- Bill Elliot and the Distinctve Software team, Nascar will attempt to recreate
the thrills and spills of high speed racing action.
Was to be released at 14.99 pounds
- Note: This game may have been released under a new name. I don't think its Bill Elliott's Nascar Challenge

P.I.D. - Private Investigator Dollarally - Terramarque - Previewed in The One June 1994 page 15
- Initiated Januaray 1993
- Like APB

Rally - Europress - Previewed November 1993 the One page 36
- a nice looking 3d racing game (may have been aga only)
- Initiated January 1993
- Set to be released November 1993

Thunder in Paradise - Rumoured in The One March 1994 page12
- based on the hulk hogan series
- I doubt anything was actually started though.

Space Academy - Stellar Genesis Agency - Previewed in The One June 1994 page 15
- ismetric adventure similar to d-generation
- mentioned in another thread but not in Hol

Space Checkers - Black Legend - Previewed in the One June 1994 page 47

Switchworld - Black Legend - Previewed June 1995 The One Page 26
- This was a first person shooter AGA only. Very simlar to Wolfensten 3d (only better )
- Initiated March 1995
- Set to be released June 1995
- My Amiga Games history from Late 1995 onwards is very sketchy, so this game may have been
released

The Big End - Supervision - Previewed September 1994 The One page 40
- This was a top down (sort of Isometric) racing game.
- This may have been a pre releas name.
- Initiated: September 1993
- Set to be released October 1994

The Gadget Twins - Mirage - Previeed in the October 1992 Issue of the One page 122
- A Flying game (horzontal) Where you hit things with a hammer, cartoon graphics.

Games I believe were released.
Creepers - Psygnosis
- I know this game has been mentioned before, But I believe this game was released
because in the Feburary 1993 Issue of the One on Page 24, this game was offered as a competition.


BTW, what would be the best method to upload the scans, via The Zone or via Ftp.

[CodyJarrett]

Nice list fredflint!

The FTP is the best place for the scans - thanks.

[fredflint]

Excellent,

Scans are uploaded in the FTP.

The scans are in the directory
fredflint-unreleasedWIPS-20-06-2003.

Also I think one of two may be a little crooked

[FromWithin]

Psygnosis info...

Creepers was a steaming pile of crap. It was definitely released in the US on the PC. Can't remember if it got released over here, it was aimed at the US market though. I've got a vague recollection of an Amiga version which ran at about 2 frames per second. Awful. It certainly never got released in the UK, and I don't remember any talk of it released elsewhere either. It was bad.

Somebody mentioned "Magic Castle". Well that was going to be a Psygnosis game called "Magician's Castle". Tim Wright did a bunch of music for it - best stuff he ever wrote in my opinion, but the game was crap and we were losing focus on the Amiga because of the Sony buy-out so it got canned. As mentioned before you just saw gloves, a top hat and feet. You walked left/right along a scrolling castle backdrop and went up and down stairs into the screen (it just flipped to the same-looking area when you did that). There was no game there really.

Superhero...no game there either. It seemed to have a lot of potential. I could see why it was taken on in the first place. It was a platform beat'em up in the style of Rolling Thunder. You would build your own superhero with a few parameters and choose the colour of his clothes (they all ended up the being the same but in different colours) then go from left to right across a city or sewers with baddies coming at you. After a couple of months development, there was no progression whatsoever and it got binned. Ray Norrish did about 4 pieces of music for it. Then I had to re-write them, the title screen in 3 channels, the in-game ones in 2, and had to do loads more. I did about 28 end-of-level baddy tunes! I was dry by the end of it. I used bits of the original music where possible but mostly it was a complete re-write. All for nothing. I haven't seen the demo on the coverdisc, but the final game wouldn't have been anything more than that.

G2: Again. Died a death because there was no gameplay whatsoever. Basically a whole game based on the fact that people like the forest bit in Obitus. Or not a whole game. Probably about 10% of a game. It never got further than the demo that appeared. I had fit all of the sound effects into 40k, and they didn't have any player to play them so I had to learn 68000 assembly, and fast. I wrote a priority-based sound effects player (mostly on the train into work on paper), which of course went to waste. Although it did force to learn more programming which was a good thing.

Dr.Mallett. I'd never heard of this! Before my time. This probably died just before I started doing external testing which was in about 1991. Even so, I'd seen some development stuff before that time. The graphic style is definitely not by any of the in-house artists of the time.

Walker: The original game of Walker (later than the one shown in Zzap) had another section where you get out of the Walker and go into buildings. There were ladders and platforms and you could run around shooting things. The whole level was done as polygons so you could zoom in and out with the left and right mouse buttons. It was quite impressive for the time. The game was good without it though.

There was another game we had called Indigo. It was a colourful platform game. Think of it being like Robocod in style. We took it on mostly because we were send it on the ST for evaluation and the ST never had any games like that. About 4 projects got canned though and that was one of them. It was a shame really because I quite enjoyed it. The Amiga one was the same as the ST one, but ran at 25fps instead of 12.5fps. I re-wrote the music for it.

I'll have a think about anything else we had in development on the Amiga.

Flash Dragon, Gore, and Firestone. Never heard of these either. I rescued a truck-load of floppies from the bin when we moved buildings. There are loads of old development graphics and stuff on them. It's possible that there is some reference to these games on there. I'll ask some of the old-hands if they remember anything.

[fiath]

Why did you have to re-write Ray's music for Superhero?

[7-Zark-7]

@From Within. Wow-another former industry-insider! Great Posting on the unreleased game infos from good old Psyggy. Welcome to the board!

I'm sure you'll be bombarded with questions about the old Amiga scene, interesting development stories,etc.!!

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by FromWithin
Flash Dragon, Gore, and Firestone. Never heard of these either. I rescued a truck-load of floppies from the bin when we moved buildings. There are loads of old development graphics and stuff on them. It's possible that there is some reference to these games on there. I'll ask some of the old-hands if they remember anything.

Fascinating stuff, FromWithin! So, what the heck happened to all of those recused floppies?

[FromWithin]

I've just uploaded the SuperHero and G2 music to the zone for interested parties. Read the text file inside the SuperHero for why I re-wrote Ray Norrish's stuff.

The disks I rescued are in my Mum and Dad's loft. I've had them for about 10 years. There are complete back-ups of some of the artist's harddrives in there and everything. Of course, if one disk is missing from the backup then the rest are pointless, and I've never bothered trying.

[the wolf]

@ FromWithin:

Yes, good post about your work in the "Psygnosis era". It's fascinating to being "inside" the big houses developments and to know something that we poor mortals could never know...

BTW, I'm curious about HARDCORE. It seems a very good game and plenty screenshots were posted and previewed on almost every computer mag, but this game never see the light... Do you know something about it?

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by FromWithin
I've just uploaded the SuperHero and G2 music to the zone for interested parties. Read the text file inside the SuperHero for why I re-wrote Ray Norrish's stuff.

The disks I rescued are in my Mum and Dad's loft. I've had them for about 10 years. There are complete back-ups of some of the artist's harddrives in there and everything. Of course, if one disk is missing from the backup then the rest are pointless, and I've never bothered trying.

Thanks for the uppers! But back to the backups...were they backed up on the Amiga? If so, I believe both Quarterback and Ami-Back (the latter of which makes me cringe with pain) had options to restore from disk backups even when disks are missing (unless it's the index disk). If the stuff was done on the PC, then I would imagine the software was not rich enough to include a practical feature like that...

[FromWithin]

I can't remember the name of the backup program we used to use, but it used to run on its own screen and was Black, White and Red. Ring any bells?

[Dizzy]

When I look through some of my old danish mag, I found this games that might be unreleased. The 2 first title should have been released through mirrorsoft. The mag was from 1990

Riders of Rohan designed by Beam software and programs by Spinnaker. It should be a wargame with nice graphics, and some cool action sequence

Terrarium Arcade adventure, played in a microcosmos inside a bottle.

Commando War By Titus, should be part of a serie called Action Concept

[ST Dragon]

You guys forgot
Project X-2

Geez.. Amateurs.

At least it was released on the PSX.

[Amiga1992]

PRoject X 2 was never even started on the Amiga, so no.

Here are some unreleased games:
Mega lo mania 2
Sensible World of Soccer 2000
Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll

[MrX_Cuci]

I found a review in amiga joker about shatz im silbersee. It was never released on the amiga. I did a quick search in google and came up with this: http://www.kultboy.com/testbericht-uebersicht/336/ click on 'testbericht' to see a scan of the review.

Others:

survival aga (kompart) preview amiga joker 11/93

daughter of serpenst (millenium) amiga joker 12/92 has a preview of the game in it and an ad mentioning the release in march 1993

outlander (mindscape) amiga joker 10/92 if i understand the preview correctly they watched a rolling demo of the game with no sound.

Realms of darkness (grandslam) amiga joker 9/93 preview material the

seventh sword of mendor (grandslam) amiga joker 9/93 preview material. Menioned in 5/95 as still being developed. Confirmed by grandslam

twilight 2000 (empire) amiga joker 7/93 previewed. I am sure there was a review aswell. Google: http://www.kultboy.com/index.php?site=t&id=586

miracle bat (?) amiga joker 3/93 the article mentioned there is no publisher yet.

Black sect (lankhor) amiga joker 3/93 preview they mention receiving a demo and background info

extractors (millenium) amiga joker 5/95 the cd version seemed to be completely finsihed. They played it at the eu computer trade show in london.

Micro machines 2 (codemasters) amiga joker 3/95 newsflash, they mention it being in a very playable state. Review probably the next month.

Psycho pinball (codemasters) amiga joker 3/95 newsflash, they mention it being in a very playable state. Review probably the next month.

Gnomes (otm) amiga joker 10/11/96 preview

enigma (otm) amiga joker 10/11/96 preview Interesting link: http://ftp.wustl.edu/aminet/pix/illu/Enigma.readme

evils doom (croteam / black legend) google: http://www.kultboy.com/index.php?site=t&id=1448

Einmal hölle und züruck - Amiga joker 11/95 Google: http://www.kultboy.com/index.php?site=t&id=1175

Edit: Removed the entries mentioned below, because they were indeed released: Impulse (Development title) and Apano Sin