Not so credible sources (the Banana Ketchup thread)

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Thu Aug 05, 2021 8:57 pm

Ok, so a terrible pun to start, simply because the thought of banana ketchup doesn't do it for me somehow.
We already have the Missing BBC Games Help Required thread, which catalogues missing in action (MIA) games which are strongly believed to exist (or did exist) based on credible sources such as magazine reviews or adverts. But what about those games which were rumoured to be in development, perhaps as a snippet in a news or games column in a magazine. Maybe some journalist had a telephone conversation with the MD of a software house about their forthcoming blockbuster (!) or a conversation was overhead at a convention or down the pub. Whatever. So, with very little prospect of these games ever appearing, I thought it would be worth at least making a public record of them, just in case someone googles their own game from yesteryear, finds this thread, hightails it off to mum and dads, searches their loft (hopefully prior to the big clear-out which inevitably happens at some point) and finds that old C90 cassette with "my games" written on it. More unlikely things have happened. So to start the ball rolling, see below (I may use this introduction to catalogue those found so far. Please feel free to add your own rumored games but if you do could you post the source of it please?

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Thu Aug 05, 2021 8:58 pm

Exhibit A: Adventure Zone's The Royal Quest (A&B Computing 201 - p8)

: The Royal Quest AandB 206.png (43.78 KiB) Viewed 4073 times

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:03 pm

Further to the above post, what on earth is KWLL? Was that released for another computer?

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:25 am

Back in 1986, Level 9 were developing their own MUD game, codenamed Avalon. This was abandoned but apparently some of the ideas for it, such as semi-autonomous characters, were incorporated into Knight Orc, a simulation of an actual MUD. Here's the news story in A&B Magazine (August 1986):

Here's news of the discovery of Knight Orc for the Acorn series from this forum: viewtopic.php?p=248986#p248986
I wonder how far they got with the development of Avalon? Coincidentally, another middle-earth MUD called Avalon was released in the late eighties, though it appears to have had nothing to do with Level 9, see Acorn User article from December 1993 below:

8bitAG · Post by **8bitAG** » Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:54 am

That particular Avalon is still online...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon:_The_Legend_Lives

Lands of the Crown sounds interesting...

Avalon's first non-public incarnation was written as a 4-8 player MUD called Lands of the Crown on the BBC Micro Model B 32K in 6502 Assembly Language during 1988 to early 1989. It was superseded by the fledgling Avalon coded in the bespoke language Hourglass in ARM Assembler, written by Yehuda Simmons and then joined circa May 1990 by Daniel James, run on the Acorn Archimedes A440. It debuted at the last of the Mega Meets, Adventure 89, and initially ran on the IOWA system from 11 November 1989 until it went independent during May 1990.

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:36 pm

8bitAG wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:54 am That particular Avalon is still online...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon:_The_Legend_Lives

Lands of the Crown sounds interesting...
Avalon's first non-public incarnation was written as a 4-8 player MUD called Lands of the Crown on the BBC Micro Model B 32K in 6502 Assembly Language during 1988 to early 1989. It was superseded by the fledgling Avalon coded in the bespoke language Hourglass in ARM Assembler, written by Yehuda Simmons and then joined circa May 1990 by Daniel James, run on the Acorn Archimedes A440. It debuted at the last of the Mega Meets, Adventure 89, and initially ran on the IOWA system from 11 November 1989 until it went independent during May 1990.

How serendipitous, given my past interest in MUDs and my recent Land conversion for the BBC. It sounds as though the only copy of Lands of the Crown in existence would be owned by Yehuda Simmons, I'd love to know how he managed to engineer it as a multi-player game (Econet or via a comms link?)

julians · Post by **julians** » Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:23 pm

fuzzel wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:36 pm How serendipitous, given my past interest in MUDs and my recent Land conversion for the BBC. It sounds as though the only copy of Lands of the Crown in existence would be owned by Yehuda Simmons, I'd love to know how he managed to engineer it as a multi-player game (Econet or via a comms link?)

IOWA used a Master with a custom 16 port serial card handling the modems and a parallel link with a 64K buffer linking to the Master and hard drive hosting the MirrorWorld game. Fairly sure there were serial outputs to other computers / games.
The MirrorWorld predecessor used Econet (the protocol was amusingly called Ecks-25 or something like that) to communicate between the BBC's as clients and the BBC running the server.
Was all a very, very long time ago though...

Julian.

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:20 am

julians wrote:
The MirrorWorld predecessor used Econet (the protocol was amusingly called Ecks-25 or something like that) to communicate between the BBC's as clients and the BBC running the server.

Fascinating stuff. I'm particularly interested in the idea of multi-player games running through emulation, mainly because my poor old beeb is still broken. Has anyone managed to get this to work, either running two emulators side-by-side on a single computer or, even more impressively, through the internet? I've no idea how many multi-player games there were but a couple spring to mind, Double Phantom (serial link) and Cave (Econet).

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:24 am

Salamander's Hovver Bovver (A&B Computing 107 - NEWS p11):

: Salamander Hovver Bovver AandB 107.png (72.6 KiB) Viewed 3886 times

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:25 am

Aardvark's Malice (A&B Computing 310 - NEWS p8):

: Aardvark Malice AandB Nov84.png (27.29 KiB) Viewed 3886 times

jgharston · Post by **jgharston** » Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:05 pm

julians wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:23 pm The MirrorWorld predecessor used Econet (the protocol was amusingly called Ecks-25 or something like that) to communicate between the BBC's as clients and the BBC running the server.

Our protocol was called Multi User Game Incorporating Network System.

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:24 am

fuzzel wrote: ↑Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:25 am Aardvark's Malice (A&B Computing 310 - NEWS p8):
Aardvark Malice AandB Nov84.png

I contacted Nick Pelling about the above game and he very kindly responded thus:

The game was called "Malus", and it was basically intended to be my BBC homage to the Williams arcade game Sinistar. It was a 16K (reduced size square screen) Mode 1 (square pixels) game, with the 4-colour palette Black / Magenta / Cyan / White. My old friend Bof (Ian Boffin) designed some graphics for the main space ship, the rocks, and (I think) an enemy drone ship, and I had the mechanics of the game mostly working.
However, I never managed to get the multi-way scrolling working as well as it needed to. Though the vertical scrolling trick I had developed for FireTrack was good enough for a continuous vertical scroll, it was just too fragile for a multi-way scroller: and so reluctantly I had to abandon the development. It was just one of those things.
I don't remember giving a Malus demo to any of my Beeb friends from the time, but it's possible there's one out there.

I asked him if Malus was intended to be a clone of Sinistar:

I wasn't actually trying to clone Sinistar, I was just aiming to do my own take on the genre (which is a kind of solid Asteroids with mining and a big end boss)

So unfortunately no lost game but potentially there could be a demo out there somewhere.

scruss · Post by **scruss** » Mon Aug 09, 2021 1:00 am

fuzzel wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 8:57 pm Ok, so a terrible pun to start, simply because the thought of banana ketchup doesn't do it for me somehow.

It's surprisingly good, though I guess not that common in the UK because you don't have a large Filipino population. It's really good on chips. Doesn't really taste like bananas at all, but the un-dyed stuff is a slightly nasty-looking brownish-yellow colour. Most brands are dyed a violent red colour. Invented by the amazing food technologist María Orosa e Ylagan, too.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:54 am

I suppose all of these "highly doubtful" releases from the main missing games thread should be here then:

A&F - Minefield (For the BBC) HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Adventuresoft - Sword Of The Samurai HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Alligata - Pub Games HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
BBC Soft - Games Pack 1 HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Blade Games - Lazer Squad HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Bug-Byte - Dragon Quest 2 HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
CDS 3D, European Super League HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Comsoft - Jet Pilot HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Hopesoft - Atom Man (For the BBC), Escape From Orion 2 HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Leisure Genius - Risk HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Martech - Vixen HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Melbourne - Mordon's Quest HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Micro Power (Program Power) - Space Fighter (For the BBC) HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Odin - Nodes Of Yesod HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Red Shift - Tripods HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Riverdale - Aussie Suds HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Robico - Blazing Star HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Salamander - Abductor (For The BBC), Gridrunner (For The BBC), Lazer Zone (For The BBC) HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Virgin Games - Conflict HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE

BeebMaster · Post by **BeebMaster** » Mon Aug 30, 2021 4:22 pm

What about this?

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Fri May 27, 2022 9:36 pm

Here's news of an imminent release by Audiogenic - Lone Wolf - The Mirror of Death for the BBC Micro - TMU Aug'89 p11 (previously a Spectrum release). Prices are quoted so presumably it existed?

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:06 pm

Hi Fuzzel,
I suppose all of these "highly doubtful" titles should be in this thread...

A&F --- Minefield - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
A&F --- Uranium Factor - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Addictive Games --- Stringer - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Adventuresoft --- Sword of the Samurai - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Adventure International --- Steve Jackson's Swordmaster Series -HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Alligata --- Pub Games - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
BBC Soft --- Games Pack 1 - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Blade Games --- Laser Squad - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Bug Byte --- Dragon Quest 2 - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
CDS --- 3D - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
CDS --- European Superleague - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Comsoft --- Jet Pilot - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Games Workshop --- Tower Of Despair - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Godax --- Cyboto - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Hopesoft --- Atom Man - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Hopesoft --- Escape From Orion 2 - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Leisure Genius --- Risk - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Martech --- Vixen - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Melbourne --- Mordon's Quest - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Micro Power --- Space Fighter (For the BBC) - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Odin --- Nodes Of Yesod - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Salamander --- Abductor - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Salamander --- Gridrunner - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Salamander --- Lazer Zone - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE
Virgin Games --- Conflict - HIGHLY DOUBTFUL RELEASE

Maybe we can find articles or "coming soon" adverts? or other evidence that lead people to think that these were BBC Micro releases in the first place...

Lee.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:14 pm

OK, I'll start with A&F Minefield.
I think this advert from Your Computer June 1982 may have confused some into thinking Minefield was for the "ATOM & BBC"??

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:18 pm

A&F Software "The Uranium Factor".
Advert from Micro Adventurer issue 17 March 1985.
The game is thought not to have been released.

Lee.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:22 pm

STRINGER from ADDICTIVE
A&B Computing - January 1986, p31
As you said earlier... A vague advert not mentioning which machines it was available for...

This one more clearly specifies the C=64

Lee.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:25 pm

I believe this is the only known advert for SWORD OF THE SAMURAI from ADVENTURESOFT / US GOLD
from Computer & Video Games issue 62 - December 1986.
Note that while the other titles show photos of the actual cassette cases, Sword of the Samurai does not.
I do not believe this was ever released.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:28 pm

STEVE JACKSON'S SWORDMASTER from Acorn User March 1985
Thought never to have been released.

: AcornUser032-Mar85_0057.jpg (35.28 KiB) Viewed 2516 times

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:34 pm

PUB GAMES from ALLIGATA
This is the only BBC Micro specific ad I can find. Acorn User August 1986

: AcornUser049-Aug86_0016.jpg (61.02 KiB) Viewed 2513 times

But this ad makes clear the BBC version is not finished...

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 2:52 pm

Laser Squad from Blade.
I am unsure how this made it onto a BBC Micro software list.
Released for various platforms between 1988 and 1992 according to the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad

Lee.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:04 pm

European Superleague from CDS.
Not released until 1990.
Again it is hard to see how this made it to the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Superleague

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:14 pm

"3D" from CDS.
Well, CDS released a game in 1983 for the Spectrum called "3D Painter" so I guess the game should be on the list as "3D Painter" and not just "3D".
All adverts I can find seem to be clear that it is for the 16K/48K Sinclair Spectrum.

Lee.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:23 pm

Jet Pilot from Comsoft.
This is the last advert I can see from Comsoft.

: AcornUser037-Aug85_0192.jpg (10.5 KiB) Viewed 2490 times

Selling 4 of their titles as a bundle.
No mention of Jet Pilot.
I know Mick Brown has said that Jet Pilot was mentioned on a cassette inlay for another Comsoft game, but looking at everygamegoing.com I cannot see mention of this.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:30 pm

It's pretty clear why "Tower of Despair" made it onto the list.
This advert states the game was already available:

: Games Workshop games AandB.jpg (47.39 KiB) Viewed 2484 times

CASA blows that out of the water: https://www.solutionarchive.com/game/id ... spair.html

Lee.

leenew · Post by **leenew** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 3:35 pm

It is also clear why Cyboto from Go-Dax made it on to the list.
An advert and a review from Acorn User and Micro User in May 1988:

The consensus is that it was never released.......

The reviewer did say he had difficulties, so maybe it was an unfinished game that got reviewed.
Then, in August 1988 Electron User: tales of the game being delayed for the Electron although there were "no problems" with the beeb version:

Lee.

fuzzel · Post by **fuzzel** » Sun Jun 05, 2022 4:10 pm

leenew wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:54 am I suppose all of these "highly doubtful" releases from the main missing games thread should be here then:
...

Thanks for all the updates Lee, I think I'll add the list of "highly doubtful" releases to my original post and edit with updated comments as they're posted. I have a few to add myself.

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