MATTHEW ATKINSON
Article, September 2001
The author of Repton 3 divulges a little 'inside information' on a number of shelved Beeb projects ...
Just been rumaging around your lost and found section on your website and I would like to add a few notes myself about some games for the BBC:
ZARCH on the BBCDefinately an April fools joke. The BBC just didn't have the capability to do it as per the screenshot. The mode within a mode was not possible - the mode switching on Elite takes about 3/4 scan lines to achieve. On UIM I shortend it but only by unrolling loops.
Sidestory: Zarch on the Arc. Richard Hanson told me that they had to brow beat Braben for a whole afternoon to get him to put a proper display panel up top. He just wanted to leave it Bombs =3 Lives =2 etc in plain white text...
ELITE IIRichard Hanson and Steve Botterill were at an Acorn show when Braben and Bell turned up, promptly pulled them to one side to inform them they were working on Elite II and it was at an advanced stage. And that was it. They never saw any demos or specs etc. etc.
AND ALL BECAUSE ...Now I was involved in writing the Amstrad CPC/Spectrum versions. All versions were at an advanced stage when it was decided to wind up the project. Apparently there had been a change of marketing manager at Cadburys who wanted to move the brand "up market" so no tacky video game association thank you. The Atari ST version was looking especially good when I saw it.
NAUTILUSSaw it up and running. Basically Star Wars underwater. No Elite style trading, although that was proposed. The programmers name escapes me (Danny?) but he went on to form/join Vektor Graphics. Inadvertently sent a whole lot of business their way. Was down at Domark in Wimbledon (don't ask, I never tell the whole story) and saw a version of Star Wars running on an ST and was informed that they were having difficulties finding companies to do other versions until I told them what I had seen up at Superior and who by.... I think both parties owe me a drink!
TEMPESTIt may have been "inferior" to Orlando's verion but then it was my first commercial project back in 1984 some four years before. I went to Atari initially about converting Battlezone but ended up doing that instead. I did complete "Battlezone" which had mode 5 palette switching to achieve very smooth vector graphics but never got released. Sadly no longer exists...
ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOKThe programmer had the idea of the game having an isometric layout and being based on the game of chess. All the puzzles would rely on chess moves etc. and it ran in mode 4. It was very ambitious which was its undoing. I was handed the work at a late stage, four months before the rights ran out, to try and whip it into shape to recoup some of the money. Alas the game was not as developed as I'd been led to believe and it got abandoned. Strangely when I got sent the disc, design etc it came unregistered post direct from him and these were the only copies. It was as if the programmer were willing it to disappear...
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