1983 General Consumer Electronics
Platform: Vectrex
As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus content to share with you.
Within the book is a detailed 10 page full story about the unreleased Dark Tower for the Vectrex. We speak to developer John Hall about the development and what happened, with contributions from senior electronic project engineer Gary Bergmann, Robert Hoffberg, Helmut Müller, Chris Romero, Jim Francis, Mark Indictor, Paul Allen Newell, Sean Kelly and Thomas McDonald.
Thanks to Gary Bergmann, we are able to show photos of the final prototype that was built (of which Gary had a few copies – which is how it managed to sneak out). This includes the original and authentic screen overlay that was produced, and photos showing the game running on Gary’s original display Vectrex.
Gary also produced scans of the photocopied manual he has too (sadly the finely printed copies are lost):
Whilst we discussed Dark Tower with Gary, he put us in touch with Thomas McDonald, who worked within the modelling department. Thomas kindly shared photos of a prototype Vectrex design that never was. Here you can find those photos, and its hoped that the prototype will soon be on display at the National Video Game museum in the USA, after we put them in touch with each other.
Download
Gallery
