Virocop is an often overlooked classic Amiga game by Graftgold that was released in 1995, a spiritual sequel of sorts to the likes of Quazatron and Magnetron that you may have missed. If you did, then check it out!
Thanks to contributor Grzegorz Antosiewicz, we are able to show a series of early screenshots during its time in development that show different features and assets which didn’t make the final game.
The game actually started out as a demo called “Tanky”, which was previewed in Amiga Games magazine way back in 1993. It evolved into “Virus Alert”, a Paradroid/Quazatron clone, before finally evolving into Virocop.
Here are the early “Tanky” screens:
Grzegorz has meticulously gone through each screenshot to explain what is present in the shots which isn’t in the final game. I have kept his notes below, so you can then compare to the screens:
“There is one shot from a very early level with place holder graphics for terrain (blue walls and red floor). Your first enemy on that picture is one eyed robot similar to main hero Dave. At one point near the end of game, you can actually find enemy robots similar to him.”
“In screens (2)(8)(18)(20) there are early screen-shots from a medieval castle level theme. You can see there are some knights with swords, wooden bridge, lava lake, closed gate. Two giant tables. Wooden ramps. In the finished game (AGA version), there is an extra world with this theme, but everything looks different and were improved a lot.”
“In screen (15), there is one shot with “D.A.V.E.” that would later be changed into “Virocop” and used as the first screen in the game with credits and hi-score.”
“In screens (7)(22)(23)(24), there are shots showing levels made from cards, giant dice and chessboard with an unused tower pawn enemy, soldier-cards and other pawn (maybe bishop) figures as enemies.”
“In screens (6)(16), there are two shots with Dave on a map of small ancient temples and fields. I believe it later become war themed, because the terrain and scale is very similar.”
“In the screen “virocop alpha.jpg” there are small soldiers using wooden ladders, and cliffs with small barriers – those elements were also unused in the finished game (there are war themed levels with small soldiers, tanks and helicopters but without these details).”
“In screens (5)(11)(21), there are early shots showing a level theme about being inside computer hardware, with some circuit boards,CPU and chips. In the final game, those levels were made into a smaller scale.”
“In screen (4), there is a shot showing Dave on a F1 Formula track that later became a small part of a third level about sport games. Pit-stop was removed and crowd on upper part changed two just few characters among many empty chairs.”
“Screen (3), shows another picture where Dave fighting a giant gorilla head on a rooftop. In the final game, that area was redesigned to be smaller, finger was removed and different boss attack patterns were added. Additionally, there are some circular pick up items/coins that were removed from the finished game.”
“Screens (9)(10)(12)(13)(14) show what could be probably first working environments for the game, lacking quality of the final levels.”
“Screens (17)(19)(25)(virocop amiga games) all show very early versions of suburb themed levels where you travel across rooftops of small houses, gardens and later climb a tower to fight a mechanical gorilla head. There is a different wooden fence, in the final version replaced by one made from bricks. Also there are unused small chimneys. On picture (25) is an unused enemy that looks like a UFO. On picture (19) there are two creatures in the bottom left corner that were also cut from the final version of the game.”
