Games That Weren't^®

1990 Herman Serrano

Platform: Amiga

A short entry for now on a strange title from the mind of Weird Dreams co-designer Herman Serrano. Atomic Lunch had you controlling a mad scientist called Gregory Michaelson, who has been mutated by a nuclear accident.

Wanting to take revenge on the world, Gregory unleashes an army of genetically engineered creatures from his secret laboratory. The main protagonist in the game would have to prevent this by using machine guns and flame-throwers to shoot the mutant enemies, bypass the security systems and face a final showdown against Gregory.

The game would utilize a side-on scrolling viewpoint, with a character that seemed similar in style to the main character from Weird Dreams (at least in animation terms) and with large and impressive visuals overall.

In an unreleased games feature in Amiga Power magazine (October 1992), it is revealed that the game design and visuals were pretty much complete, but a programmer and publisher were never found to make it all happen. We believe that its likely the game was pitched to Rainbird at some point, but the MicroProse purchase of TelecomSoft may have put an end to any hope.

Even whilst the article was written, Herman confirmed to Amiga Power that the design was still being added to. Sadly, it was never to be – and apart from one sample screenshot shown in Amiga Power – nothing was seemingly ever started. It is wondered if Herman ever did find a developer at any stage, or if even he still has any of his graphical work produced which could be shown. We hope to hear from Herman soon to find out more and see if this might be a possibility.

With thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz for flagging up the title and digging out Amiga Power scan from http://amr.abime.net/review_43362.

Gallery