1988 Nexus
Platform: ZX Spectrum
Fairlight is a title which brings back extremely fond memories for me on the Commodore 64, which was a brilliant isometric game created originally on the ZX Spectrum by the genius Bo Jangeborg.
I always thought it was a shame that we didn’t see a lot more from Bo, though there could have been more with the release of Resolution, a game that was due for release on the Nexus Software label in 1988 and mentioned in numerous magazines.
Rather than an isometric fantasy game, Resolution was to be a strategic, horizontally scrolling shooter, where the player tried to save the world from a manic mining corporation determined to destroy all the Earth’s natural resources.
Due for release at Christmas, Nexus unfortunately went into liquidation – which meant that Bo’s new game would never see the light of day.
How far did the game get, and could there be anything still out there to recover and show?
Gears of Games highlighted to us an interview that they carried out with Bo in 2016, where he talks about the development (at the 46 minute mark):
It is revealed by Bo that the game was based on a technical idea that he had, where he was trying to get more colours on the screen by timing the interrupt to switch colours for every line. It was found though to use too much processing power once he started using the technique and putting a game together.
Bo confirms that the game was cancelled, having not got much past a technical demo phase, and before Nexus had gone under. When asked if Bo still had any of his old work, he confirmed that he no longer had anything – as far as he knew.
It is hoped that something could miraculously be found some day to see the prototype that Bo had produced, but it is looking bleaker by the day and could well be completely lost to time.
With thanks to Mark R. Jones for highlighting + scan snippets and Gears of Games for valuable information + interview with Bo.
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