1998 Digital Demons Software
Platform: Amiga (AGA only)
Yet another late Amiga game which was sadly never to be, and an interesting looking sideways scrolling shoot-em-up, which had a bit of a Menace/Blood Money feel to it. Details on the game are sketchy, and it seems only Amiga Computer Studio magazine covered it. Here it was revealed that the game would have six levels in total.
An old website revealed some digital screenshots, which indicated also that the game was still in very early development and was set to be released around the start of 1998. As well as confirming there would likely be six levels, it talks of levels which would be a mix of vertical and horizontal scrolling.
In the game you would be able to transform into a mech, and change aspect in the game – depending on what weapons you are using. There would be special light and water effects, 3 different languages and speech.
A Web archived version of Digital Demon’s page on the game revealed who was working on the title (and some more screenshots). Pushed back to 1999, there was also to be two bonus levels, end of level baddies, now 7 languages supported, in game dialogues, music that changed during context change, an animated intro and “more”. The game was expected to be released on CD-ROM.
Working on the game was Luca Ferraris (Code + Music + Ray Tracing), Enrico Dematteis (Graphics + Music) and Andrea Ferraris (Music).
Looking at their news page, it seemed the game was started around 1997, but had a delay in 1998 due to a HD crash. A demo had been hoped for around Christmas 1997, but it seems this never quite happened, and another for late 1998 also didn’t happen. The last update was in January 1999, where the team say they have been busy with other jobs, but that the game was still in development.
In the end, Luca revealed that the team was too busy in the end to work on the game – so it was cancelled along with other titles such as “Jo” and “Dark Ages” (which we will try and add entries for soon).
Has anything survived since then of this very promising looking title, and could anything be digitally preserved and shown to the world? We hope to get hold of Luca soon to learn more and see what possibilities there may be.
With thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz for highlighting and the magazine scan, Web Archive for access to the Digital Demons page and Hall of Light for information regarding the cancellation.
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