2000 Problemchild Productions
Platform: PC
Way back in 2000, Games That Weren’t had got in touch with Jani Hirvo regarding his lost Commodore 64 game – Penguin Tower. But did you know there was also a PC version?
You see – the game was reviewed in Commodore Format, scoring a decent percentage and was due for release by Visualize Software in the UK. Sadly, it never happened – but after almost 30 years, it finally got finished off and released.
At the time – Jani told GTW that the game was almost finished at the time and there wasn’t much to do, suggesting one day he could finish it. However, Jani was also working on a PC edition of the game which he was focusing on instead of the C64 game and provided us with a 10 level preview.
At the time, GTW was part of a larger Cyber Systems site that I used to run, and I used to do various pages on new upcoming releases across various platforms. I created a page for Penguin Tower PC with the demo, and subsequently forgot all about the title, and the preview spread around a little.
It seems that Jani lost interest in the PC development at some stage, and sadly it died a death – even though it was a decent bomberman game with lots of neat effects and cut scenes. When Jani finished off and released the C64 game, he reminded us about the PC title and now confirmed that this would never be finished.
As a result, we have now created a GTW entry on the game – and Jani has promised to dig out all the source code and various builds (including later ones with more levels) to add to this archive. For now, check out the 10 level preview.
With thanks to Jani Hirvo for providing the demo and confirmation about the cancellation.
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