1988 Apex Computer Productions / Hewson
Platform: BBC Micro
This may come as something of a shock, but there was a BBC Micro edition of the classic Commodore 64 title Cyberdyne Warrior in development at the same time as that development by the Rowlands brothers.
After working on Scorpius, their next title took the decision to go with a flick screen approach, rather than use scrolling. This was mainly due to the fact that the game was being developed on both platforms, and the BBC Micro didn’t naturally scroll well. Had the Commodore 64 version been the only development, it may well have scrolled!
The BBC Micro version was being developed by their good friend Rob Ellis, who they would later work on with Retrograde. According to John, the BBC Micro version was very impressive indeed.
So what happened? At present, we’re not 100% sure if Rob’s version of the game was fully complete or not – but we suspect that it was and that Hewson didn’t want to take on a BBC Micro version for some reason.
Andy Roberts recalled that the game may have been almost finished, and had a foggy memory that Superior Software may have been approached about the game.
We hope to learn more from Rob sometime soon, and maybe even see if anything of the game could exist today to be preserved. It would be amazing if it could be saved. Watch this space.
With thanks to Vinny Mainolfi and John Rowlands for flagging up the title in FREEZE issue 57 and Andy Roberts for additional information.
