Games That Weren't^®

1988 Arcana Software

Platforms: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64

Mars Cops is game that we’ve long covered within our C64 archive and we found after a mention A game in Zzap issue 49 on page 3 – listed as coming soon on the Amiga, Atari ST and C64. A few mentions were done of the game across a few issues, but sadly nothing was to ever surface.

Thanks to contributor Jason Lethert (who has trawled through and dug out a lot of information about the game via archive.org and Stephen Stuttard’s amazing scans), we learn now a lot more about the Amiga and ST editions which seemingly got much further ahead compared to the Commodore 64 edition. We are sceptical that an 8-bit version ever existed, but we keep an open mind until confirmation.

As you might guess, the game has you flying around the Mars terrain, but with a Afterburner’esq viewpoint with your ship travelling along the surface and in space. Perhaps it may even be closer to SEGA’s Galaxy Force, which was released around the same time – was that a major inspiration perhaps?

Various press releases were made regarding the game over the space of around a year or so. Even back in late 1987, a news report in Games Machine magazine was saying that the game “should be out by the time you read this” and showed 2 screenshots (which may well have been mock-ups).

ACE magazine around the same time in December 1987 were talking about the title which Arcana were claiming was going to set the standard for 16-bit software. Interestingly there is no mention of a C64 development.

The magazine revealed that Mars Cops was to be a 3-phase space shoot-em-up which involved you chasing down UFOs in space and trenches, before a lunar landing style sequence to round things off.

Delays would occur, and The Games Machine would report that the game was delayed likely now until May 1988, after finding that the game was far more ambitious than first thought and with the ST and Amiga being pushed hard by the author.

It would go on, with Your Amiga magazine in June 1988 saying now that the game was due for release in September 1988. Games Machine and ACE magazine both suggested a month earlier in August, but of course it was not to be.

Interestingly, ACE magazine revealed a bit more detail in their snippet about the game’s storyline – depicting a one-player space pursuit game where you have to defend the colony on Mars from UFOs that have entered the solar system. Arcana reporting that the game was “faster and leaner, combining strategy and shoot-em-up”.

Come October of 1988, ST Action were then reporting that there was “Cop trouble”, with Mars Cops now running into memory problems (at least on the ST). The report was that they could not quite fit it all onto a 1040 ST, so there was still a very long way to go for fitting into a 520 ST.

By this point, some readers were getting a bit fed up – and a A.M.Adams from Kent had written into Games Machine to complain about games being advertised like Mars Cops, and then not turning up or being delayed.

As we now started to enter 1989, an advert appeared for Power Play, where Mars Cops is listed on the advert, but for requesting information. It was looking a little bleak, but Games Machine were still holding out hope and mentioned that the game was soon to be released, along with a few new screenshots in May of 1989.

In the same month, Computer and Video games gave the game an award of “Press release of the month”, and praised the dossier that was sent in by Arcana regarding the game. Apparently it contained “authentic” hand-written notes, in-depth personnel filesand IDs, all done up with a pink ribbon. The purpose was apparently to herald the much-delayed release of the game. Now apparently due for May 1989.

The same news snippet had mentioned that there had been two years of programming at this stage, redesigns and reprogramming (no doubt to squeeze everything into memory). ACE also reported the delay due to redesigns (and did mention Motormouth – a UK TV kids show, but we feel that was related to Weird Dreams).

A review was expected in the next issue of CVG – but you can guess if that happened or not.  The next update would now be in August from Games Machine and ST Action, and it wasn’t promising news at all. Arcana would report to The Games Machine that their developer had left the company just two weeks before the game’s release. The release was now pushed back until September.

Then suddenly the line seemed to go dead with no further updates. Apart from doing one or two more games, the company seemed to collapse in 1990. Perhaps they had put all their faith in Mars Cops, and it had backfired badly. It sounds like the situation wasn’t good at the company.

Just how far was the game really away from completion and could anything of it be saved? First of all – we need to work out who was behind the development of the game.

Well, shortly after publishing the page – artist/designer Ian Harling got in touch via the comments to firstly say that there was no 8-bit edition as far as they were aware.

The game was written by someone who will only be known as “Paul X” to save any blushes. Ian had the following to say, which shed light on what happened:

“A lot of work went into it as a game, and all PR materials and boxes and releases were prepared well ahead of schedule. However, from the start it was plagued by memory and processor problems and, after about 9 months of work it was realised that the proposed method of updating the backgrounds in the canyon scenes couldn’t be done.

This meant a hasty re-think, but Paul was already under massive stress as the only programmer, and from what I remember things began to fall apart and production all but stopped.

As so much work had already gone into promotion I think owner Max Taylor tried to put on a good face while he looked for ways of finishing the project and kept the press onside by pushing the release date on, but it wasn’t to be.

All in all, far too ambitious a game for such a small team and with the development tools available at the time.”

It is a shame to hear this, but hopefully some day Paul and Ian’s hard work could be recovered to showcase. It’s possible that the developer may not want to talk about the development, but if they are reading – then please do get in touch if it might be possible for a chat.

With a huge thank you to Jason Lethert for all his gathering of materials from magazines to help with research, Ian Harling for information about the development and also Stephen Stuttard for creating the scans.

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