Early days, but thanks to c64.com and in a recent interview ( www.c64.com?type=4&id=2), we are able to put up an entry about a game by Pagoda Software which was reported to be something very groundbreaking for its time, which sadly never quite made it.
Before Video Classics (Aka Blip!) came about, Jason Daniels and Tom Lanigan were working on a new game called Autoguard. According to both, the game was the most significant piece of work they did. It was the first time they tried to design and code a fully-fledged commericial game, and rather than starting with something relatively quick and easy – they threw themselves into the deep-end by spending a year and a half working on this groundbreaking game, unlike any other title seen on the C64.
Unfortunately this is all we know at present about the game, and also we didn’t actually know what the game was comparable to or going to look like until Jason Daniels supplied GTW with some screenshots.
The great news was that Jason and Tom both have dug out remains of the game, and planned to finish and release around 2012. We were asked to keep an eye on the Pagoda Facebook page for any screenshots or developments and also check out the recent C64.com article which tells more about the game here: http://www.c64.com/articles/autoguard.html
Jason added the following update on the game:
“We will hopefully be releasing video of Autoguard gameplay in the near future and there is no exclusivity on that, so I will send you a copy when it’s ready. We are hoping to edit the raw video into some sort of promo with some original backing music (music and SFX hadn’t been done when we shelved the game).”
After a long delay, we asked Jason on how things were going. It is basically going slowly, and is still on Jason’s long term to-do list, but it could still be some time before it gets finished. Currently they are working on a re-write of “Die Alien Slime” too.
Almost over 10 years on now, its looking like the game may have been cancelled – but we’ll see. It would be good to see this escape the archives.
Contributions: C64.com, Jason Daniels, DemongerX
This looks so cool