Another series of games which are currently missing, this time from Alphavite Publications in the form of the Commodore Disk User game disk series. Now are a lot of these games GTW’s, or are the game disks just so obscure to try and find?
The Commodore Disk User magazine was published every month and came with a cover disk containing software for the C64 & C128. All these cover disks have already been archived. However, there was also a collection of six games disks that were advertised for sale in the magazine….
The disks are listed below, and ones with links are already in the Gamebase collection. Does anyone out there have any of these disks or any of the games individually?…
Some people have started coming forward with information on games, so we have created separate entries and those are noted as having separate entries.
But in 2013 we are very proud to present Disk 6, which was actually brought by one of the developers Richard Smedley. Richard produced Mystery Man and Mirror Image on the disk. The finding and preservation by Richard means that his games and another cool Breakout clone called Outbreak have been fully preserved.
It seems that the disks may well have been sold in *VERY* limited numbers, just before Alphavite closed their doors. Richard was lucky to get his disk, but sadly did not get paid. As well as a D64 image, Richard has provided scans of the disk and instructions – so consider one down! Thanks Richard!
==Games Disk 1==
Confusion
Tenogen
Project X
Megadogfight
==Games Disk 2==
Fast Future
Cold Comfort
Cellrator II
Eradictor
==Games Disk 3==
Solstice
New York Crisis (See separate entry)
==Games Disk 4==
Life
White Wash
Frustration
Euchre C128
Hypersolve
Bingo 128
==Games Disk 5==
Orb
Probe Warrior
Liberator
==Games Disk 6== (FOUND! – See downloads!)
Outbreak
The Mystery Man
Mirror Image
Libérte
So now the hunt is on, can you help us find the rest of these missing games?…. Or are they GTW’s to be located and preserved?…
The hunt continues….
Contributions: Richard Smedley
Supporting content
Available downloads
- Disk_CDU_games6 (zip)
Gallery
Creator speaks
Richard Smedley recalls about the work on his games for CDU Disk 6
“I’ve attached a copy of CDU Games Disk 6 in D64 format, the instructions page supplied by Alphavite, and a scan showing what the disk looks like (it’s a standard Alphavite CDU disk in a plain white sleeve).
I wrote two of the four games. The Mystery Man is a text adventure about an unnamed down-at-heel private detective hired to deliver a cassette recorder to a hotel. I originally wrote a hardboiled story to accompany the game but sadly Alphavite didn’t use it. A shame because the game has an epilogue that wraps the story up when you complete it.
Mirror Image is my attempt at a ‘split concentration’ space shooter, where you control two ships and get attacked from the top & bottom of the screen. There are three designs of enemy ship that change every 100 points, you get a spare life at 300 points, and you have to score 99,999 points to win. It was my first-ever machine code game. Someone at Alphavite kindly patched it with a freezer cartridge to fix a bug, but this meant the ending no longer works – argh!
Sadly Alphavite didn’t send me a complimentary copy of the disk. I bought the disk myself when I saw the advert in the July 1991 issue of the magazine. They were very slow posting it out, I think it took a month or two to be delivered. Like other CDU authors, I didn’t get paid.”
