This was a Double Dragon style game, where you had to go on a frenzy with a chainsaw and cut up as many people as possible. Chainsaw Warrior was based on the solo roleplay board game of the same name by Games Workshop.
Listed in CCI December 1988 as being developed by a team called Equinox, it was due as an 1989 release across Amiga, C64, ST and PC platforms. However, nothing would surface in any shape or form!
The game was described as an arcade action game with a lone warrior protagonist, who enters a haunted mansion to find “darkness”. “Darkness” is a huge amorphous cloud of chaos which emits a strong radiator field. It cannot be engaged in hand-to-hand combat, but has a “nerve centre” where attacks are launched against the player.
This “nerve centre” is the only vulnerable spot available to hit. The player must search the mansion room by room – fighting rats, assassins, zombies and avoiding traps and pits. Hiding and even running away where the situation demands it.
Martin Holland and Lee Cawley were behind graphics for the game. Martin informed GTW of the game’s possible existence around 2000 time and had the following to say…
“It was kinda like the Double Dragon style game but your guy went around a house with a chainsaw cutting up folks – kinda like playing the baddy instead of the good guy…… if I find anymore stuff on it I’ll pass it onto you….. “
Lee Cawley later confirmed the game as a multi-room fighting game, with a chainsaw carrying, martial arts main character.
Gary Yorke then contacted GTW64 in 2006, where he confirmed that the game was licenced by Bettertech (consisting of both Gary and James Poole) from The Games Workshop, and was to be published by Electronic Arts. Development itself was carried out by Lothlorien under contract to Bettertech.
The game was confirmed as never finished, but was nearly completed. Sadly the collapse of Lothlorien led to the closure of Bettertech, which meant that the game was never completed as a result.
At the time, Martin had most of his graphics work, so Chainsaw Warrior was likely to be present within his collection. However, he tragically passed away in 2003, where all his disks were trashed due to data protection and identity theft concerns.
We hope someday to have a surprise finding in someone’s collection, but it is looking very bleak now that anything of this game will be found. We need credits though, and the coder is still as of yet unknown. It was confirmed through an Atari ST interview that Jason C. Brooke did music for at least the ST edition, though it isn’t clear if that included C64 too. Should hopefully find this out shortly.
Gary did however dig out a mock-up of the Chainsaw Warrior cover and how it may have looked when released by EA, so this has been added to the scans.
If you can help us with any information, then please do get in touch.
Contributions: Martin Holland, Gary Yorke, Lee Cawley, Jason William Clark, Professor Chaos
Just noticed this page, coincidentally ;) and instantly remembered that on https://ataricrypt.blogspot.com/2018/11/jason-c-brooke.html Jason Brooke confirmed having made the ST music, maybe he would’ve on the C64 too. To his own regret, he no longer has the ST tunes, and he also didn’t express remembering much.
Fwiw, since Lee Cawley mentioned Icon Design: Around 1988, David Whittaker and Jason Brooke directed Icon’s sister company “Musicon Design Ltd”.
Ah thank you Professor Chaos! I’ll update the page now!
Also – spotted that Jason didn’t know about his Dreadnought tunes being recovered, so i’ve tweeted him.
I have a feeling this is going to be interpreted as trolling, but you should really hire yourself an editor: more than a fair share of the grammar and syntax is confused. In spite of this, I’ve always enjoyed your content and commitment to preservation. All the best.
Hi Jason. I appreciate your feedback, and don’t interpret as trolling. The thing is – ultimately this is an archive ran during my limited free time and has been done so for over 20 years. There are many archive entries written many years ago by myself (including this page), where the writing quality is terrible. Over time, I have been slowly trying to tidy up many of the older pages as I come across them – but there are many to check and very little time that it is a case of best efforts; all whilst trying to keep adding new content.
I acknowledge there is always room for improvement, even with my new content – however, as this is a free resource without things like Patreon financially backing it (I sometimes only ask for donations to help with hosting). The reason is that it is done as a hobby first and foremost (out of love of the subject area), and therefore isn’t possible to hire an editor to go over/proof content in comparison to the recent book that was published.
If anyone highlights anything incorrect (hopefully in a constructive manner), then I always try and update as soon as possible and with a credit to that person. I apologize to anyone who encounters any content that is badly written, and hope over time that many of these problematic pages will eventually be properly tidied up. As a side note – i’ve tidied up this particular entry.
Your commitment to self-improvement is more than admirable. Thanks for taking the time to respond and if you ever need help, I’m willing (within reason). Take care and thank you.
Thanks Jason, much appreciated and thanks for your support!
I know a great deal about the original board game but almost nothing about the intended conversion to video formats. A number of advance licensing payments were made to Games Workshop by Bettertech Ltd (Melbourne House) in 1988. No further payments were made because ultimately the game was not published. How far development had progressed, the intended implementation and reasons for cancellation are all unknown to me, sorry. I was actually quite pleased to find this page; it tells me more about the intended game than I’d known before.
“It was released on other platforms, such as the PC. The game was listed in CCI December 1988 as being developed by a team called Equinox and was to be a early 1989 release across the Amiga, C64 and ST and PC formats.”
The game was not released on any platform, including PC.
Thanks for confirming! I’ll amend that right away! Do you have any more information about the game itself that you would be able to share?
This was one of the first projects I worked on for Icon Design as it was then. Icon Design later folded, and reverted to MC Lothlorien… I think. I was working on the PC version graphics, with Roger Womack as the coder. The game was being done in CGA mode, which gave a great range of a whole 4 colours. Either Cyan, Magenta, Black and White or Red, Yellow, Black and White.
I can’t remember who the publisher was, but they were a pain to work for. “We want him to kick and fight like Bruce Lee” they said. So after sitting watching Bruce Lee, and copying his moves, they said “No, not like that…”. But that’s what publishers were like.
I don’t remember much else after that, other than the evil boss (in the game, not of Icon Design… although saying that…), who I seem to remember was in a wheelchair.
I know I don’t have any WIP graphics from that title… which is probably a good thing.
Thanks for the excellent information Lee!