Games That Weren't 64^®

If anyone can remember the scanner pages in C-Format, they will probably remember seeing CJ In Space being in there, but that didn’t emerge in the end. So it was a surprise to uncover a 4th game in the series, before a 3rd has even been seen or known to exist.

This was not done by Genesis, but by a new coding crew altogether, and unfortunately it doesn’t live up to the same standards of the previous games, even though in its own right its quite a good little platformer!

This game was finished, but around the time that Codemasters pulled out of the scene, so it never got released at the time along with quite a few others which are rumoured.

Eventually however though the game was sold and released on the Magic Disk 64 magazine in 1995 (4/1995) under the name of Jimbo (A reader called Rudi has confirmed that they own an original) – also listed on the magazine/disk as Jimbo’s (Jump & Run). It is practically the exact same game with a different logo. We are not sure who did the deal, we think its probably the game’s manager Duncan Kershaw.

CJ’s 4 was written by people behind Entropy to try and help them into the industry. The game was created by Juned Wahab and Shaun Pearson, and the game featured music by Gerard Gourley. A part of Codemasters offered a sum of money to complete the game for them to release.

Shaun lost interest in the game after creating a much better sprite with hi-res overlay, and the whole of level 1. A new graphics guy came in called Wayne Billingham and helped Juned finish the game in 4 weeks and receive his money. Read Shaun’s own words in ‘Creator Speaks’.

Shaun pretty much confirmed this as the sequel to CJ In Space, so we are missing the 3rd game in the 4 part series. Sadly this is no nearer to being found yet. Hopefully soon Shaun can help us see his original unseen work on the game of which non at all seems to have been used in the game.

Interestingly… Wayne Billingham came forward saying that he worked on a CJ Island Antics game, which was actually CJ’s 4th. Wayne mentions Duncan Kershaw as the producer of this game… while Juned is known to have done this game. Read what Wayne has to say in Creator Speaks…

After looking on Wayne’s disks in recent times, we managed to find an early version of CJ’S Island Antics and also a long lost unused loading screen for Codemasters. These can now be downloaded as part of the archive. The loading screen is in Amiga image format.

A reasonable sequel, but nowhere near as good as the original.

Contributions: Steve Williams, Shaun Pearson, Wayne Billingham, Rudi, Gennadiy Demidenko

Supporting content

• Downloads
• Gallery
• Creator speaks
• History

Available downloads

• CJ_CHNAG (plain)
• JUNEB (plain)
• Game_CJs4th.zip (zip)

Gallery

Creator speaks

Shaun Pearson speaks to GTW about work on CJ4:

“I was going to work on CJ4 – creating just the graphics while Junad (Koshimo & Elaroo)
was to code the game. Working on CJ4 was going to be our way into the industry. Junad was going to be paid £1000 and i was going to be paid £250 – not a lot I know, buy hey we were unemployed we were trying to get somewhere and were in it for the fun of it.

CJ4 was to scroll just left and right and CJ was to be on a pogo stick, and there were to be 5 levels. I created a new look CJ using 2 sprites and some wicked clown sprites and one level. The guys of some sub company to Codemasters liked what we had down, although felt it was too different to the first 3 CJ games.

At that point I lost interest, they found a new artist & Junad coded the game in about 4 weeks (part time too “¦ needless to say, the game turned out rubbish Junad collected his £1000 and the game as far as I know was never released.”

Shaun Pearson .

Wayne Billingham speaks to GTW about work on CJ4:

“CJ’s Island Antics (I think it was called)..done for Duncan Kershaw/jez (I forgotten what they were called) never came out.

Looking at the CJ 4th adventure game, I think I may have worked on that. I cant remember to be honest, but those gfx look very like how I used to do stuff.. I remember that I did a really crap loading screen and someone else was drafted in to do it and I only got paid a few years after doing it when I met up with the producer who I did it for. I don’t remember putting the IV in the right side of the screen, but the panel looks like my style too. And I remember the coders name, though I never met him..so I may be the mysterious other artist who worked on it though it looks like my gfx style in the screenshot too. I think it became more of a New Zealand story clone..

I think I worked on that anyway, as it has hires black plant style gfx, mixed in the multi-coloured stuff, which I always tried to do ..using as many colours as I could within the limits..”

Wayne Billingham

Update history

10/04/21 – Name fixes from the Jimbo release