Mentioned in issue 15 of Zzap 64, Cops and Robbers is a working title of a game which CRL were going to be releasing in August 1986, but never quite did. (Check out the feature on CRL here). Thanks to Gurt from the Lemon64 forum for highlighting this one!
The game is not the Atlantis based game of the game name either. The game was being developed by Jeff Lee, designing the graphics as well as writing the game itself. The game consists of you controlling a burglar robbing a range of houses, ranging from derelict and semi-detatched, and eventually the Police Commissioner’s mansion – the ultimate in burglary.
Within the game would be a lengthy scrolling street which scrolls left and right, and any of the buildings can be entered at any time. Once inside a building, the view changes to that of the room you are about to burgle. Here you grab all the various rich pickings, but must avoid the heavy protection in some properties with various security traps and systems.
To bypass certain security, you need to obtain good equipment to do so – this is done by selling your gains and purchasing new tools.
What quite happened to this game is beyond me – apart from that, there doesn’t seem to be any other mention of the game or screenshots anywhere. No Spectrum version seemed to get out either.
Clem Chambers spoke to GTW64 and suggested that this was probably nothing more than a concept that didn’t get much further. Cops and Robbers wasn’t the sort of name they would commonly give, and would have been a working title. This does not however completely rule out that nothing was ever started.
Main thing as well is that we have a coder to track down and find out more about the game, but for now do you know any more about this one?
Can you help with this entry?
Contributions: Gurt, Clem Chambers
Supporting content
Available downloads
- crl-feature.pdf (pdf)
