Straight from the success of Last Ninja and just after the release of R-Type in the arcades, Mark Cale decided that he wanted to really see a R-Type C64 clone with graphics by Hugh Riley.
The result was to eventually become Dominator, but Dominator was originally to be developed by Jason Perkins, and Matt Gray wasn’t marked to do the music either.
Nope, Paul Hughes was the original developer on the game and got to work building the tape loader and also a title screen and a few sprites flying around. Rob Hubbard was also to provide music for the game (As confirmed in Paul’s source code for the loader).
After a promising start, unfortunately Paul was offered a job back at Ocean and snapped up the chance to go back, and hence Paul’s game was cancelled. It was later given to Jason Perkins who finished it back in 1989.
Unfortunately we have been unable to find any Rob Hubbard music, but there may never have been any. Additionally apart from a bit of loader source, its early days in terms of trying to find something running. We may soon be bringing you some sprites, and potentially the loader source if Paul gives permission.
It’s early days, but Dominator could have been a very different game indeed!…
Do you know more?
Contributions: Paul Hughes, Ross Sillifant
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And by different i’d hope very much a case of a much better game to boot.
Dominator looked fine, sounded superb, but just sadly was’nt anything special as a game, so i’d be interested to hear what the orig.version might of turned out like.