Yet another aborted Double Dragon conversion for the C64, and this time this was for the Ocean Software development of the game from the early 1990s. Although it could just be a different variation of the current and limited cartridge release that was made.
Graphic artist Anthony Rosbottom recalls working at Imagitec on the conversion with Psy The Hero (Part of the famous Compunet duo, Psy and Mat), aka Simon Hulbert. The conversion featured monochrome graphics, which we’re not entirely sure why that decision was made exactly.
After finishing work on the graphics, Anthony went on to work on Viking Child for the Amiga, ST and DOS. He later heard that Ocean had rejected the development from Imagitec due to the monochrome graphics that were present.
It seems that Imagitec then threw extra resource onto the development to get it re-done and re-developed into the colourful version that Ocean eventually released. Well, sort of released. The game only got a very limited release at a show on cartridge, and in really quickly knocked up packaging. It’s likely that Ocean still weren’t happy with the end result, probably just made up a few cartridges for shits and giggles… maybe?
Simon is still credited, but it seems he only now had a bit part on the development. The original game was just Simon and Anthony working on the title overall, and the development was actually complete. So we believe that there is a vastly different development out there yet to be discovered.
Sadly Anthony no longer has anything of his work, so its now down to hopefully tracking down Simon and seeing if he may have anything of his original work.
Contributions: Anthony Rosbottom, Dan Phillips
