Something slightly different now for GTW…. a rather different version of John Lowe’s Darts by Gremlin, a much earlier version before any of the endorsements were put into effect.
Back in the early 80’s, Mike Partington was wanting to create an accurate darts simulation and started to build a computerized simulation on the C64 from around 1986 time. This he did, and he had a rather impressive simulation coming together.
First the game was called "Darts Practice", and then later changed to "Game On". CDS took a particular interest to the game and offered Mike a contract for the game in 1987. CDS would have put music and speech into the game, and the game would have come out in 1988 had the offer been accepted. However, Gremlin did get the game and got the title endorsed later by John Lowe. After many delays, the game eventually became released in 1989.
We learn that Ben Daglish almost composed the C64 tune, but even though a song was written in sheet form… a C64 version was probably never started.
Stadium 64 first had contact from Mike who was after someone to port his work disks with the earlier versions. GTW offered to do this, and Mike has kindly allowed GTW to put out the earlier versions for preservation purposes. They are a very interesting insight into the early stages of the game’s life.
Some key differences between some of the versions we offer today are graphics, titles and text. The actual game itself is pretty much as it was originally.
And now you can also check out the source code, which comes as part of the download!
So go check it out… nothing more to be found, so case closed before it begins!
Contributions: Stadium 64 and Mike Partington
Supporting content
Available downloads
- Game_Gameon.zip (zip)
Gallery
Creator speaks
Mike Partington speaks about work on Game On!...
"I managed to fix the GAME ON disk. The problem was because it was the tape version stored on disk. A quick fix to the internal loading routine at $3940 and the job was done. The routine at $3940 then did a jump to $5000 hence the sys 20480 wouldn't work because part 2 wasn't in memory. Easy as pie.
I've enclosed the original for you to have a look at. The scroller message was naff and out of date by at least one year. It says I programmed this over a one year period from April 1986. This version was April 1988 hence it was two years. I just hadn't changed the scrolling message for at least a year ! Don't use this version of the game.....
I've enclosed a modified version which is exactly the same game but I've changed the scrolling message to something a little more professional. You can use this game on your gtw website if you like. This game never came out under the name 'GAME ON'. It nearly did though since CDS did offer me a contract in 1987. They also offered to put Music and Speech into the game. If I 'd have taken the CDS contract then this game would have come out in early 1988 on the CDS label instead of waiting around for another one and a half years at Gremlin for the Amiga and Atari versions to be made.
There you go... a little piece of gaming history ;-)"
Mike Partington.
To read more about Mike's game - check out the excellent write up on Stadium 64... http://s64.emuunlim.com/gameinfos/johnlowesultimatedarts/mikepartingtonultimatedartsnotes.htm
