Mumbles – Super Spy was another cool looking game from Databyte, and was advertised with their released game, Polar Pierre within all the popular magazines at the time.
Just how the game would have played is anyone’s guess. As far as I’m aware, no review of the game was made, and hence the game never surfaced. Just what happened to it?
We don’t know much more about the game at the moment, and all we have is a scan of the game as detailed in the magazines at the time. Do you know any more about this game, or is it lost forever?
Fabrizio Bartoloni found some information in MC Microcomputer which translated to:
“We have to look for Baldar, the usual mad scientist, and destroy his lab before it’s him to destroy the world. A carbon copy of most traditional spy adventures and bearing some vague resemblances to Impossible Mission, Mumbles Superspy is a decent quality videogame from the American company Digicorp distributed in Europe from the British company Databyte. If you look for originality, you won’t find it, if you search for fair quality graphics you will”.
Source: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/adam-caveman/mc_microcomputer-059_0087/
The game was trademarked by Digicorp Inc, who are still going today, so we hope to learn more soon from them (if anyone is still there from those days).
Art Huff had confirmed back in 2013 that he was no behind the graphics, but then in December 2022, Ron Rosen got in touch to confirm that he was indeed the developer of the game after all and that Art had been mistaken. Art had actually done all of the graphics, and the game was fully completed. Ron wasn’t aware that the game had never been released.
Unfortunately Ron confirmed that he no longer has any code for any of his past works, though there are a few other contacts who may – so those routes are for now being examined to see if anything could be located. Ron also solved another mystery by confirming that he and Art were behind Adam Caveman.
Watch this space and hopefully we’ll have some more positive news soon.
Contributions: Peter Weighill, Ross Sillifant, Fabrizio Bartoloni, Gaz Spence, Art Huff, Ron Rosen
Another line of enquiry is whether Digicorp actually published any games directly themselves in the US. Did they just acquire rights to games and had no intention of publishing them themselves? The whole situation with Mumbles and Adam Caveman is very strange because the games were seemingly completed and reviewed or advertised for over a year from 1986-87 and Databyte appeared to continue in some form beyond that period. There must be something which we a missing that has probably been lost to time now.
Doesn’t seem like they did, and perhaps they had just brought up the rights from Datamost and sold them onto Databyte. One theory is that perhaps something fell through with the rights that Digicorp had. Polar Pierre managed to sneak out, but this and Adam Caveman not so lucky.
Looks like Digicorp Inc are still going too! I’ve pinged them a message to see if we can learn more.
Polar Pierre didn’t exactly “sneak out”, it was part of Datamost’s back catalog and readily available so from a former deal. Check what Databyte released on the Atari and you’ll notice a lot of older Datamost titles: Nightraiders, Cohen’s Towers, Aztec… Mumbles / Adam Caveman were new titles so that’s an unvalid comparison.
Apologies – my mistake. I had meant that it had “snuck out” as a Databyte release (not as an original release) – but you quite rightly point out that its an invalid comparison anyway, as Mumbles and Adam Caveman were to be new releases.
Errata corrige, in my previous comment I’ve written Digibyte but mean Databyte.
You might want to add what was in those scans about Adam Caveman that related to Mumbles Superspy as well, i.e.: the page from MC Microcomputer where there was also a review of the latter (I’m going to translate it as follows):
“We have to look for Baldar, the usual mad scientist, and destroy his lab before it’s him to destroy the world. A carbon copy of most traditional spy adventures and bearing some vague resemblances to Impossible Mission, Mumbles Superspy is a decent quality videogame from the American company Digicorp distributed in Europe from the British company Digibyte. If you look for originality, you won’t find it, if you search for fair quality graphics you will”.
Source: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/adam-caveman/mc_microcomputer-059_0087/
Also, its apparent availability on the Swedish mail order market is relevant: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/adam-caveman/prices/
Thanks Fabrizio! Updating now, and also i’d spotted the prices bit as well – so it was in the scans section here too.