“An adventure of mystery and suspense, based around the London South Bank” – as described in the advert which was printed by CVG back in the day.
Old Scores is yet another adventure game, and a graphic text adventure by the looks of the Amstrad previews (see below). The advert continued to describe the game:
“Then you can settle Old Scores. Cryptic from the start. Old Scores is a mystery to everyone. Even I haven’t got a clue what it’s all about. So it sounds as if you’ll have to play it by ear. When that little lots got your brain in a flat spin and your knickers in a twist, you’d better get yourself straightened out…”
The Magicians Ball seems to be the only release which Gamebase 64 has currently found, so it seems that after the release of the game, sales were poor and they folded early on. A shame, as the game looks fairly good.
As for “Old Scores”, how far did it get? It seems the Amstrad version got reviewed in Amstrad Action back in August 1986, but has never surfaced. More details about the Amstrad previews surfacing about the game can be found here: https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/old_scores.htm . Our guess is that Global collapsed before the game could see release.
Did Grant program this one?… Well, it seems a Pete Green was the programmer – confirmed by PaulEMoz, who spotted the mention in Issue 8 of Zzap, which you can find under scans. Can Pete Green be found to ask more?
Contributions: Peter Weighill, PaulEMoz, Strident
Supporting content
Gallery
The Amstrad version gets a full review in Amstrad Action issue 11, page 68… which, importantly (to answer questions about the type of game) contains two screenshots.
https://archive.org/details/amstrad-action-011/page/n67/mode/2up
Thanks Strident. Added the review scans from Amstrad action and tweaked the write up a bit. Seems feasible that the Magician’s Ball engine could have been reused for the game. I’ll try and get hold of Grant Harrison to enquire more.
I was reading through Issue 8 of ZZAP! 64, and The White Wizard’s news section has a piece on this game, on Page 109, which says it was being programmed by someone called Pete Green. I doubt that will make it any easier to track down…
Thanks Paul! Adding the credits now and adding scan!