Games That Weren't 64^®

The source of this next entry is interesting as it was mentioned in “Illegal” pirate fanzine as something seen at PC 1988 show (or so it seems) by SSD of Cosmos.

Quondam was an arcade shoot-em-up written by Denton Designs, and was actually released on the Spectrum but only seemed to get published on a magazine (Crash).

Nothing was ever mentioned of a C64 version, so we were not sure how true it was that a C64 version was in the works. However, Jon Dunn composed a tune which is credited 1990 Ocean, and was called “Quandamnation” which could be a deliberate mis-spell of the name.

Doesn’t seem to be much info attached to the tune at present – but are the two connected? We will be trying to contact Jon Dunn to see if he can shed any more light on this one.

In 2011, we got hold of Paul McCarthy who had done the loading screen for Hard Drivin’, where they shed light on Flashpoint as they worked on the graphics. Quondam was another title they worked on and was exactly the same as the Spectrum version, but with more colours splashed around.

So confirmation that the game did indeed exist on the C64. But who was the the coder? It was none other than Mike Hutchinson, who had produced games such as Double Dragon 2 and Final Fight.

The game had a background made up entirely of hardware sprites, allowing the game to be done in multicolour bitmap mode – mirroring the Spectrum’s presentation, but with many more colours. Sadly it disappeared, probably when Ocean didn’t feel it was up to scratch.

Sadly Mike no longer has anything of his C64 work, so its possible that this game could be lost forever – unless anyone who was friends with Mike may still have something?

If you know anything more, please do get in touch.

Contributions: Mike Hutchinson