A very quick entry which was brought to our attention via a tune in Gilles Soulet’s HVSC folder.
Sapiens was a game being developed by Loriciels back in 1986 time, and it seemed a C64 version was on the cards to follow the Amstrad version that did get a release (Loriciels was a prolific Amstrad developer/publisher due to its French roots and the success of the machine out there).
The game was a graphic adventure which had you selecting commands from a menu to move around the game. It was pretty much like a cross between The Hobbit and Maniac Mansion.
Gilles composed his tune in 1987, which suggested that a C64 version must have been under way. It is unknown why exactly the game never quite made it, and so our journey began to try and find out more.
When we heard back from Gilles in June 2023, he confirmed there was never any intention of releasing the game on the C64 and nothing was started. C64 had lackluster sales in France, which convinced them not to bother.
The music was made on the C64, as the editor/compiler (called Kmuse) that Gilles used was developed on C64 for a previously released game called The Fifth Axis. All they had to do was adapt the play routine for the Z80 and Amstrad audio chip.
So that solves the mystery of why the music existed, and now we can close case on this title!
(Same comment on https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/albedo/)
Gilles Soulet is on https://www.youtube.com/@GillesSoulet
Five and two years ago, he happily commented on several videos and even asked to “please please please” re-record his Albedo tune with correct SID filter.
Thanks Professor Chaos! I’ll ping them a message now about both games!