Although Epyx have been linked to this game from 1987, The Omnicron Conspiracy was eventually released by Imageworks in 1990.
The game was a point-and-click based adventure game which looks like it would have been doable for sure on the C64. It wasn’t that well known, but it was released at the very least (But only on the 16-bit platforms it seems).
So did Imageworks buy the game from Epyx when they went under?… what happened to the planned C64 conversion? Why was it so long from 1987 to 1990 until a release was seen?
Thanks to contributor Hoagie (see comments), we learn that there was an interview with Jim Nangano, in Video Games & Computer Entertainment 18 (7/1990), detailing the problems he encountered when he developed the C64 version. We’ve added the interview below to the gallery. Here is what was said:
Nangano’s next major project turned into one of his more disappointing career experiences. “I began work on the engine that would theoretically become a game—The Omnicron Conspiracy.” First Star President Richard Spitalny quickly saw the wisdom in an engine that could be used to drive an entire line of adventure games and commissioned a game design to complement the Nangano system.
The job eventually fell to Subway Software, which produced an epic length science-fiction adventure starring Ace Powers, captain in the Star Police. “I devised the engine, the graphics compiler and everything else to make it run on the C-64, using an IBM development system. I had a three-level disk, characters moved, locations changed.
“But there was a problem. First Star decided it had to be able to run on tape, because they wanted to sell it overseas and, at that time [1985], that market was mostly tape-driven.” Nangano had only one problem with this notion: “How can a random access adventure run from tape?”
The answer was, it couldn’t: but nonetheless, they tried. Then Epyx decided that all the graphics to date had to be redrawn. “That totally destroyed the game. This game was so far ahead—if it had been released when it was ready to be released, on disk, it would have blown everybody out of the water. Epyx eventually finished it [an IBM version was released in 1989], but it wasn’t even fun by that point.”
It seems therefore the C64 version was cancelled due to trying to rework the game for tape and failing, which is a huge shame. Crucially though, it confirms that a C64 version did exist and there could well be remains out there to recover. Hopefully we can get hold of Jim to clarify in the near future.
Thanks to Anonymous contributor, we have added a higher-res screenshot (albeit monochrome) which was in the Compute! Commodore Buyer’s guide from 1988. Possibly an early screenshot, as the released 16-bit editions only had three squares on each side.
More soon on this one…
Contributions: Cybergoth, Michael Huth/Preservation64.de, Hoagie, Archive.org (Scans), Anonymous Contributor, Stone Oakvalley
There is an interview of the author, Jim Nangano, in Video Games & Computer Entertainment 18 (7/1990), detailing the problems he encountered when he developed the C64 version.
That’s amazing, thank you very much for the heads up! I’ll make a note to update the page tomorrow!