Thanks to Csaba Virag, we present yet another lost and unfinished game, this time with the very interesting title of The Spirit, which seems was due for release by Novo Soft in 1990.
We don’t believe that the game is finished, but there are two distinctively different levels (which you can load individually). The first part is a sideways scrolling level, where you must jump over and avoid enemies to get to the end.
The second part sees you picked up in an alien craft and transported to a castle like structure. The game switches here to a flick screen platformer, where you must collect keys to then rescue your friends (up to three in total).
The major thing you will notice is that the game takes from a lot of different C64 games with its music, graphics and even its sprites! The main character is oddly a two colour version of the main protagonist from Olli and Lissa. There is even the large troll which has been lifted straight from Stormbringer.
We don’t think the game is finished, because it is quite glitchy and everything doesn’t seem to be fully linked up. There is an end sequence file, but it doesn’t load when you save all your friends. Did it get any further than this, or was this it?
Thankfully we have some credits (not 100% accurate) from the intro screen, so we have a bit of a starting point to try and learn more about the game. If you know anything more, please let us know!
Contributions: Csaba Virag, iAN CooG
Supporting content
Available downloads
- Preview_TheSpirit (zip)
Gallery
Update history
08/01/24 – Updated music credits thanks to iAN CooG.
For the record, I checked the tunes in the game and I only found 3, none by Hubbard.
boot file “THE SPIRIT”:
/MUSICIANS/D/Daglish_Ben/Last_Ninja.sid tune #9 (Anthony Lees)
file 01 “ANI F”
/MUSICIANS/R/Rock/Contest_Demo_part_4.sid (95%) (bad rip, truncated data!)
file 02 “PRG1/1”
/MUSICIANS/D/Daglish_Ben/Butcher_Hill.sid
Thanks iAN! I’ll update the credits accordingly and will mention that in the piece.