Warriors is a rather Rastan looking game which was being produced back in 1988 by a group called Modern Arts for Rainbow Arts. You control a warrior character who jumps across platforms in a horizontal scrolling game. Best way to describe is probably a cross between Bionic Ninja, Rastan and Hawkeye – scrolling from right to left.
The game was coded and designed by Matthias Hillebrand, with music by Tim Kleinert and was produced over several months with a lot of hard work put in.
At present, all we know is that Rainbow Arts decided not to release the game for reasons unknown, and Modern Arts were not paid for their efforts as a result. The developer recalls that there were discussions with Rainbow Arts about renaming the game, but he cannot recall the final state of their dealings. A huge shame.
For years, a preview has been doing the rounds which has titles, music and a few levels – however, in 2013 – Wilfred Bos helped to recover a far more and possibly fully complete version which has more levels and more details within the game. In particular the intro is fleshed out with more music, and there are sampled sounds when you land in the water.
Wilfred was passed on a more complete copy via a chap called Jürgen who is an old member of Modern Arts, mainly due to the game having a tune by Tim Kleinert which is not currently in HVSC.
It is a brilliant finding, and although it is a very frustrating game to play – with many constant deaths, the presentation and music is superb for its age and with some trainers it could be a lot of fun to play through.
Also, it is great that the game in its final state has been saved – many would have thought the preview was all that ever existed. Thanks to Jazzcat, The Ignorance and Pugsy, the game has been fixed up as well – as it was found that Level 2 was broken. Overall there have been a number of other fixes and general packing to get the game fully playable.
Interestingly, we have found that the game was reviewed in ASM magazine in 1989 (see scans) and it was reported to be being sold by Kingsoft. Did any copies actually sell?
We hope to hear more from the developers soon, but check out yet another full game saved from the wreckages thanks to Wilfred Bos!
Contributions: Wilfred Bos, Jazzcat, The Ignorance, Pugsy, Archive.org
Supporting content
Available downloads
- Game_Warriors (zip)
Gallery
Update history
24/09/24 – Link to Kingsoft and review from ASM added.
A tidy find! Thanks!
Looks a bit time lavished on presentation, with playability coming as an after thought though…
Indeed a great finding. Even though the game is basically unplayable, which might be the reason why it was never released. But then again, before Rainbow Arts started publishing some of the best games on the C64, their first year or so they released some real stinkers.