Groovy Electric Death
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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((From GTW64):


1988 Simon Birrell

Status: Full Game, Findability: 5/5
Coding: Simon Birrell
Graphics: Simon Birrell
Sound: N/A

 

A obscure title by Simon Birrell, creator of Strangeloop for Virgin Games.

Essentially, this game stems from the ripping off of one of Simon’s own ideas which was "Slideways", also in GTW. Cascade ripped off the Slideways game and released their own very similar game called "Traz"

As a way of getting somekind of revenge on Cascade later after Simon finished university, Simon created this game which was based on the same code as Slideways and was along the same lines.

The game was completley finished, but no company was interested. This was believed by Simon to be a fact that the industry had moved on from this genre of game. For years the game has sat on a disk, until by some blind luck it turned up…

Simon in later years left to work in Spain, and normally this means anything like C64 disks get left behind or lost. This seemed to be the case when we originally asked Simon about the whereabouts of the game. It couldn’t be found some 3 years ago when we first found out about the game.

However, in 2007 – Jazzcat got an email from Simon who had miraciously found the disk in Spain. This last remaining copy was then sent to Australia for Jazzcat to save from obscurity. Luckily everything worked, and after a quick bit of fixing and tweaking by Skeletor… GTW can present you the full game, thanks to Simon, Jazzcat and Skeletor.

The game isn’t really like Traz as such, though the graphics feel similiar in some respects. This is much more of a maze based game where you have to avoid monsters. Instructions are included.

According to Simon, there exists a level editor hidden away in the game, which is probably accessed by a key combination. It could well have been opened up to the commercial release like Traz’s editor was. We haven’t found it yet though  

It’s a nice title, and we’re very pleased its been saved from the abyss for people to enjoy for the first time. Please feel free to feedback in our forums about this game.

A long lost game finally found and put to rest… Case closed!…



Contributions: Simon Birrell, Skeletor


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Simon Birrell speaks about work on Groovy Electric Death...

"I remember little about the game, but I suspect the aim was to pick up some sort of object on each screen while avoiding the monsters. 

 What I do remember is that the game has an editor built in, so you can create your own rooms or edit the existing ones. I can't recall whether I intended this as feature for the player, or whether it was purely for my benefit. It's probably some special key combination to launch it. 

 Can't remember who I planned to sell it to, I just remember the market had already moved on. I used quite a bit of the Slideways code (that ended up as "Traz" at Cascade). I was hoping to make some quick money as I had just left University. When that didn't work, I got a job for a while with an educational software company before moving to Palace Software in London. 

 Once you've converted it, please feel free to publish/distribute it on your website. Better late than never!"




http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/groovy-elecric-death/
