Diabolik  (Preview)
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
Programmer: Nicola Feriola
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1992 Simulmundo

Status: Preview, Findability: 2/5
Coding: Nicola Feriola
Graphics: Ivan Venturi
Sound: N/A

A preview of an up and coming game by Italian giants Simulmundo in 1992.

Not much is known about the game, apart from the main character was based from an old italian comic, called Diabolik. The character was a thief and an assassin, the “Armakuni’s” dress is his usual look for when he’s in action. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Diabolik

The preview itself just consists of a series of intro screens, followed by release details for other machines. So the game was due for the PC and Amiga too and actually got released. The game was actually released on the Amiga in a large series of games, all following the same style. 

http://hol.abime.net/343

The game basically was a kind of Metal Warrior/Saboteur style of game, and it seems that the C64 would have been host to a series of games. However it is likely that Simulmundo abandoned the C64 in favour of the 16-bit platforms, and hence this game was lost. Diabolik and its games appeared in around 1993 time.

More information is required on this game, including who was working on it. Quite possibly the same people who did Dylan Dog (Certainly the style was not too far off!)

In 2010, Roberto Nicoletti spoke with Ivan Venturi and Nicola Ferioli and had the following to say:

"I’ve also talked about Diabolik to Ivan Venturi and Nicola Ferioli and at first time they did not remembered at all they have worked on it. Then I showed to Ivan the screenshot of the preview and he starts to remember a bit. Nicola Ferioli did not remember Diabolik also, but when at home he found through some old diskette the development floppy, with sources included.

I guess the case could be closed: they worked on it a couple of  afternoon about 20 years ago but were too busy with other project to keep tracks in their memory. "

So within the archive we now have a disk copy of the intro containing some source code, but this is just for the intro sequence and no game. It seems the C64 intro was started, but no game was ever created with just an Amiga/PC version being produced in 1993.

Sadly it looks like a case closed on this one…

Case closed….

Contributions: Andy/AEG, Roberto Nicoletti

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/diabolik/
