Several months ago, I shared the discovery of one of these unreleased games on another thread.
Basically, a Portuguese Spectrum website called 'Planeta Sinclair' has contact with programmers José Oliveira and Ricardo Silva who are close friends and in the past had worked on 3 games for the Spectrum that had the Codemasters logo on the loading screens.
This is brief intro from an entry on the Planeta Sinclair website:
José Oliveira and Ricardo Silva, two friends who still work together today, were responsible for two complete games for the ZX Spectrum, and an unfinished one. Surprisingly, none of the games were commercially released, being known only by a very restricted group of people, even having a quality far superior to many products that were placed in stores in our country, and even abroad.
Its authors also tried to get the games commercially released in the British market, for this purpose, starting contacts with Code Masters, Virgin Mastertronic and Zeppelin Games. There was even some exchange of correspondence with these publishers, who even suggested some improvements, genuinely taking an interest in the games, but unfortunately they never got to include them in their catalogues. However, the loading screens have the Code Masters symbol, demonstrating the confidence that the authors had in the launch of the games by this publisher. The authors also signed under the name “Computer Weekend”, inspired by a song by Jean-Michel Jarre, taken from the LP “Révolutions” (1988).
Here are the games (All work on 48k mode only):
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:egg: Alea (1987)
In 1987, “Alea” was the first of the games to be developed, and it is also the one that is closest to a salable commercial product and with a chance of being successful. The game was already programmed by José Oliveira, when Ricardo Silva started his collaboration, being responsible for the loading screen and the music. One of the curiosities of this game, rarely seen in other Portuguese programs, is the use of synthesized voice, which was used in other Code Masters games. The graphics themselves include ideas taken from other works (eg the loading screen is clearly Equinox-inspired), although they also contain many original elements. It should also be noted that some chords from the music on the initial menu, created by Ricardo Silva (who considers it his favourite).
In “Alea”, we then control a spaceship, which aims to collect all the energy cells displayed on the screen (each screen corresponds to a level), in a short time, before moving to the next level. The traps and obstacles are immense and varied, in a futuristic tone, making the challenge very difficult, requiring a lot of experience to advance through the levels. These are arranged in 10 towers, each containing five floors, for a total of 50 levels. At a certain point, the scenarios are repeated and, from level 51, the towers are no longer numbered (starts at tower zero, ending at tower nine), assuming that the game has no end. This is one of the weaknesses, as it would be more interesting for the game to have an end, even forgiving the fact that there is a repetition of scenarios.
The collision system also needed a little tuning (the ship is always facing to the left - the programmers have never been able to solve this problem), meaning that it is not always possible to collect the energy cells when we touch them. It's also not easy to jump at the exact moment to the moving platforms, causing many lives to be lost until you get the perfect jump timing . However, despite the mentioned minor nuances , the game is tremendously fun, reminding me of some of the (good) games in the budget categoryreleased by publishers such as Mastertronic, Players or Code Masters. It would in no way tarnish the catalog of these publishers, and it really was a shame they couldn't get it commercially released.
The graphics, integrated in a futuristic environment as we have already mentioned, are quite pleasant, with an interesting use of color, avoiding attribute problems as much as possible, except when we are under the energy cells. In addition, the scenarios created are challenging as well. Of course, after some time, after running them several times, we already got the hang of it and we know the trick to pass them. But until you get to that point, a lot of ships will roll, as we only have three lives and those run out almost as fast as the time we have to complete each level.
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:egg: Eros (1988)
A year after Alea, Fernando Ferreira, who helped José Oliveira and Ricardo Silva with the spell check of the games, conceived the idea for Eros. Perhaps the project was too ambitious, as the game was halfway through. The mechanics are completely different from Alea, because while in this we are dealing with a pure skill game, Eros is closer to arcade adventures, very much in vogue at the time (Gift From the Gods, 1984, Myth: History in the Making, 1989, etc.).
Set in Ancient Greece (Eros was the God of Love and Eroticism), the game's objective is to find the objects hidden in the various scenarios, and then use them at the appropriate points, offering a series of puzzles that you have to solve up in sequential order.Despite not being finished, there is a playabledemo, which introduces some interesting concepts, and gives us an idea of what the final work would look like.
Maybe they don't apply to finish the game now, because there's no shortage of potential...
Even though its a playable demo, I'm having trouble with the controls and I don't know how to pick items up.
A screenshot on Planeta Sinclair's website gives you the impression that you can pick items up and can explore more areas.
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:egg: Hovercar Simulator (1989/1991)
If Alea was a finished product, with a lot of quality, let's say, Eros, unfortunately, was a game that was only in a very embryonic phase. On the other hand, Hovercar Simulator is in the middle of the two. On the one hand, the game is complete, with the four levels completed, but on the other hand, the "finishes" were missing, and that in this case could have been the difference between having been officially released or not, as was the case .
In 1989, José Oliveira and Ricardo Silva developed Hovercar Simulator. The word “simulator” in the title is not innocent, implying that the addressee would be the “Code Masters”, known for using this word in most of their games. In fact, the game was sent to this publisher, who analyzed it and, in a cordial letter, indicated some points that could be improved, in order to make it a salable product. Graphically, the game also looks like some others from this publisher. A peculiarity is the fact that the loading screen has 1991 as the year of the game's creation, however there is a simple reason for this: despite having been programmed in 1989, in 1990 José Oliveira went to the army, with a hiatus of one year until the two authors picked up the game again and added the loading screen.
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This is all the information I can find regarding these games.
Having worked on 'The Codemasters Archive' a couple of years ago, my knowledge on the early games Codies published has grown.
And when I discovered Planeta Sinclair's tweet on Twitter about Alea, I was curious, I reached out to them and got more than I bargained for.
Again, thanks to Planeta Sinclair for bringing those games to my attention.
{yolkfolk}:cheers: