Games That Weren't 64

Steve Brown speaks to GTW about 'Barbarian 3'...

"About two thirds of the way through production of Barb II, I had the (incredibly original :o) ) idea that the Barbarian games should be a trilogy. So I pulled the climactic and slightly rude Drax death sequence I had planned for the ending, came up with a new monster and let Drax escape through his magic mirror.

When Barb II and the other games I was working on were done, I came to Pete Stone (Palace Software Big Cheese) with my pitch, which was as follows:

Barbarian III: the final conflict

After the events of Barb II and Drax’s amazing escape, Arnold and Maria set off to track him down to his final retreat, the Throne Room of his Black Castle (as yet unnamed…)

Taking up from where we left them at the end of Barb II, they have to fight their way through three levels of weird and wonderful monsters, new traps and gameplay elements, before the climactic battle with Drax.

When the fourth level is reached Drax summons all the powers of Hell and changes into a huge, wobbly, tentacled Penis Monster (as featured in the game poster and cover) and only a skilled gameplayer who has completed the game successfully to this point can avoid being eaten alive (very cool sequence). If he defeats Drax, we are treated to a final anim of Arnold and Maria standing astride the vanquished Penis, their hearts joyful, their loins ablaze with desire, etc, etc…

This was to be a combination of what I considered to be the best gameplay elements I’d come up with for Barb I and Barb II, but taken to new heights of black humour and animation excellence:

The arcade adventure sections would be similar to Barb II but with scrolling backgrounds (much nicer) and loads of cool new gags/monsters/deaths.

Most exciting though, at key stages there would be combat sequences similar to Barb I, but with HUGE figures (think Tekken in 2D with swords and knives. Woohoo!). However, this was only going to be possible in the 16 bit version(s) - the 8 bit versions would have the usual smaller characters (boo!)

I did a load of designs (some of which you’ve seen) and a few nifty test animations. I’d had a sculpture produced of the Penis Monster and had initial meetings with the effects shop at Pinewood studios to discuss having a fifteen foot length of tentacle made to lift the Princess into the air for the cover shoot (remember, this was in the days before CGI). This time around I was going to use Debee Ashby rather than Maria Whittaker for the cover & poster. Not quite sure how I was going to explain that, but it seemed like a great idea at the time…

At that time, Richard Leinfellner and I were busy working from home on a 3D modelling & animation system for the Amiga, I had a few meetings with Simon, who I didn’t really know to be frank, he wasn’t part of the original gang – Pete had taken him on after I’d left the London office. Anyway, nothing much seemed to be happening, and from where I was sitting, Palace seemed to have lost its way. It’s news to me that there were plans to make it into a platform game – what a horrible thought…

Then Palace folded and I never heard anything more about Barb III. Shame, my version would’ve kicked serious ass!"

Steve Brown.

Simon Birrell speaks to GTW about 'Barbarian 3'...

"Yes, we started "Barbarian III" under the title "Super Barbarian". The original team had a proposal for a Barbarian III which was practically identical to Barbarian II.

I wanted to take it more in the direction of a platform game, and gave it to Dave Chapman instead. I'm not sure I made the right decision to change the format. Anyway, Dave made a great game editor, with an engine for the Amiga and ST. I can't for the life of me remember if we did the C64 engine or not. What we had was playable.

At that point more or less simultaneously the Palace Group went bankrupt, Palace software was bought by Titus, and the whole team dispersed. I think some sort of SuperBarbarian was eventually released on a console, but that was developed in France by Titus.

I then moved to Spain and worked on virtual reality projects for a while. And that was the end of my videogame career, although my company Silicon Artists still dips an occasional toe in the water."

Simon Birrell.