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Following
on from the brilliant Bubble Bobble
and the radical Rainbow Islands,
Parasol Stars was one of the most
eagerly awaited games of 1992. However, just as it was nearing
completion, Ocean made a public statement in 1992 that their out-of-house
programmer suffered a burglary in which his computer, monitor,
and all his disks were stolen - including the ones with the Parasol
Stars source code!
This
caught everyone by surprise, including several mail order software
firms who, anticipating it's release, had included the game in
their adverts. Re-writing the game from scratch would have taken
ages, by which time the big advertising push would have been lost.
Rumours
were flying over this game, the burglary story, a coverup of Ocean
leaving the C64 scene and a domestic dispute leaving disks wiped.
In 2005, GTW finally learned exactly what happened...
Indeed,
Parasol Stars was being developed out of house and not by Graftgold
(Jason
Page of ex-Graftgold said that he weighed up a C64 conversion
and saw it would have been a pain). or
Special FX... The connection was very close though, and the developer
has been unmasked as Colin Porch!...
Coder of Operation Wolf, Head Over Heels and Gryzor on the C64.
As the C64 died out, Ocean contracted their later games out to
external developers on the cheap... and Colin was at the time
working from home and took up the project.
After
3 months worth of work, Colin proved
his worth with a really strong demo (quite advanced at this early
stage) with his own graphics and took it to Ocean. Ocean liked
what they saw, and gave Colin the full thumbs up to continue and
finish off for publishing. This was to be Ocean's final fairwell
to the C64.
As
development progressed, a strong conversion was shaping up to
do the C64 proud. It so almost very nearly made it after another
3 months worth of work... So near, but devestatingly the game
was lost. Rumours of a dispute with the developers wife was infact
proven true. Colin confirmed that a parting of ways with his (now
ex) wife didn't mean just a cutting up of shirts, but destroying
of disks too... which included all of Colins Parasol Stars code
he had been working on. What did survive was the 3 month demo
that Colin originally took to Ocean.
Upon
travelling to Ocean to explain the situation, Colin produced the
3 month demo again and stated that he'd be able to get the game
back within short time. Sadly Ocean didn't want to see it through
any longer, and left the C64 scene slightly more prematurely than
they would have done. The 3rd installment was never to see the
light of day.
By
pure chance GTW discovered that Colin was behind the game when
he first spoke to GTW and talked of working on Rainbow Islands
that got scrapped. Of course, with Graftgold actually doing this,
it set alarm bells ringing and the obviously link to Parasol Stars
was like a slap in the face.
What
with knowing that we will never see the almost complete version
that was created, what is left now in the hope of discovering
anything of the game? 6 months prior to GTW contacting Colin,
he had sadly got rid of all his old development disks at the tip...
Most likely with the 3 month old demo of Parasol Stars. But Colin
gives hope that the disk survived the clearout, and so the search
begins for the 3 month advanced preview that survived.
To
find anything of this game would be a fantastic feat and of great
importance. In the meantime GTW also searches for the game's music
which was developed by Keith Tinman.
This sadly also seems lost, though Keith also gives us hope that
he will find the ST disks with the tunes on. Imagine.... finding
the demo and the tunes, and combining it all.... Maybe.... As
one journey ends to find the developers, another begins to find
the remains...
Could
this lost relic be really found, or is it forever to be lost?...
Frank.
(Additional
source credits - Ian Osbourne, Patrick Furlong, Jazzcat, Keith
Tinman, Paul Hughes, Brendan Phoenix, Colin Porch)
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