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Soldier
Of Light was not a particularly memorable conversion of the arcade game from ACE software
back in the mid to late 80's. However, the weak result was found to be possibly down to this very version which sits in GTW...
Carl Coffey was the coder of this game, and produced a very well presented demo featuring the main character and some cut scenes. The main character moved, but that was it. There was no scrolling or anything playable. A screenshot of this demo was published in Commodore User magazine, so we know that this was originally to be the official conversion.
Although the game looks better than the completed effort, it is unfair to compare, as this isn't really playable!... Plus with the cancellation of this version, the new team that had to take over were left with far less time to get a quality product out. More time seems to have been spent on graphics in this preview.
Rob Whitaker has kindly put his story across about the completed version, after it was found that this review originally unfairly took digs at the completed version, and wished more of this particular version. Considering the time limits they had, Rob's team did wonders to get something out like they did. No doubt had the guys had the full development time, things may have been more successful. Reading Creator Speaks will explain more in Rob's own words.
So
what happened to version 1?... Well, we don't know, and neither does Rob.
Darren Melbourne recently particially solved the mystery, by mentioning...
"Carl actually walked away from the project after The Edge software company never honoured any of it's payment schedules. Carl was a good coder and an exceptional artist, who could have created an excellent conversion of SOL, if he had been paid. Carl created many C64 games which didn't see the light of day, with Hobey Joe (the story of a winged Gryphon type creature) being outstanding for it's 1984 dateline. As far as I know Carl left the industry disullusioned by the poeple who ran publishing companies." So sadly it was nothing to do with Carl not being able to do the conversion, but non-payment. How would Carl's version have shaped up? Did Carl do more than this demo?... Was anything actually playable? Just
how far Carl got before he left is unknown. Contact
is needed with Carl to find out more, and even see how much more
was done. Quite possibly Level 1 could exist in a more fuller
form at the very least. It will be interesting to find out and see.
So
for now we are left to ponder what could have been, though when
compared with the prototype previews of R-Type, there is not much
to ponder, as there simply isn't enough evidence.
Faithful
to the eye, but covering up not a great deal...
Frank.
(Additional
source credits - Christopher Magro, Rob Whitaker, Darren Melbourne)
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