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In
1989 John Buckley and Martin Holland
were working on what can be described as a first-person adventure
game with a detailed character selection front end, and a pseudo-3D
map section.
The
main game itself was very much in the style of Space Harrier and
Outrun but with more detail in the graphics for a C64 game. This may have been for particular parts of the game, but overall it was more of a RPG/Adventure game.
The
game was very advanced, and featured some authentic animations
and sequences. It was basically a stunner. There were male and
female characters which were created from a series of stripes,
which gelled together. Only Martin Holland could pull off such
a feet, and he did. The characters were very Elvish and from what I recall quite brown/golden in terms of shading. Pretty much they were similiar in style to Martin's character profiles in Gauntlet 3.
Graphically,
according to John, this was the best work that Martin ever did
on a C64.
Vale
Of Shadows wasn't completed or released because the company
couldn't pay its workers. The company went into liquidation and
was immediately reformed. Though sadly after this, all the artists
had left and the game got shelved from then on.
John
does not have anything of the game any longer sadly... and Martin
was the only person who did. Sadly, Martin passed away recently
and his work will remain unseen.
Originally
a video was sent of the work he did to GTW, but the video got
lost, and Martin passed away briefly before resending another
copy of the work. It is not known if anyone else has the work
which was done. The footage I remember had a castle like image with an animating hawk which flew above. This might have been part of the game's introduction sequence. There was also some character shots and the loading screen to Chocablock Charlie which was unused. I have been kicking myself ever since for losing the video :-(
In 2010, Paul Drury produced a Desert Island Disks feature with Neil Thompson who mentioned his involvement in the C64/PC versions of the game...
"Vale of Shadows , for the C64 and PC, was a kind of Elven fantasy, where you created a character and went on quests. I spent months designing the Elves and the system whereby you could change their appearance but it just never went anywhere."
Here is also a photo which was printed in Retro Gamer, which shows Martin in the background laughing (And maybe even working on Vale of Shadows in the background?), along with John Buckley sitting alongside Neil (Sat back in the chair with long hair).
Click picture for larger view.
We are now trying to find out if by chance Neil kept anything of the game, or to find out that little bit more about the game. It's very unlikely that we will find anything now of the game, but we'll always be hopeful. Neil specifically worked on the PC version, and not the C64 version. Both PC and C64 versions were being done simultaneously (The PC version being coded by
Doug "Chuckie Egg" Anderson). We have asked Neil if he kept any documents or bits from them days.
Another
major title which sadly never quite made it...
Frank
(Additional
source credits - Martin Holland, John Buckley, Paul Drury, Neil Thompson)
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