Lost Dragon

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/simmars/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/mayhem-in-monsterland/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/mercenary/

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/green-lantern-documentary-video-released/

Update: Thanks to information from a source who wishes to remain anonymous, but who worked on the game, we have the following addt. Information - Power Crystal reached the stage where a big chunk of environmental art had been finished. It had a basic landscape system, basic economic system, so you could buy/sell items, some basic characters, but no interaction. It was nowhere near the stage where it could be reviewed. Jane Whittaker claiming it was 100% finished, reviewed by GamePro, Edge and Next Generation magazines and recieved 100% scores and described as a Zelda 64 Killer, is a complete lie and we have had the games actual status now confirmed by multiple ex-perceptions sources.

Looking at the collected press.. It appears to be a case of the following : Sega of America sign Doom for the 32X. id are stretched, handling Jaguar Doom, PC DOOM II and Quake. Sega assign their own team to convert the Doom code given to them by Id. Johnathan E. Flamm is lead 32X Doom coder, he works on the conversion with rest of the Sega team, but the entire process is done under the consultation and supervision of John Carmack and id consulted for all the major decisions regarding the 32X version. Press use visit to id HQ to promote the 32X version, as well as detailing work being done on Jaguar Doom and PC Doom II being done by Carmack and the team.

In the interests of full transparency, regarding claims made by Whittaker in this interview and : https://www.pressreader.com/uk/retro-gamer/20180222/281685435312402 Regarding Midwinter Midwinter III: "I thought this egregious little person had gone away but the claims and stories have surfaced again, i'm trying very hard not to get overly angry with Andy / Jane whittaker because there is some seriously wrong psychologically with this person. I have to say that first i heard of him was when him and another guy were seconded to Maelstrom from the publisher of Ashes of Empire to handle the imputing of data for the game, as you can imagine most tasks back then were performed manually, and if i remember correctly it was Chris Rowley that ended up doing the majority of that work along with game design. As for being there at the design stage of Midwinter well that is sheer fantasy land on his part, Midwinter actually started out as a ZX Spectrum concept called blitz, and this design was came from ideas at the office but evolved onto the ST and Amiga when it because obvious that the Spectrum was nowhere near capable of doing what we wanted." Ex-Maelstrom source and friend of the late Mike Singleton Dark Seed: Andrew/Jane Whittaker had nothing to do with Dark Seed… The design, creation and programming (PC and MAC) of Dark Seed was internal in Cyberdreams… Dark Seed PC and MAC were programmed inside Cyberdreams… in Los Angeles… nothing was externally handled. The only person who was in Zurich working with Giger was Paul Drzewiecki. Everyone knows, as we stated many times in the marketing materials, the main character, Mike Dawson, was based on the producer, also names Mike Dawson. We actually digitized him for the game so it is his likeness. You can quote me to anyone or on any article on this issue. It’s just bizarre. Further… Giger made absolutely no decisions on which platforms we delivered Dark Seed for… that was solely my decision. Giger’s input was on the use of his images… which he had total control. Anything else, just ask. Thanks Patrick Ketchum, Cyberdreams https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.gigerdb.com/articles/files/ImagineFX_Jul2008.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwibhv_wrJDsAhVTqHEKHUjmCiwQFjASegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw3zJG8b0-uC5eLrrKb2dOCE&cshid=1601451379357 Interview with Giger where he talks of having very little involvement in Dark Seed. And: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/101991/Playing_Catch_Up_Darkseeds_Mike_Dawson.php Interview with Mike Dawson where he talks of being digitized for main character, Whittaker claims it's him...

Sega of America Development Team Programming: Jonathan E. Flamm, Banjo Bob Hardy, Toshiyasu Monita, Marty Franz, Rex Sabio, Unni Pillai Music: Brian Coburn Art: Jenny Martin Producer: Jesse K. Taylor Software Testing: Mike Baldwin, Joel Breton, Chris Lucich, Matt Underwood, Fernando Valderrama, Kim Rogers, Ben Cureton, Lloyd Kinoshita, Alfred Dutton, Sam Sallba, Stan Weaver, Mike Mansourian, Carey Camacho, Aaron Hommes, Jeff Loney That's a lot of potential coders from SOA you spoke with, which of the 6 was it? Digital Foundry say John Carmack assisted with the 32X port. So it looks to be a joint effort.

It'd be helpful if you named the actual coder, so we can have some field of reference. On furher investigation claims made by likes of Mark Cale, Jim Gregory, Martin Hooley, Jez, San Steve Wilcox, Andrew/Jane Whittaker, Chuck Somerville, R. J Mical and many others, have been found to be completely false and often made in an attempt to rewrite history in their favour. There's enough stated and photographic evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt Minter wrote Tempest 2000 in Wales. As for where Carmack was writing 32X Doom When it comes to Whittaker though, the individual is an utter disgrace. Fabricates claims about Mike Singleton inventing solid 3D and texture mapping, gives a completely incorrect account of Jack Tramiel early years.. even made up claims about working with some US Airforce Colonel in charge of the F-16 Squadron scrambled to intercept Flight 93 on 9/11. Only 2 F-16's scrambled and none of the pilots were who he talks of.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/stunt-car-racer-pro/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/creation/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/8-kings/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/burnt-out-cop/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/11/gauntlet-ds/

Jer Horwitz let himself get well and truly manipulated by Whittaker on this one. 8 Number one 1 Amiga games for Graftgold? Uridium was merely a pitch made on behalf of an associate of his and Steve Turner never saw anything of it.. Source:Steve Turner Flying Shark:Whittaker had a very limited role on the Amstrad CPC version. Morpheus:was only ever a C64 exclusive. Rainbow Islands:was the work of Andrew Braybrook and the team. http://uridiumauthor.blogspot.com/2018/03/rainbow-islands.html He's also tried taking credit for C64 Magnetron (Steve Turner and Andrew Braybrook) ST Ranarama: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-st-rana-rama_25285.html The Midwinter 3 claim refers to him being credited with Data Entry on Ashes Of The Empire (Mike Singleton). But he's since twisted that into being a close friend of Mike Singleton and spending hours on level design with Mike for the original Midwinter and concocted some utter nonsense about an incident in a Chinese Restaurant : https://www.pressreader.com/uk/retro-gamer/20180222/281685435312402 This has been shot down: https://www.icemark.com/blog/archives/2018/04/16/midwinter-sid-meier-and-the-chinese-restaurant/ Patrick Ketchum and others from Cyberdreams have confirmed Whittaker never worked for them on any version of Dark Seed (Amiga or PC) , did not accompany them to visit H. R GIGER during the making of Dark Seed... Mike Dawson was digitised for the games lead role, not Whittaker. Whittaker never worked on Redline Racing/CFII and later changed the story to him offering coding advice on it.. Nor was he involved on Legions Of The Undead, openly admitted that on Newsgroups at the time. Whittaker has constantly name dropped Giger, Ridley Scott, Stan Winston and John Hurt being consultants whilst he worked on Dark Seed and AVP. GIGER made clear in FX magazine he merely sold Cyberdreams the art and put conditions it be rendered in high resolution mode and didn't think that much of the game itself. John Hurt, H. R GIGER and Stan Winston are all sadly no longer with us, ditto Mike Singleton 😭 Which makes name dropping them convent for Whittaker.. Poor old Mike Pooley did additional coding on Jaguar AVP, but Whittaker never credits him, only himself (whom he often refers to as lead coder) and Mike Beaton. Whittaker has claimed in various interviews he was in Puru coding AVP for a time, that John Carmack was coding Jaguar Doom/Wolfenstein (game changes depending on interview) on a cubicle to one side of him at Sunnyvale, Jeff Minter on the otherside coding Tempest 2000. 32X and Jaguar Doom were shown being worked on at i.d and Jeff Minter via Making Of Tempest 2000 articles for Edge and Retrogamer Magazines, plus photos on his Twitter page, along with Purple Hampton putting up photo of Ted and Carrie Tahquechi Stonehenge during the making of Tempest 2000, prove it was coded entirely at his home in Wales, England... Whittaker also went onto claim Jaguar AVP A. I routines found their way into N64 Goldeneye.. Dr David Doak wrote his own.. That he was involved with PC AVP before doing a full 360 on the Newsgroups and admitting he wasn't, it was the work of Kingsley and his crowd. The entire GamePro, Gamestm and Retrogamer Magazine interviews with Whittaker are disgraceful and show the willingness of magazine editors to print anything as long as it fills a few pages.

Thanks to several Perceptions staff coming forward and giving personal testimonials, along with documented magazine coverage (letters pages etc making clear the magazines only Previewed early, unfinished versions of Power Crystal) and court documents being obtained. We can put enough evidence forward to prove the version of events Jane Whittaker presents in interviews, is sadly in keeping with the complete and utter nonsense stated about anything else connected to Andrew/Jane Whittaker. The game was never heralded as a Zelda 64-beater, merely it was in the same style. It was made clear Perceptions lacked the artistic resources at Nintendo’s disposal and the magazines had used a mixture of lush mockup screens and rather disspointing actual in-game screens. 3DO signed a publishing deal with Perceptions, who began work on the ambitious RPG on an incomplete M2 development kit. 3DO then suddenly pulled out of the deal (we suspect when they sold the M2 technology to Panasonic) leaving Perceptions in a dire financial state. A rescue attempt was made to secure a fresh publisher, via the publicity of Previews in Edge and Next Generation Magazines... This failed and Perceptions became the victims of bankruptcy. Panasonic then annouced the M2 itself was now dead, some 6 months later. There never were the reviews Jane claims. The title was never finished. It simply joined many other M2 titles that had been started and were abandoned.

Made me feel very old watching this one. I'd been intrigued by it on the ST, but didn't have a a 1Meg machine, so later picked it up on the Mega Drive and fell in love with it. But never tried it since completing it all those years ago.

Body Armour was supposedly dropped as it didn't balance well with gameplay. But given how quick the Alien molecular acid eats through hull plating in Alien and body armour in Aliens, not sure how useful it would of been if they had implemented it.

Whilst the cocooning ability and extra speed were nice, they weren't enough to elevate the Alien campaign into the realms of really feeling like you were the Xenomorph. Had they been able to implement you climbing the walls and ceiling, something they wanted for the CD version or had the ability to track prey via pheromones or similar, it would of felt more alien. As it was, it just felt underwhelming.

Head Over Heels on the ST and Amiga used Room Data from the C64 version, which has some rooms missing found in the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions. Jon Rittman changed them as he didn't think the C64 was up to them and Colin Porch wasn't aware of any differences, until after he had written the ST and Amiga versions.

Not quite sure what you mean here. Prior to Jaguar AVP, i poured hours into this and played it in a dark room, found the atmosphere for the time, superb. After AVP, this for myself was the definitive Aliens game: Then i played PC AVP and the bar was raised further still. I recently 'slugged through' Alien Isolation on Playstation 4 after previously completing it on PS3 and at the end of it, wondered why. The time spent could of gone on games i would of gotten more from.. Jag AVP had it's time and was a great showcase title for the platform, but time has taken it's toll on it so what,gameplay wise especially.

The maze element was one of the reasons the game was delayed and reworked to start with. Dan Mcnamee talking about the original 64×64 grid designs for Jaguar AVP: Dan:They were random as in large, wandering, pointless mazes that were little more than frustrating…game became boring very quickly. There is a fine line between challenging and frustrating. And when everyone who picks up the controller puts it back down within 20 min because they feel they are not getting anywhere at all since they don’t know where they are, what is going on, why there appears to be nothing to fight, and the point of the game appears to be to walk around corridors forever with nothing at all to do, I think that qualifies as frustrating. There was nothing challenging at all about the original mazes. I loved AVP at the time, purely because of the atmosphere the game generated and completed both the Predator and Marine campaigns, never went much on the ien campai, personally. But even at the time, it was frustrating at times for the reasons highlighted by the O. P regarding the map system and the fact the acid puzzles didn't dissappear. I look back at it as being the foundation for what was to come, AVP on PC and for that i am eternally grateful. I don't think it's a game i could play through now, i would find it too dated.

Their "In The Chair" interview with Jane Whittaker just highlighted the fact they were happy to print any utter nonsense from industry people, just to fill pages. Whittaker talks of coding Stellar Trader for the ZX81 from a hospital bed and his father selling it all over the world.. Really? You coded versions for PAl, SECAM and NTSC TV systems, from a kit built ZX81... 🤔 Whittaker talks of doing 33 games for Graftgold over a three year period... And talks grandly about his role on converting Flying Shark to the Amstrad CPC. Steve Turner gives a very different account : I also had a letter from Andrew Whittaker. He seemed to really know his stuff on the Z80. He impressed me at his interview with knowledge of Z80 interrupts and Spectrum techniques. I needed an Amstrad programmer so decided to take him on as well. He was the only one that was a bad choice. Doubts arose when he had difficulty setting up the Amstrad CPC and seemed to be asking the others to for assistance all the time. I wanted to give him a fair chance so specified a sound routine for the Amstrad based on the logic of the C64 version and the specification of the AY sound chip. Most of the logic could just be ported and translated from 6502 to Z80. The instructions to send data to the chip would have to be recoded but the AY was much simpler. It was a task that anyone with a bit of Z80 should have found easy. It became obvious that he was not up to the job. In the end I had to admit I had made a big mistake. Andrew was the only one not to pass the probationary period. I cannot remember using anything that he produced and had to take the Amstrad version over myself. I am amazed that now he claims to have been a programmer on not only Flying Shark but many of our other games. It is simply not true, the only games the team were programming at the time were Flying Shark while I was finishing Magnetron and Andrew Braybrook was finishing Morpheus. Andrew Whittaker may have played some of these but did not contribute to the programming. It just shows you that you cannot believe all people say about themselves on the internet or in magazine interviews. The credit should go to the people who deserve it. Dominic Robinson did a superb job on the Spectrum version and John Cumming did an excellent job on the graphics. http://graftgold.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-have-not-blogged-for-six-months.html He tells a tall story about the origins of Midwinter and a Chinese Restaurant episode, again complete and utter nonsense, with Maelstrom sources being outraged by what they saw.... https://www.icemark.com/blog/archives/2018/04/16/midwinter-sid-meier-and-the-chinese-restaurant/ Goes onto talk utter nonsense about H. R Giger asking Whittaker to make a game based on his art.. (#Giger went on record to say he only sold the art to Cyberdreams, never saw Dark Seed until after game was finished and wasn't impressed by it) and that Whittaker was scanned in as the main character, not Mike Dawson... https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/101991/Playing_Catch_Up_Darkseeds_Mike_Dawson.php They also allow Whittaker to take credit for working on the Jaguar hardware design... Claiming M2 Power Crystal was finished, but canned because the M2 was canned (Perceptions went under some months before the plug was pulled on the M2) Whittaker also claims Mike Singleton invented the texture map... the original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974... They don't correct basic errors.. It was 3D Starstrike, not Starstrike 3D Jane and Realtime had done Starstrike II and the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC conversions of Starglider by the time you claim they visited Mike...

Yep, annouced by Ocean America: https://archive.org/stream/HiTechMagazine/HiTech 04#page/n80/mode/1up https://web.archive.org/web/20180930033715/https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File%3AGamePro_US_075.pdf&page=169 And suffered the same fate as so many of these annouced in the press Lost Jaguar titles. I got far more enjoyment from reading about the 3DO and Playstation versions of the game, than i ever did watching the film. Frank has done a sterling write up on the lost titles.

Sadly, despite the best efforts of myself and my source who gave me the latest Ex-Imagitec Design contact, nothing ever came back from repeated email requests to see if they were aware of any Panther development during their time at the company. Shame, but at this stage, given the sheer number of people contacted and who kindly had replied, i think the case is pretty much closed and at best, all we might of had back is some extra info on Space Junk. I've also decided to put the following back up from the interview I carried out with Jim Gregory some years ago, regarding Handmade Software and the Panther. Please note: The quotes HAVE been edited from the original somewhat, I have removed any personal attacks on Atari sources Jim makes as he choose to put the blame on the shoulders of Atari and the Tramiel family, rather than admit HMS itself suffered financial difficulties which stemmed from Jim's earlier company, Mr Micro. This was the reason I pulled the interview once the information came to light and other issues within HMS became apparent from testimonials from several EX-HMS staff. But here is what Jim said about the Panther. Hello Jim, thanks for confirming/talking us through the claim that Hand Made Software were at one point working on Atari's Panther hardware. Do you recall what game(s) were being worked on and how far along they got? Jim Gregory: Yes, we had one of the first dev versions in the world. It was just in a tin box and was not in any way a finished beast. To keep it cool, we had to squirt freezer spray through a little hole in the side every 15 minutes. Q: How did you come to receive the Panther dev kit? Jim Gregory: We had a good relationship with Atari and were working on the the Lynx for them. They offered it to us and we agreed to give them some feedback on it. We actually had a version of the famous Elite game (which we had done for British Telecom) working on it within a week or so. Unfortunately we found a BIG bug in the core chip. In those days there were no FPGA-type chips and so the main chip was a committed block of silicon. That meant that Atari had paid a big chunk of money to make the die and were ready to ramp up production. If I remember correctly, it would totally freeze without any way to recover except with a full power cycle. The bug was related to divide-by-zero problems. It was not possible to 'just avoid dividing by zero' to make it usable. We sent them a chunk of code that would easily recreate the issue to show the problem. When we reported the issue we were first met with disbelief and then annoyance as if WE had caused it to fail. I believe that at least one other developer later reported the bug and then the whole Panther project was doomed. Q: At what point were you made aware Panther was canned, and did Atari want you to move all your work onto the Jaguar instead? Jim Gregory: Whilst I was visiting them in the U.S., I learned that they had decided to bring forward the next console project, which was eventually to be called Jaguar. This cost them a LOT of money and credibility with their owner, Time Warner (who later shut the company down suddenly). Most importantly, it lost them time to market, which sort of set the course to eventual failure. Q: What were your thoughts on the Panther hardware and Atari's ability to support/market it? Was it really a home version of the Lynx? Having 32K of RAM must of been an issue. Jim Gregory: No, it was not at all a version of the Lynx. It was a complex, original design that needed a lot of new programming approaches to achieve results. We worked with a UK company to offer them a special dev kit and we offered them a several GREAT new game designs. The dev kit is in my garage somewhere. Q: Do you have any idea if Atari wanted to swap the sound chip for cheaper version? Jim Gregory: The sound chip was never an issue and was actually quite powerful. I still have all the documentation. Please just be aware it's just the personal opinion of Jim Gregory. I was reluctant to add the comments back up, but they are part of the full Panther research i carried out and should be added to the archives.

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Very occasionally... Think this was a European Only release? Battletoads was i think licensed out to Tradewest for Mega Drive and Amiga CD32. Not console, but you also had The Sales Curve announcing ports of Solar Jetman for the ZX Spectrum, C64, ST abd Amiga. The C64, Amiga and Atari ST versions were complete and the ZX Spectrum reached a playable demo stage,but was canned due to poor sales of the NES original and perceived unsuitability for the home computer markets. C64 Version was recovered and shared.

Not found that much on the Playstation game but.. Toby Grant has been quoted as saying it was Activisions first internally developed Playstation title.. The team found the Playstation hardware easy to work with, it's libraries great and easy to modify for their needs. They mixed 2D and 3D for the visuals, as it was hard to get the environments looking the way they wanted, using just polygons.. They used the Playstation GPU to create moody lighting effects and were keen to add atmosphere to the game by using special effects where ever possible.. The volcano level is lit from below, creatures morph out of the environment, burrow into the ground etc. He also commented on how easy it was to implement the games camera system on the Playstation hardware.

I finally found a copy of GamePro Issue 59 with the Making The Jaguar Roar feature and interview with Andrew Whittaker. The Graftgold claims (8 Amiga titles) made by Whittaker alone are an utter farce. Amiga Uridium : Andrew Braybrook made 2 attempts to bring Uridium to the Amiga, but abandoned both. Steve Turner of Graftgold told us Andrew Whittaker pitched a PC version of Uridium to Graftgold, which a coder friend of Whittaker’s had been working on, but an early demo was all that they saw. And Morpheus stayed a C64 exclusive, there never were conversions to any other platforms. Whittaker failed his probation period whilst at Graftgold and had been taking credit for the work of many others ever since. As far as Legions Of The Undead talk which went in the article, Whittaker making out he was somehow connected to both it (his next project) and Checkered Flag (which he described as incrediblly fast, increbly playable and a terrific racing game) in the feature. Whittaker was seen telling people on Newsgroups Legions was nothing to do with him: Waiting for Legions of the Undead, nothing to do with me that one all the best Andrew Whittaker Programmer AVP But there were also reports he was earlier pulled from working on Legions to finish AVP. This has been a fundamental issue with Whittaker, told some many false accounts, he couldn't remember what he had told whom and his accounts vary wildly from interview to interview. Whittaker makes references to the games Creature Designs being done by same person responsible for the Nightbreed and Hellraiser movies etc, he doesn't name the designer in this feature, but does in other interviews, he means STAN WINSTON (RIP). Nobody from REBELLION has ever mentioned Stan Winston or the studio, being involved in any creature design We have found Whittaker name dropping John Hurt (RIP) Ridley Scott and H. R Giger (RIP) as being directly involved in Jaguar AVP... Giger in Cyberdreams Dark Seed... complete and utter nonsense, Giger made very clear in an interview he merely sold Cyberdreams the art and wasn't impressed with the game. As for who was actually working on Legions... From Rebellion: Legions of the Undead ——- — — —— Programmers: Dan Mitchell, Jamie Lokier Artists: Rebellion art team. (Toby Harrison-Banfield, Stuart Wilson, Justin Rae). Director: Jason Kingsley General nice guys: Brainstorm Anything regarding Legions that is credited to Andrew Whittaker should be treated as highly suspect. It's a crying shame Horwitz didn't do some basic background checks before running the interview with Whittaker.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/10/dick-special/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/10/spitfire-fury/

And they had Lionhead 😊