Reviews

1984 Durell Software (UK)
by Clive Townsend

It's a shame that this game never saw the light of day, not being groundbreaking or anything special, it aint so bad either.
I personally find it quite enjoyable.
Its reminescence of games such as Fred, and probably inspired by.
The biggest letdown I noticed were the graphics which are poorly drawn and quite uninspiring.
But overall it deserved a little more awareness of existence, thankfully it was recovered in 2007.

Never-released game by Saboteur & Saboteur II programmer Clive Townsend.

Advertised in 1985 by Durell but finally never released. It was completed but (inexplicably for me) considered not good enough to be marketed.

The game reminds of Fred and Scuba Dive. Fred because of the random maze that is the mine where the game takes place. And Scuba Dive because your mission in the mine is collect gold bars and a gem and take them back to the tent at the exit of the mine to get points.

Some tunnels are flooded and you will need the enough amount of oxygen from your tank to pass through them. When reaches zero you'll need a spare cylinder. The same to your pit lamp, its battery will also reach zero and it'll fade, so you will urgently need a spare one.

There are a limited amount of these objects to carry. Each one has weight units.

Along with these original features there are also terribles creatures to avoid: bats, ghosts, dragons and even giant spiders. To kill them, you'll need a spade. Beware of the green slime too.

An atmospheric adventure in a very long maze with decent graphics that, as I said before, it was inexplicably unreleased. The author used some routines of this game in the programming of his masterpiece Saboteur.

Fortunately it was recovered in 2007.

A game written by Clive Townsend of Saboteur fame that was never released. According to legend Durell felt the game was not marketable and so they never released it, and I think I see their point as the gameplay is bland and the graphics are pretty bad. But I think things turned out all right for Mr Townsend in the the end as some of the routines in this game were used in Saboteur which simply put is a quintillion times better than this.

Yes, I remember reading in a couple of Spanish web pages about the fate that this little gem ran.
I downloaded it, just to see it, and ended up playing it with interest.

A game whose code was used to make Saboteur cannot be mediocre. Well done Clive Townsend!!

I already knew about this forgotten non released game

Now that I watch it more carefully I can say that I like it more than at first sight. I thought it was of less quality. Incredible that it was not published.
Saboteur has an excellent father