[projectaon] Re: Spectrum Games
- From: Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:10:36 +0100
David Davis wrote:
OK, I actually did some work for once ;-)
here's a little research into the ads that appeared at the back of the
books for these games
(it is worth noting the games were for the *48K* Speccy - they were too
big for the 16K model ;-)
Here are the books I have which contain ads:
[snip]
Do you have a working scanner yet, David? It would be nice to get scans of all
these adverts to add to the LW_Software file.
So as you can see, the tie-in games for Flight From the Dark and Fire on
the Water appear to have been part of Hutchinson's publishing/marketing
plan since day one: advance orders are being taken for them from the
very beginning
(I don't know if anyone here has access to the first printing of the 1st
Sparrow edition of Flight From the Dark? I'm presuming that contains the
ad too - indeed, IIRC, Books 1 & 2 were published simultaneously?)
I can't recall what month in 1984 that FFLD and FOTW came out (May?) ...
it seems the computer games lagged behind them by about 6 months, but
were on the shelves by the time Caverns of Kalte came out later in the
year.
I appear to have 1st Editions of FFtD, FotW, and the Lone Wolf Adventures
(hardback edition of Books 1+2), and they all have adverts for these games in
them. I'll get around to scanning them in tomorrow, hopefully.
All the adverts state "allow 14 days for delivery" at the bottom, and
there was considerably more than 14 days between the publication of
"Shadow on the Sand" and "Kingdoms of Terror" and "Grey Star the Wizard",
so it appears there was some false advertising going on here! I presume
anyone who ordered one eventually got a refund!
I'd certainly hope so!
Indeed, it would almost make me suspect that the game must surely have
existed, otherwise how would they have gotten away with it? ...
however the fact that this game is absent from the advert in "The
Forbidden City" tallys with our information from the title-screen
designer that it in fact never got published.
Actually, this used to be (still is?) quite prevalent in the computer games
industry. Lots of games were advertised before they were finished, and if demand
was low, it seems the plug was pulled on development. For more examples of this,
see the "Gone But Not Forgotten" article from cu Amiga magazine in the
LW_Software file.
So.....
That's all really Too Much Information to go onto our web page, but we
should probably include a few of the salient points?
If we can add all these adverts to the LW_Software file, that's probably enough.
--
Simon Osborne
Project Aon
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