Wednesday 29 July 2015

Update: Lone Wolf and The Ice Halls of Terror (All platforms, 1985)



During the 2013 I was questioning if Lone Wolf and The Ice Halls of Terror was ever released. Yesterday, Joe Dever confirmed me that the game never happened.
The Ice Halls of Terror did not get published. This was due to the fact that the developer went bankrupt one month before it's scheduled release! There are no copies of it in existence.
 Case closed then, another Crux Desperationis removed from my list.

P.S. If you are a fan of the series, the new adventure game has been released recently.


Wednesday 22 July 2015

The Quest for the First C64 CRPG.

As some of you already read on my Facebook page, I decided to keep my researches going on this blog.
The two main reasons why this space has been particularly quiet are basically two:
  • Failed attempt to date all the C64 CRPGs due the huge number of imprecise references on the main databases
  • Major pressure from real life and other activities.
Since I believe I can tackle the second problem; I decided to approach the first problem differently, focusing on smaller tasks, in order to sort out the main big problem: wrong dating of the majority of software published during the 80s, which - for me- it's a major issue from an historical point of view. If you can't put a resource in its actual historical context, you can't construct a model of the past. 

Unfortunately I can't use radiocarbon dating, so everything is going to be approached with an analytical study of the available medium and resources, trying the keep the approximation of the date as close as possible to its actual one. Also, any suggestion or help from readers is more than welcome. 

Said so,  the first Quest I'm approaching is something I have been thinking about for long time: what's the first CRPG officially produced and released for the Commodore 64? 

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My unfortunate first attempt to find the Holy Grail of the C64 CRPGs started here two years ago or so.