Platforms: ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC (potentially Commodore 64 too)

Springclean is an intriguing unreleased title from PAL Developments that was due to be published by Virgin Mastertronic around 1989. This one was actually completed, with master disks produced for both the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions. The game was developed by Rich Stevenson, who very kindly got in touch with GTW to reveal that the source and master disks still survive within his personal archive.

According to Rich, Springclean was loosely inspired by Ultimate’s classic Cookie, with a character called Mrs. Mopp taking the starring role. Interestingly, the concept doesn’t sound too far removed from Tina Billett’s 1984 ZX Spectrum game Mrs Mopp. Despite development being completed, circumstances surrounding PAL Developments’ publishing agreement meant that Springclean was ultimately left on the shelf.

The game had been produced as part of a multi-game deal between PAL Developments and Virgin Mastertronic and would have been the final title released under the arrangement. However, PAL had already fulfilled the required number of games suggested by the agreement, leaving Springclean surplus to requirements.

There were later plans to potentially rebrand the game for release through the Hi-Tec label, but these also came to nothing and Springclean remained unreleased.

There is also a curious Commodore 64 connection. Ariolasoft had released a C64 version of Mrs. Mop back in 1987 (ironically by an unrelated John Stevenson), yet the same game later appeared on Zzap! 64’s Megatape 28 covermount in 1992, where it was presented as a previously unreleased title associated with PAL Developments/Hi-Tec.

As the game had already been commercially released several years earlier, it’s unclear exactly what was going on. It may suggest that PAL Developments or Hi-Tec had acquired some form of rights to the game or character with plans for another release, but for now we don’t have enough information to say for certain whether this was directly connected to Rich’s Springclean project.

Dave Palmer recalled Mrs Mop in an email back in 2006, and that Rich was involved – but is likely thinking of Springclean. He recalled:

“Haha… A real blast from the past… Mrs Mop… it was called this for a bit of fun on my part, it was my nick name for my mother from when I was a kid… Honestly cannot remember much about it but I think it was a game written by Richard Stevenson for me? Will apply the grey matter to it.”

Back to the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions, this is one lost game where we know the material hasn’t disappeared over the intervening years. Rich still has the original source and master disks for both versions, along with other material from his development career. He has also kindly supplied us with several photographs showing the loading screen and a glimpse of the game art, which you can see below.

For now, there are no plans to release the surviving builds, as Rich is currently documenting his development career and hopes to include a number of his missing games as additional material for the project. Hopefully we’ll get to learn much more about Springclean and his other unreleased titles in the future.

It’s nevertheless great to finally document the game within the archive and, most importantly, know that both completed versions still safely survive after all these years.

With a huge thank you to Rich Stevenson for getting in touch, sharing the story behind Springclean and providing the photographs for inclusion within the archive.

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Allan has recently uploaded Word Games from MECC (Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation), bringing the number of titles he has preserved from the company so far to four. He is also hoping to add Friendly Computer soon, with a copy currently on its way from the UK.

Other finds include Ducks, which appears to be missing from GameBase64, and Glass Computer, which also had a Commodore 128 version.

Allan has additionally been documenting software from IVL Technologies, including Hear, Hear, which requires the company’s Pitchrider cartridge to run. The cartridge was designed for educational and MIDI-related use.

You can explore Allan’s preservation work and download the available material via the two Internet Archive searches below.

MECC preservation releases:
https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Minnesota+Educational+Computing+Corporation%22+commodore

IVL Technologies preservation releases:
https://archive.org/search?query=ivl+technologies+commodore

With a huge thank you to Allan Pinkerton for continuing to preserve and share these often-overlooked pieces of Commodore software history.

Platform: Amstrad CPC

A short entry for an early Tennis game that was in development at Clockwize for the Amstrad CPC, and preserved thanks to Dean Hickingbottom. Unfortunately, it didn’t get very far at all – but we have a very early glimpse for you to take a look at.

The prototype just has a simple scrolling tennis court, with two players either end – the first of which can be moved around, but you cannot really hit the ball or anything, but you can make it move by pressing fire and moving the joystick. If you get the movement just right, it will scroll the pitch up and down.

It was simply just at a test stage by its creator David Bradley, who did the graphics and the code. Lurking on one of the disks was also a credits image which gives the game the name “Pro Tennis”. Of course, Codemasters released a Pro Tennis game on the Amstrad CPC – so could this have been a pitch from Clockwize to do the game?

Hopefully we will learn more in time – but this sadly seems to be all that exists of the game. If anything more does surface, then we’ll be sure to add to the page.

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Platform: Sony PlayStation

Tricks ‘N’ Treasures was a colourful third-person action/platform game in development at Hammerhead for Psygnosis around 1999-2000. The name seems to have changed slightly depending on where it appeared, with magazine coverage referring to it as TnT: Tricks and Treasures, TNT: Tricks and Treasure, Trick n Treasure and Tricks ‘N’ Treasures.

Very little seems to have survived publicly from the game, although it received a reasonable amount of magazine coverage before disappearing. We’ve included a selection of those previews within the gallery below, which between them give us a rough idea of what Hammerhead was creating.

The game was set on the small planet of Dorc, whose inhabitants were searching for a new ruler. Players would compete to collect the scattered pieces of an ancient crown and prove themselves worthy of the throne, while rival heirs attempted to do exactly the same thing.

A major part of the gameplay seems to have involved sabotaging those rivals using various weapons, spells and traps. Magazine previews mention around 15 different surprises to deploy against opponents, with one comparison describing the idea as being reminiscent of Spy vs Spy. Another preview compared the game’s atmosphere and exploration to Tomb Raider (which we can certainly see from the video), with players navigating catacombs filled with traps, collapsing floors and poisoned blades.

Details varied slightly as development progressed, but coverage described around 18 levels spread across six areas, with either six or eight playable characters mentioned depending on the source. A four-player simultaneous mode was also planned, allowing players to compete against each other in split-screen action.

Originally expected during 1999, the game later slipped into 2000, with one preview listing a May 2000 release and describing development as around 40% complete. Ultimately, Tricks ‘N’ Treasures disappeared without release.

Reports suggest that development came to an end after key members of the team left Hammerhead and returned to Traveller’s Tales, although we’re currently looking for further confirmation of exactly what happened and how far the game had progressed.

For many years, screenshots and magazine coverage seemed to be about as much as there was to see of the game. That changed in 2026 thanks to Tazon Husky, who had been going through a Psygnosis 1999/2000 product catalogue and accompanying press kit disc. To his surprise, the disc contained rare footage of Tricks ‘N’ Treasures actually running.

The short sequence provides an amazing glimpse of the game in action and shows a very cool looking title taking shape, giving us a much better idea of how the project was shaping up than the surviving screenshots alone.

We’ve included Tazon’s footage below with his kind permission. The big question now is whether the playable build used to capture it might still survive somewhere. Given that the footage existed on a Psygnosis press disc, hopefully there is still a prototype sitting within an old development or press archive waiting to be found.

If you worked on Tricks ‘N’ Treasures, know more about its cancellation or happen to have any surviving builds or development material, please do get in touch.

With a huge thank you to Tazon Husky for highlighting the game to us and for discovering and sharing the rare footage from the Psygnosis press kit. Also to Video Game History Foundation for one of the scans and Archive.org for the rest.

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Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Advance

Quake Advance is an impressive proof-of-concept created by veteran programmer Randy Linden, exploring the possibility of bringing id Software’s classic Quake to the humble Game Boy Advance. Randy was certainly no stranger to squeezing first-person shooters onto unlikely hardware, having previously been responsible for the remarkable Super Nintendo conversion of Doom.

For the Game Boy Advance, he went a step further and created his own engine capable of rendering fully 3D environments and enemies rather than relying on the ray-casting techniques commonly used by other first-person games on the handheld.

The results are extremely impressive for the hardware, with 3D enemies and animation, lighting effects, smooth movement and the ability to travel underwater. Even the pre-rendered weapon graphics react to changing lighting conditions through some clever palette manipulation.

Despite being commonly referred to as Quake Advance, the demonstration doesn’t actually contain any direct assets from Quake. Randy hadn’t yet approached id Software about using their material, although another version using actual Quake assets reportedly existed and had yet to be found when the surviving prototype was released.

By the time the engine had reached a working state, interest in the Game Boy Advance was beginning to decline as newer hardware approached. Rather than let all of the work go to waste, Randy would eventually repurpose his technology towards his own game called Cyboid.

For many years, the original Game Boy Advance experiment remained unseen. That changed in 2022, when the prototype was discovered on a 256M flash cartridge within Randy’s own storage. The build was subsequently preserved and publicly released on the 9th June 2022.

The surviving build contains three maps along with a number of development features. Music is provided through public S3M tracker files, with the demonstration featuring “Aryx” by Karsten Koch and “Cream of the Earth” by Romeo Knight. The sound mixer was capable of playing stereo tracker music alongside the game’s sound effects. A great deal more technical and preservation information can be found within the Internet Archive entry.

What survives is therefore not a official cancelled conversion of Quake and more a demonstration of just how far Randy could push Nintendo’s handheld hardware, with the possibility that the technology could have been taken further had circumstances allowed.

With thanks to Randy Linden for preserving and sharing his work, Ken Knight for highlighting the prototype to us, and to everyone involved in its preservation and documentation.

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A huge bonus was Eugene Jarvis, of Defender, Robotron and Smash TV fame amongst many others, coming over to celebrate with Paul. Eugene’s games of course feature heavily in the book, and he also contributed the afterword, so it was amazing to be able to hang out together as a group. I was pretty nervous, and it was slightly surreal having a curry with Eugene and the others, then all jumping in an Uber to Arcade Club afterwards. Eugene was extremely friendly, down to earth and very funny too. A great case of meeting one of your heroes, although I failed badly to impress him while playing his F-14 Tomcat pinball game! :D It was also nice to finally thank Eugene in person for his help with some of my own past research and writing.

Paul hosted two great panels with Eugene (sadly I missed the second as I had to start the long journey home), and it was lovely to see the queues afterwards for the book and merch signing. Paul looked really happy and was rightfully buzzing :) We were all chuffed to bits and incredibly proud of him. Paul is one of the kindest and most generous people you could ever know, and fans of Retro Gamer will know the incredible interviews and articles he’s been producing since the very beginning. All the copies of the book completely sold out at the event, and it’s already getting some wonderful reviews online and in the press. Thoroughly deserved!

It was also great catching up with so many friends, old and new, and finally meeting people who I’ve spoken to online over the years but never met in person. That’s always one of my favourite parts of these events.

Then of course there were the arcades, which I don’t get to play nearly often enough. Loved getting back onto Robotron, Gyruss, After Burner and Out Run amongst many others. I also had great fun with the obscure Prop Cycle, which John had taken a shine to, trying to beat the story mode with John and Paul on the final day before I had to head off. The only thing I was slightly gutted about was once again failing to get battered haggis/black pudding from the chippie over the road, which I keep meaning to try every time I go to Blackpool. Next time! :-)

PS. Borrowed some pictures from Paul, Dan Wood (The Retro Hour) as well as posting a few from myself.

For more details on Paul’s fantastic book, please check out:
https://www.bitmapbooks.com/products/the-arcade-1971-1999-the-stories-behind-classic-coin-ops-told-by-their-creators

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3 new entries added

Cadaver, Megahirn, Protector

11 lost/missing titles located

Following on from the 15 Grolier / Mindflight titles last month and thanks to Nicol Walder, 11 more previous lost/missing titles for a few of our pages, and also a few missing from Gamebase have been added to the site.

11 lost/missing C64 titles

Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo prototype added

Just the other day we also added a Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo pre-release build.

Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo Prototype

12 updates added

Defensive, Escape From Colditz, Heroquest Expansion Pack 2, Mindbend, Murder!, Picnic Paranoia, Raid on Romaro , Stack Light Rifle games, Star Force Seven, Transforming Overland Robot, Tronix 2, Vengeance Of Zeno

Among the games located are the missing Orbyte Software titles French, Italian and Spanish, along with Rats & Cats and an incomplete copy of Escape from Alcatraz from our Stack Light Rifle Games searches. Nicol has also located Inferential Anne 1 and Inferential Anne 3, neither of which currently seems to be present within GameBase64 or on our Micrograms page, as well as Mind Prober and Poker Party from our Dynacomp catalogue searches.

Finally, Nicol has found a copy of Battaglia Navale, although it doesn’t seem to be the same missing game referenced within our Zzap! Italia entry and is a hack of Elite’s Battleships. Included anyway for posterity.

We’ll be updating the relevant GTW pages with the findings where appropriate.

Watris

One title that doesn’t currently seem to appear within the usual C64 archives is Watris, a simple Tetris-style game written in BASIC by Thobias Rohde.

The game initially produces a SYNTAX ERROR IN 180, but pressing Return and running it again with RUN: gets things going. It’s a very simple production, but worth preserving and documenting nonetheless.

With a huge thank you to Nicol Walder for digging out and finding the games from various disk collections.

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• September2026-C64-findings

John Hardie very kindly got in touch with GTW after going through an old floppy disk that he had obtained from Atari many years ago. To his surprise, the disk contained the original FlexiCAD vector drawings for the proposed Jaguar/CD combination unit.

Atari’s redesigned system was intended to combine the standard Jaguar hardware and Jaguar CD into a single unit, rather than requiring the familiar CD add-on which sits on top of the original console. The combination model never made it to market, although photographs of prototype hardware have surfaced over the years and the system was reportedly shown behind closed doors at E3.

John has now uncovered the original vector drawings showing the design from a number of different angles. As the files require suitable CAD software to view, John loaded them into an AutoCAD viewer and produced the images that you can see below.

It’s a fantastic little piece of Atari hardware development history to unexpectedly surface from an old floppy after all these years, and we’re very pleased to help document it within the GTW archive. A week later, John also released some diagrams on AtariAge showing the Panther controller, so we’ve quickly added this too.

With a huge thank you to John Hardie for getting in touch, preserving the original files and allowing us to share the images here and the DXF files for download. Also to Ross Sillifant for heads up about Panther Controller file share from John.

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This seems to be a test build of one of the levels which may have been sent to the publisher to show progress back in the day, or to a magazine for preview screenshots. There is currently no sound implemented, no cut scenes and there could be minor differences compared to the final release (especially last minute bugs). If you spot anything majorly different, please let us know and we’ll update the page.

It’s a nice early glimpse at the game taking shape of a game which I had a lot of fun with back in the day, and not too far from completion it seems with most of the core engine in place. You can read more about the completed game here.

With thanks to Ashley Routledge and Dave Saunders for allowing access to their archives.

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