Lost Lynx Games

[zapiy]

Some of them must be still about on some floppy disk somewhere. The hunt continues lol.

[onthinice]

Any chance of knowing some of the lost titles?

Like this old magazine ad some games seemed to change names. Monster Demolition looks a lot like Rampage.

[TrekMD]

Any chance of knowing some of the lost titles?

Like this old magazine ad some games seemed to change names. Monster Demolition looks a lot like Rampage.

Yes, some games did change names.  Monster Demolition became Rampage and Time Quests and Treasure Chests became Gauntlet III.

[TL]

I'm still holding out hope that Vindicators gets rescued from purgatory some day.

Some French bloke on youtube has a cart containing 3 non-playable demos and a 'playable' demo, but all you can do in that is move tank, shoot non-animated enemies and only lasts for 60 secs, so doubt coding got very far.I don't speak a word of French mind, so no idea what he was saying...

This video I assume you mean:

Vindicators on Atari Lynx

[TrekMD]

That looks very nice on the Lynx!  Makes you wish someone would finish the game and release it!

[TL]

From my Lost Lynx Games Guide in Atari User:

A conversion of one of Atari's very own arcade games the reason for this one never seeing a release is both bizarre and interesting. The story goes that the game was complete but Atari had been with holding payments to the programmer by making him miss landmarks by getting him to change stuff (not the first time I have heard of this) and eventually he got really fed up of it and just quit. But before he left Atari he intentionally destroyed all his own code and left Atari with an unfinished demo. Atari handed the game over to another programmer who, without any source code, was unable to finish it and had to start from scratch. It was on display at shows, featured in catalogues and even had a finished box design too but never saw release. There are in fact 2 completely different demo versions that have been found too but not a complete game.

[TrekMD]

So, I guess that means that someone would really have to program it from scratch. 

[Rogue Trooper]

UK Press often seemed quite 'muted' when talk of Vindicators came up on home micros, Your sinclair for example described both the coin-op and Speccy version as 'boring', so wonder how Lynx version would have fared at hands of UK jurnos.

[Shadowrunner]

From my Lost Lynx Games Guide in Atari User:

A conversion of one of Atari's very own arcade games the reason for this one never seeing a release is both bizarre and interesting. The story goes that the game was complete but Atari had been with holding payments to the programmer by making him miss landmarks by getting him to change stuff (not the first time I have heard of this) and eventually he got really fed up of it and just quit. But before he left Atari he intentionally destroyed all his own code and left Atari with an unfinished demo. Atari handed the game over to another programmer who, without any source code, was unable to finish it and had to start from scratch. It was on display at shows, featured in catalogues and even had a finished box design too but never saw release. There are in fact 2 completely different demo versions that have been found too but not a complete game.

Cool story! Going by other stories I've read of Jack Tramiels business dealings it wouldn't surprise me at all that he resorted to tactics like that.

[TL]

I remember Raze were pretty positive about it in their preview of the game.

[TrapZZ]

Wow that's super interesting, the advert for Vindicators is one of the reasons I bought my Lynx when it first came out. 

Now I have a better idea why my dream of playing Vindicator's on the Lynx was never realized

[Rogue Trooper]

Re:Lynx Skull And Crossbones, know Laird say's it was planned, but was the arcade game that 'big' a deal?.

Only ask as seems to get refered to as a love it or hate it game, the home conversions i saw got mixed reviews (C64 version 81% in Zzap 64, Amiga version 77% in The One-Amiga).Would it i wonder have just been the ST/Amiga game ported to Lynx?.


Talking of ports...


Atari once hinted they were looking at porting ST platformer, 9 Lives (staring Bob The Cat....) to Lynx, wonder what happened to that idea?.

[TL]

Re:Lynx Skull And Crossbones, know Laird say's it was planned, but was the arcade game that 'big' a deal?.

Only ask as seems to get refered to as a love it or hate it game, the home conversions i saw got mixed reviews (C64 version 81% in Zzap 64, Amiga version 77% in The One-Amiga).Would it i wonder have just been the ST/Amiga game ported to Lynx?.

Talking of ports...

Atari once hinted they were looking at porting ST platformer, 9 Lives (staring Bob The Cat....) to Lynx, wonder what happened to that idea?.

No screenshots for Skull & Crossbones were ever shown so not sure if it was even started but it was certainly on lists as you say. The arcade game wasn't a big hit for Atari really but at least it was a nice change to the, at the time popular, Double Dragon model.

9 Lives was announced as being worked on in a few magazines but no idea what ever happened to it.

[TrekMD]

Never heard of 9 Lives before but another platformer would have been a nice addition to the Lynx.  Actually, I think it would have been interesting to have  a dog-related platformer (Scrapyard Dog) and a cat-related platformer on the system! 

[TL]

Never heard of 9 Lives before but another platformer would have been a nice addition to the Lynx.  Actually, I think it would have been interesting to have  a dog-related platformer (Scrapyard Dog) and a cat-related platformer on the system! 

Here is a video of the Atari ST version:

Atari ST 9 lives

The Lynx also has 2 monkey based platformers - Gordo 106 and Toki!