Genesis Project recently announced on Facebook that they’ve unearthed a new game for the Commodore 64 called ‘Dominion,’ created by Micro Media. Hedning from Genesis Project was the one who discovered this gem! According to Genesis Project, “A shoot ’em up developed by James Doyle and Mark Hughes in 1988, between ‘Master Blaster’ and ‘Black Tiger,’ had previously been shelved, but was rediscovered on an old disk. It has received the Zyron treatment, including a +2 trainer and high score saver, and was playtested by Paladin. Get ready to blast away!”
The complete details in the accompanying text file reveal that this previously unknown game was developed by notable C64 creators behind ‘Master Blaster’ (Zeppelin Games, 1988), ‘Black Tiger’ (U.S. Gold/Capcom, 1990), and ‘Hydra’ (Domark/Tengen, 1992), namely Mark Hughes, James Doyle, Peter Wolfe, and Steven Chandler, with music by Mark Tait. It was found on a random floppy disk, likely from the Netherlands, although the circumstances of how it ended up there remain a mystery.
Though the game’s music was known from a demo released by Mark Tait, there had been no indications of a game utilizing it until now. To dive deeper into this mystery, we reached out to programmer Mark Hughes, who is still active in game development today, and he kindly shared insights regarding this intriguing find:
“To provide some context, the four of us credited were friends from school: James Doyle, Peter Wolfe, Stephen Chandler, and myself. James and I learned programming over the summer of ’87 at just 16 years old, creating demos and sending them to publishers in hopes of landing work. Producer Dave Baxter at Elite Games suggested we could develop a game inspired by an upcoming arcade release, Blasteroids.”
“He wanted to pursue this outside of Elite, so he formed his own company, Micro Media. He brought in artists and musicians, and we completed ‘Master Blaster’ in early ’88. Meanwhile, we began working on Dominion, enlisting Peter and Stephen for graphics.
“Eventually, ‘Master Blaster’ was sold to Zeppelin Games, and we hoped Dave could handle the sale of Dominion too. After sending him a copy, he arranged for Mark Tait to create the music. However, after its completion, no publisher showed interest. By that time, Dave had moved on to US Gold and thought our team might be a good fit for converting Capcom’s arcade classic, ‘Black Tiger,’ leading us to forget about Dominion.”
GAME CREDITS
- Programming: Mark Hughes & James Doyle
- Graphics: Stephen Chandler & Peter Wolfe
- Music: Mark Tait
- Co-ordination: David Baxter
CRACK CREDITS
- Original supply and text by Hedning
- Linking, trainer, and high score saver by Zyron
- Tested by Paladin
That wraps up this exciting release! Check it out at link 1 or on link 2!
Original article by www.indieretronews.com
