Dragon - Memories

Icom Simulations in the US were well known for their Mac-style icon driven graphic adventure games like The Uninvited, Deja Vu and Deja Vu 2.

Dragon was ICOM Simulations (UK)'s second title signed to Firebird, after Blazing Barrels. Unfortunately, just like Blazing Barrels, Dragon never made it to market either. In fact, it was even less developed as a game than Blazing Barrels and that's saying something!

Dragon was never advertised, and the development version on the ST was extremely simple. Basically, on the left you saw a castle with a drawbridge. The drawbridge was open, and a large dragon sprite could walk along the drawbridge and back. That was about it! The whole thing looked and felt a little bit like 'Black Lamp' which Firebird had only published earlier the same year (1988).

I have no recollection as to what happened to the deal with Icom (UK) Ltd. It might have still be active when BT sold the labels to MicroProse, or the deal might have already been dead.

Icom (UK) barely got off the ground, and a year or so later, Dragon briefly became an Electronic Arts title. It was still being developed by the same people (Jake Glover and Dave Lawson - formerly of doomed Liverpool-based developer and publisher, Imagine), but they had re-branded themselves as a development team called Rapier. Funnily enough, EA ultimately never published the game either.