Silverbird - Lost Titles

The following are titles that were in development or lined up for the budget range but were never finished or published. As with the published titles list, what follows might not be comprehensive. The old grey cells aren't what they used to be! ;-)

All Terrain Gardener (David 'Ubik' Korn)
This C64 title was a mad platform caper where you played a gardener who had to dash around screens, rescuing plants and flowers before they drowned. A swarm of killer bees was going to thwart you (amongst other things), and all you had to protect yourself was a trowel...

Arcade Classics II (David 'Ubik' Korn)
The original budget compilation Arcade Classics sold so well that a follow up was planned, featuring Frogger, Galaxians, Defender and Missile Command. I never saw any evidence to suggest that coding ever got started though, and David Korn has now confirmed that he never got started on this title.

Body Slam (Jonathan French, Wayne Blake, Tim Follin - aka Software Creations)
This was a C64 title, based upon a 1986 Sega coin-op all about female wrestling. The game was copyright Firebird 1988, but it's most likely to have been earmarked for a budget release on the new Silverbird label in the same way that the Atari coin-op conversion of 'Peter Packrat' was (which was also written by Software Creations).

Breakstreet (Activision?)
An alleged Activision release that never appeared. There is a game that goes by the same name, but the only possible link is that the graphic artist had worked on a previous Activision title. It has now been confirmed that this other 'Breakstreet' game (published by Creative Software) has no connection with Activision's title, which remains as lost today as it's always been!

Classic Dogfight (Unknown?)
This looked like it was a Spectrum game. It was all lined up for a Silverbird release, and was even shown inside the sleeve of some of the last few Silverbird releases. From the screenshot it looks a little like Flying Shark.

Cargo (Duck Soft)
Cargo is an arcade game which states an allegiance to Firebird circa mid-1988. However, I don't remember it and can find no evidence to suggest it was ever officially released. By the looks of the game that is available on the web, it would have been a budget title.

Food Feud (John Knox)
I only barely remember the game being mentioned when I was at Telecomsoft. I definitely can't remember the game itself! Rob Hubbard composed the music, and some other ex-colleagues vaguely remember 'big fruit', but that's about it! This would have been a 1988/89 release.

Fungus Warriors (Tony Warriner)
This CPC only arcade title was designed by Tony Warriner and coded by Mark Turner...

Futureball (Activision?)
Allegedly meant to be a proposed followup to Lucasfilm's classic 'Ballblazer' game, this is another Activision title that never appeared either under the Activision label or the Telecomsoft budget range. To date, nobody has remembered anything about this title at all!

Kung Fu Knights (Unknown?)
There is a version of this Spectrum game on the Internet that claims (c) 1989 Firebird. However, the game was ultimately published by a little known budget label called Top Ten Hits later that same year (although curiously, their game claims (c) 1988!). I have no recollection of this game at all, but it's quite likely that it could have been a budget game in development up until MicroProse bought Telecomsoft and sold the Silverbird label to Tudor.

Moto-Cross Mania (Richard Lowenstein)
Another Silverbird release that was shown inside the inlays of the last few Silverbird releases. It was also advertised by Silverbird in the run up to Christmas 1988 as a C64 only release...

Pyramid of Time (Activision?)
Zzap!64 reviewed this intended release for an alleged Activision game, but it never appeared. It's interesting to note that it appears to be a game that Activision never published either! The only information we have is that the game was originally supplied to Firebird on a Commodore floppy disk, and it proved impossible to re-master onto cassette, which scuppered its release on the Firebird budget label.

Protocol (Simon Probert and Jason Kelk)
A shoot 'em up that wasn't officially signed up by Firebird due to creative differences. You can read the story by going to the Games That Weren't C64 website.

Radax (Jeroen Kimmel and Brain)
This game was eventually changed and released by another company a year or so later. It was dropped after the sale of Firebird and Rainbird to MicroProse. The full story can be read on Frank Gasking's Games That Weren't C64 website.

Sponge (Andrew John Remic)
A.J. Remic wrote SPONGE (Silicon-based Prototype Oxygen Numerising Genetic Entity) in 1986, using Incentive Software's GAC (Graphic Adventure Creator)...

Super Powered Urban Device (Darren Watts)
This game has been doing the rounds on the Internet for a while now. It claims to be a Firebird title, circa 1987. It's essentially an (unfinished?) sideways scrolling shoot 'em up where the player's ship is unusually positioned on the right side of the screen and the game scrolls right to left...

Toria Ring (Unknown?)
We have nothing to go on this title except for a mention in the 4th issue of Telecomsoft News. No other details are forthcoming and nobody seems to recall the game at all!

Trick Ramp Crazy (Probe)
A Spectrum skateboarding game, probably influenced by Atari's 720 degrees coin-op and coded by budget stalwarts, Probe Software.

Ultra Draw (Ian Brandon)
Before Tony Rainbird helped create the Rainbird publishing label, he saw a gap in the fledgling software market for budget priced utilities for the 8-bit platforms. As a result of this strategy, he signed a drawing package for the Spectrum called Ultra Draw...

Worron (Richard Paynter)
Teenager Richard Paynter wrote this top-down platform game for the C64 a year or two after winning an Elite-athon competition...