Jettisoned out of the airlock

Tony reveals what happened to the unreleased Spectrum version of Jetman

Most developers have some unpublished titles in their portfolio and Tony is no exception. His canned titles include Music Manager, an audio utility for the Spectrum 128, and Body Slam, a conversion of the Sega wrestling coin-op for the Amstrad CPC. Later on, in 1991, he was involved in one of the most lamented ‘lost’ games of the era – the Spectrum version of Solar Jetman.

Jetman was an early mascot on the ZX Spectrum, appearing in the awesome twosome of Jetpac and Lunar Jetman. By the time this third game was considered in 1990, Ultimate had become Rare and so the target platform for Solar Jetman was the NES. However Software Creations was tasked with porting the console version to home computers. “I was working freelance,” says Tony, “and because of my contacts with Software Creations I was asked if I wanted to develop the Spectrum version.”

Tony took up the offer and the development progressed well for a few months, with the game destined for the 128K Spectrum. It received a positive preview in Crash magazine and the release date was given as April 1991. “I remember that it was looking good,” reveals Tony. “I had all the mechanics up and running, and the opening level looked great. I just needed to add the other levels, when suddenly the plug was pulled.” All versions were jettisoned into space for no clear reason – although it is speculated that less-than-stellar sales of the

NES game prompted the decision. “It was a shock when it was cancelled and I was never told why. Programmers are rarely told why such decisions are made. It was all amicable – I didn’t lose out as I was paid for the work that I’d done, and I did lots more work for Software Creations after that.”

The C64 version has since been recovered, but Tony reveals that nothing of the Spectrum version remains. The disappointment is compounded as John Buckley, the man behind the C64 game, remembers playing a demo of Tony’s Spectrum version and says it would have been “a classic”.