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An interesting entry which is possibly slightly controversial too.
It was claimed that Last Ninja was originally a game by an Hungarian team, which was to have System 3 as the publisher. The story is that the team had sent System 3 an almost complete version for testing, and System 3 finished it off and published it. It is believed that the Hungarian team was part of Andromedia Software.
It was rumoured that the Hungarian guys never got a penny for their work and couldn't start any legal procedure against System 3 due to still being behind the Iron Curtain at that time.
Either way, there could well be another version of Last Ninja out there with vastly different graphics and slightly different areas of gameplay. We would love to find this early version and hope to find the developers to see if they still have an original copy of the game they sent to System 3.
Here is a large screenshot of the game with rather different looking background elements and a score panel which is vastly different. More soon of these we hope!
The story develops as
Kai Spitzley, webmaster of the excellent Last Ninja archives, sheds light and shares findings, including the following from Hugh Riley (Graphics artist for LN1 and 2)...
"When I came onto Ninja 1 it was being programmed for System 3 by a subsidiary of Andromeda in Hungary (Caesar the Cat? now there's going back!).
Bob Stevenson had done some mock up screens for the adverts then left. I spent 3 weekends in Budapest (still behind the iron curtain) where it became apparent that their programmers were having difficulties.
They were programming in forth (used for washing machines) so back in London John Twiddy was brought in to rewrite the code and we worked together in Mark Cale's (Mr System 3) front room and various other places. By the time we finished Twiddy reckoned there was only one byte left in the machine which explains the crappy ending."
Further to this, another Hungarian told the story of how he spoke to a mathematician who claimed to be part of the original LN development crew. The mathematician backed up his claims by demonstrating the Level editor system used to place trees and other objects into the game.
The guy went on to say...
"I couldn't believe my eyes! He told me, that for example Shogun on the last level moves so "dizzy", because they couldn't finish it. They sent the programm out for testing (or checking to Germany or England I'm not quiet sure), and they stole the whole programm, after they finished quickly and released before the Hungarian group finished the same.
If it's true, than what a scandal! He told me, that originally you didn't have to throw a gas bomb under the dragon's nose - the only thing you had to to is to avoid its flames (and that's right I downloaed the LN prewiev). He told me moreover, that originally you could kill the spider in the dungeons by jumping onto his "back". That remained just a plan. He also told me the date of the programming works. Unfortunately I forgot it, but, I think from August 1986 to March or April 1987."
Please note that this GTW entry is based on claims and speculation, but is not based on hard facts. No claims are being made at all, and we just hope to find something of an earlier version for preservation reasons.
GTW got in touch with one of the original developers of Last Ninja, István Bodnari, who confirmed the level editor, but didn't know its existance now. Nothing was mentioned about the game being stolen, so we believe that nothing bad happened. It seems the programmers in Hungary were students trying to earn some extra money whilst studying - they hit troubles, and the game was brought back to the UK to be finished in-house.
Recently Retro Gamer magazine printed an article on Last Ninja, and mentioned the Hungarian developers and the Integrator tool. But what of the early version before John Twiddy finished things off?
Do you know anything about this potential GTW?...
Frank.
(Additional source credits - Levi Buttas (WoLaNd/T38), Kai Spitzley) |
