Help naming a game

[Brad]

Hi,

So towards the mid 80s I think, if found a bunch of new games on a market stall in Maldon, Essex in the UK. All of them were published by either Thorn EMI or a similar style company I.e. a well known (to the uk at least) electrical brand. The game I’m interested in had some sort of Egyptian theme and the graphical fidelity was excellent compared to most vic games. Very smooth movement as I recall.

It has been suggested that I’m talking about Pharao’s Curse and that might be correct but the publisher doesn’t tie up. Can anyone help!?

[srowe]

Was it a cartridge or tape?

[Brad]

Tape

[srowe]

Nothing that matches in the Thorn EMI catalogue from 1983

http://pdf.textfiles.com/jscott/1983-th ... atalog.pdf

I've had a scan through all my VicSoft catalogues, can't see anything there either.

[Brad]

Yeah all online searches say I’m making this up. But I’m not. This must be a missing game. It’ll show up eventually somewhere. Was hoping someone here would know what I’m talking about!

[prowlr]

Would it be King Tut by Mastertronic?
https://www.retrogames.co.uk/013137/Com ... stertronic

or

Pharaoh's tomb by Anirog?

https://picclick.co.uk/Commodore-Vic-20 ... 42427.html

[Brad]

Neither of those I'm afraid. As I say, Pharaoh's Curse is the most likely but the publisher is absolutely key. Of all the Vic-20 publishers I can find on the various "every vic game ever made" lists Thorn EMI is the most likely, to the point that I really think it was them that published it, but crucially the game does not appear in any Thorn EMI lists on the internet. I've got the Vic up and running with a pi1541 drive now so i'll download 'Curse and see if that's the one.

[Mayhem]

Howdy Brad, over from BD sorry, not been able to further identify things my end either...

[Brad]

No worries chief! I now am suspecting my own recollection. The hunt will continue though!

[Brad]

Awise fwom your gwave etc.

I now believe it was Pharoah's curse. Can't get it to run though. have grabbed the .d64 and it seems to load in 2 parts. The first part has some basic that you run that then does some more loading of a00 and then 600 and then leaves the cursor on a sys call but that just jumps back to the ready prompt. Any hints?

EDIT: An explanation over the confusion. I believe bought Pharoah's Curse and Computer War, on tape from a market stall at the same time. Computer War is indeed by Thorn EMI hence the name branded into my skull. Fast fwd 30+ years and i understood Pharoah's Curse to be a cartridge game so eliminated it from my enquiries. I now know it was a tape game in the UK so it all kinda makes sense; the inner documentation also mentions Thorn EMI for some reason. Anyway, i'm fairly certain this was indeed the game in question. now I need to get it working! My real Vic is in the loft so I'm trying to get it working on a MiSTER at the moment.

[srowe]

There's a .tap file in Gamebase20, no idea if you can use that with MiSTER but it runs fine in VICE.

[Rich]

Aztec Challenge

[Brad]

There's a .tap file in Gamebase20, no idea if you can use that with MiSTER but it runs fine in VICE.

Screenshot_20220810_201243.png

That did the trick! Thanks and yes, I believe this is the correct game.