| Posted By
Trypticon
on 2012-04-17
06:18:17
|  Release dates of the Mysterious Adventures (Brian Howarth)
Hi,
I've noticed these adventures (beginning with "Golden Baton) are listed as being released in 1984 for the C16.
In the May 1986 issue of C+VG (British mag), there was however an article about Adventure International UK/Adventuresoft because the company ceased trading unter the AI brand.
In this article, there is a paragraph which states:
"All the existing Mysterious Adventures, including new Commodore 16 versions, plus Seas of Blood, and the original Scott Adams series, may be obtained by mail order from Adventure Soft UK Ltd.,".
This is consistent with the Paxman Promotions label. The Mysterious Adventures were for the most part sold by Channel 8, with some exceptions (e.g. Spectrum), which were sold through Bran Howarth's own company Digital Fantasia.Both companies folded, then AI UK, and then Adventuresoft/Paxman took over.
Paxman was involved with later re-releases.
See e.g.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Paxman+Promotions$&loadpics=1
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2012-04-17
11:33:33
| Re: Release dates of the Mysterious Adventures (Brian Howarth)
Hey there,
Welcome to Plus/4 World! This is good info, though I'm a bit confused even after reading your post multiple times. Do you mean to say that the release dates should be 1986, not 1984? (You don't seem to say this explicitly, and none of your quotes or links seem to confirm it.)
I went through what we have here on the site, and none of the covers or the games have dates on them, so I'm not sure where the 1984 comes from. (Well, Circus has a Channel 8 cover, which does have 1983 on it  ) The H&D handbook Issue 1 (which is from February 1986) has solutions for a bunch of the games, so that would imply that they existed before 1986 (unless they all came out in January).
From Circus, it also seems that Channel 8 had all the games. Should mark them as being released by Channel 8, and re-released by Paxman? (Plus add a note that we're looking for the Channel 8 covers.) Do you have any of the covers? Should we add Arrow of part 2 as a missing title? I'd be happy to change this stuff, just let us know what the correct entries are.
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Posted By
Trypticon
on 2012-04-18
12:06:56
| Re: Release dates of the Mysterious Adventures (Brian Howarth)
Ah haha, you got that right. I basically just meant to say that
the release date should be 1986 - I briefly had the thought to write it explictely,
but was busy trying to shorten the text wall that I initiallly put there  .
I thought it was a slam dunk but your post complicates things. Let's see..
Cover of Circus:
Channel 8 packaging, but Adventure International
(AI) sticker as well as a simple C16 sticker.
Over at Atarimania, someone commented on one of the Mysterious
Adventures entries, saying that AI re-used packaging.
And according to Dragon User July 1985, Channel 8's product range was taken over by Adventure International. So, not necessarily a "real" Channel 8 release. I haven't seen any evidence yet that the games were already converted under Channel 8, such as other covers.
H/D handbook:
Since it's a C16/Plus4 mag, it clearly implies the adventures were
available before 1986 or very early in that year. Perhaps the solutions/hints are based on other platforms.
Circus is mentioned at the end as a game by Channel 8. Perhaps they were confused as well. (Also: Beach Head as game "worth it's money"..what?)
In the H/D handbook Issue 2, there is also the news about AI not longer existing,
which is sort of true. The games were still sold through Adventuresoft/Paxman though.
So basically, I think the conversions came out later than 1984, and were definitely sold in 1986 through Adventuresoft/Paxman, but what was before is still not entirely clear to me.
Normallly, I'd check other systems-specific publications with lots of gaming-related adverts, but I'm at loss on where to start with the C264 platform. Any recommendations?
About Arrow of Death 2,
this might be notable:
http://mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=header-ai
There are two pricelists by Adventuresoft there, Arrow of Death pt2. is listed as not available on both.
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