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Toki review?

MartynCMartynC
edited October 2010 in Games
I'm having a dig around the unreleased Spec/CPC version of Toki to see what turns up. I noted this in Sinclair User, stating that the game had been delayed, which is... "particularly upsetting for those magazines who have already reviewed it, eh lads?"

The game wasn't reviewed in either Crash or YS, so was it one of the multiformat mags? Anyone read a review at the time?
Post edited by MartynC on

Comments

  • jdanddietjdanddiet
    edited October 2010
    must be, but seems odd for them to have a poke at one of the multiformats as it wasn't their natural enemy. Maybe it was c+vg?
  • mjwilsonmjwilson
    edited October 2010
    CRASH did get as far as a preview (http://www.crashonline.org.uk/90/toki.htm). Maybe they got confused.
  • MartynCMartynC
    edited October 2010
    jdanddiet wrote: »
    must be, but seems odd for them to have a poke at one of the multiformats as it wasn't their natural enemy. Maybe it was c+vg?
    I agree, it's unlikely (plus very doubtful it would be C&VG, as both them and SU were EMAP mags).

    I'm thinking that SU made a mistake, but to be boastful about something they weren't certain of seems strange to me. Hmmm.
  • zeropolis79zeropolis79
    edited October 2010
    Amstrad Computer User reviewed incomplete games. While they never reviewed Toki, they reviewed Mega Twins - complete with incomplete screenshots and they even showed a C64 screenshot!
  • zx1zx1
    edited October 2010
    Toki was previewed in YS, it even featured on the cover of the July 1991 editiion (i think) and it also had screenshots that looked at a fairly complete stage. A shame it wasn't released by i think Ocean were losing interest in the 8 bit scene at that point.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • gasmangasman
    edited October 2010
    zx1 wrote: »
    Toki was previewed in YS, it even featured on the cover of the July 1991 editiion (i think) and it also had screenshots that looked at a fairly complete stage.

    ...the operative word being "looked". The article text cheerfully admitted that they were mockups, and that there'd been bugger all work done on the Spectrum version by that point.
  • RickardRickard
    edited October 2010
    It is a bit interesting to watch the screens on the Crash preview.

    The first one looks very good, and has also a white background for the ape. The second one looks worse and the large stone and the flower looks like it was scanned from some other platform and not has been fixed yet.
  • IvanzxIvanzx
    edited October 2010
    Rickard wrote: »
    It is a bit interesting to watch the screens on the Crash preview.

    The first one looks very good, and has also a white background for the ape. The second one looks worse and the large stone and the flower looks like it was scanned from some other platform and not has been fixed yet.

    Those screenshots look really nice. I will always wish that game was released!
    <a href="http://rincondelspectrum.blogspot.de/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://rincondelspectrum.blogspot.de/</a>;
  • RickardRickard
    edited October 2010
    I wonder if it was common for game producers to begin with drawing up some graphics and put together some screens for the magazines even before starting the coding?
  • MartynCMartynC
    edited October 2010
    I've been talking to programmer David Looker about Toki. More information soon I promise!
  • zeropolis79zeropolis79
    edited October 2010
    Strange how the C64 version was released (on cartridge) and the other 8-bits weren't. I've dug out a CPC screenshot and it did look mouth-watering but that was for teh CPC Plus computers (another cartridge only version).
  • takapatakapa
    edited October 2010
    MartynC wrote: »
    I've been talking to programmer David Looker about Toki. More information soon I promise!

    Nice.
  • JuanF. RamirezJuanF. Ramirez
    edited October 2010
    Rickard wrote: »
    I wonder if it was common for game producers to begin with drawing up some graphics and put together some screens for the magazines even before starting the coding?

    I don't know if exactly BEFORE the coding, but some companies used to do this. For example, an advert of Dinamic's 'Abu Simbel Profanation' in Microhobby magazine show screens of this game where we can see two scoreboards: 'tiempo' (time) and 'puntos' (points), no seen in the final release, which includes, however, 'pantallas' (screens) and 'vidas' (lives)
    AbuSimbelProfanation.gif

    EDIT: I forgot to mention that this advert includes two screens that don't exist in the final release...
  • mermanmerman
    edited October 2010
    A good example of this - C&VG and other EMAP games ran screenshots of The Last Ninja in their "exclusive review" (a month before Newsfield mags published theirs) and continued to use those screenshots (for example, in The Complete Guide To The Commodore 64, published three years later). However... those shots included a "food" meter that is not present in the final game. They are obviously from a pre-production or preview version, but not in the finished game.
  • MartynCMartynC
    edited October 2010
    My understanding is that game graphics were typically one of the first things to be completed. The coders would then make these come alive.

    However, screenshots were often required before the code was completed (for magazine previews, advertisements, game packaging), so someone would take the graphics and mock up the screens. This led to some famous 'differences', like the more colourful Nemesis screens that appeared in the mags, and the more detailed OutRun screens that appeared on the back of the game's inlay.

    As stated above, Toki's screens were mocked up especially for the preview. It's very likely that a lot of the detail would have been lost in the finished product, due to memory/speed issues.
  • ewgfewgf
    edited October 2010
    Remember the "Gaping Pit" screen in Jetset Willy? I can't remember if it appeared in a preview or a "review" of JSW, but it was in one (or more) of the magazines at the time. More than a few of us searched the game for that screen, before being forced to accept that it was not in the released game, or if it was it had been altered to "We must perform a quirkafleeg".
  • RickardRickard
    edited October 2010
    ewgf wrote: »
    Remember the "Gaping Pit" screen in Jetset Willy? I can't remember if it appeared in a preview or a "review" of JSW,

    Here it is, in a preview.

    It looks like a quite hard screen to pass actually.. :)
  • mjwilsonmjwilson
    edited October 2010
    Rickard wrote: »
    Here it is, in a preview.

    It looks like a quite hard screen to pass actually.. :)

    It's just Quirkafleeg though isn't it (but without the nasties)?
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