'INFECTION'
1989 Virgin Mastertronic


Another puzzle game, but a rather intriguing one... "Infection" was a game to be 
released by Virgin Mastertronic back in 1989, but the game never got a release 
although it was completed on Amiga, Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, PC, C64 and Atari ST.

It is thanks to pressibus.org and the hard work of Alain Beyrand with his 
excellent article (http://www.pressibus.org/ataxx/gen/gborigines.html) that we 
can tell the story of what happened...

The game was originally started by Wise Owl Software in 1988 by Craig Galley and 
David Crummack who came up with the concept which was a twist on Reversi. 
Everything got quite far, although the AI was a bit limited to start with. 
"Infection" was initially being produced for the Amiga, ST and C64 only. The 
game was primarly programmed on the Amiga according to Craig, and regularly 
ported to the ST and C64 platforms. However things were to change...

The following year in 1989, Virgin Mastertronic absorbed Wise Owl Software and 
oversaw the development of Infection. The project gained a project manager in 
the form of Andrew Wright. Andrew arranged firstly to get some improved AI 
produced by internal developers, which Craig and David then added in. 
Additionally Andrew contracted David Whittaker to produce the music for all the 
conversions. Another 3 additional platforms were also added to the conversion 
list in the shape of the PC, Spectrum and Amstrad (But not to be handled by 
Craig or David and branched out to other developers).

Although Virgin liked the game and were excited by their budget game prospect, 
they felt that "Infection" was a bad choice of name and the idea of an infection 
themed game in a world which was dominated by the news of AIDS at the time 
seemed a bad idea. However, the game itself was solid and Virgin saw an 
opportunity...

In 1990 Virgin struck a deal with 7Up and recycled the Infection game into a new 
title called "Spot". Additionally the game was also licenced to Leland 
Corporation, whom took the game and brought out an arcade version called 
"Ataxx", which was very faithful to the Amiga original. Rights these days to the 
game are a bit confused as a result. Sadly it meant that the original 
"Infection" title was laid to rest.

As years went on the Amiga, Spectrum and CPC versions surfaced onto the 
internet. The Z80 versions only surfaced thanks to their programmer Mark Incley. 
However, the C64 version was nowhere to be seen.

We got in touch with David Crummack who sadly didn't have anything of the C64 
conversion, but told us where we could find Craig. After a bit of hunting 
around, we managed to find Craig and we were stunned to learn that he had backed 
up all his disks some years back. He had helped preserve the Amiga version, but 
also found the C64 source code too. However, he didn't know at the time how to 
get it compiled and left it. After GTW got in touch, we arranged to fix it up, 
but Craig surprised us by getting nostalgic and having a play again with the 
source. He managed to compile it again, and so here it is in its full complete 
glory!

"Infection" on the C64 is a great game, and certainly a lot more polished than 
"Spot". It features some great presentation, a 4 player mode, level editor and a 
previously unheard tune by David Whittaker! (A huge bonus for HVSC!) ... 
Certainly this would have done well had it been released.

It's a shame it never quite made it in its original form, but at least it has 
now been fully preserved and people can enjoy it at last... only 20 years late I 
guess! :)

This is certainly another great finding for 2009!... Enjoy!

Case closed...

Frank.
(Additional source credits - Jason Kelk, Alain Beyrand, Dave Crummack, Craig 
Galley, Mark Incley)
