"Com 50 Covert Operations: The Interactive Adventure" - The Story of the Unreleased Game

 By: Andrew Bermudez

(Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Headquarters; February 18, 2024)

    While Agent: Thorgood might be considered to be the true spiritual successor to the Com 50 Trilogy (and a testament to how our stories have evolved and become more complex over time), there was a time when continuing the Com 50 story was considered, but as a point-and-click game! How would this have worked? What would have a Com 50 story set in 2012 looked like? Why did the resulting project, Com 50 Covert Operations: The Interactive Adventure fail? Let's dive in and see what this game was going to be about.

The Game's Origins: A Lost Ruby and an Intermission Mystery

    The game's earliest version, according to the archived outline, was actually not going to be a video game, but rather a DVD board game. This version, dating back to 2009, would see players race around the world in an attempt to stop Mondo Hugo (Lieutenant Hugo Finnegan's original name) from resurrecting Godzilla to finish what Cal Pada started. In a cooperative all-win-or-lose set-up, the DVD game would assign everyone to five missions in order to stop him in time. At the time, it made sense in theory: Mustache Maniacs-opoly had just been released, and the capabilities of what DVDs could do was being pushed further than before. The issue was that not only was a feasible plan of pulling it off not there, Johnny Thunder and the Gift of the Nile was being given the priority due to the runaway success of its predecessor. Therefore, like Com 50-3: Raid on Central Island, the project was pushed back two years.

    When it was finally revisited, a lot had changed: The Lost Ruby: An Interactive Adventure, which was resurrected from a failed bonus feature for Johnny Thunder and the Gift of the Nile's DVD release, was about to debut online and Andrew Bermudez was just months away from getting a crash course in Autodesk Maya, which would result in its own interactive game titled Shady Acres Super Sleuth. In an alignment of the stars, it would be made official in mid-2012 that Com 50 would be returning via a Maya-generated FMV video game titled Com 50 Covert Operations: The Interactive Adventure.

The Game's Story: A French Madame, a World Mission, and the Birth of Hayman Talon

    The video game would retain some of the plot details of the DVD board game but would also change things around to accommodate the shift to a video game. Now, the story would focus on a rookie agent (that's you) who is being trained by Com 50 when they are alerted to a rogue Cal Pada agent named Baz Kama who is running around Europe and is a person of interest to both the CIA and Cal Pada. Going out into the field, the pair catch up to him in the streets of Paris, where they are ambushed by Cal Pada Guards. At this point, the French madame pictured above would have come into play.

    The outline gives little information on who this madame is or whether she's friend or foe, but what does become clear is that the Cal Pada Spy from Com 50-3: Raid on Central Island, now known as Hayman Talon, has survived and is trying to resurrect Cal Pada to its former glory. Traveling first to Brazil, then to Borneo, the pair team up with past Com 50 characters to stop Hayman Talon once and for all.

    While this version slims the story down to three missions, this was done for technological reasons related to the game. However, this would end up being the least of the project's worries.

The Game's Complications: Why the Project Ultimately Failed

    Make no mistake: when Autodesk Maya was first introduced as a tool for the Mustache Maniacs Film Co. arsenal, there were big plans to use the technology extensively. So, while Air Strike and Shady Acres Super Sleuth were the only two CGI projects to be released in 2012, there were several more in development. In addition to this game, there were plans for an animated animal film titled Officer Spot (later brought to life as a THAC entry in 2022), interactive games for Jolly Roger and the Pirate Queen, and more. However, that might have been the problem. Below are the various reasons that all of these projects, including Com 50 Covert Operations: The Interactive Adventure ended up being scrapped.

1. The expectation was that only one person was going to handle all of this work, which was too much to ask for. It was one thing to light an existing model for a class assignment (as shown above), it was another to model, sculpt, texture, light, and render that same scene in the same amount of time. Now try doing that by yourself over ten times, the expected number of locations needed for Covert Operations alone.
2. This was compounded by the fact that Mustache Maniacs Film Co.'s version of Maya was the student version. While it was the full software, the software was only good for three years. After that, the program was designed to stop working, encouraging sales of the professional version. All that this did for us was limit what we would use the software for (the last film of ours to use Maya in any capacity ended up being Johnny Thunder and the Wisdom of the Ancients).
3. One of the features touted for Covert Operations was the implication of a combat system. While this made sense for the story, this game was also going to use the same mechanics as Shady Acres Super Sleuth, making the implementation difficult. The solution that was going to be used, however...
4. Believed to have been lost to history, there were attempts to make another Indiana Jones fan film in 2008 that was cancelled during production for one reason: it was re-hashing what was already done, but now instead of looking endearing, it just looked idiotic. The same issue came up for adding characters to Covert Operations via full motion video, or FMV. Official FMV video games are notorious for featuring hammy or wooden acting, and while Com 50-3: Raid on Central Island had made the Com 50 Trilogy sillier than it was back in 2005, the footage from 2008 made everyone realize that this was going to be really silly, but not in a good way. Instead of characters engaging with one another and being caught in a web of international intrigue and espionage, the game was going to be random Cal Pada Guards throwing themselves in front of a green screen, acting like they've been shot in the most ridiculous way possible in the middle of a CGI Parisian Street. It would have been embarrassing, to say the least.
5. Ultimately, however, audiences were loud and clear about what they wanted: Johnny Thunder and the Wisdom of the Ancients should be the next project, not a cheesy throwback to an infamously bad video game genre. Focusing on that film's 2014 release became the top priority in 2013, cancelling Com 50 Covert Operations: The Interactive Adventure and all forms of CGI animation.

With that said, though, not all was lost for the game.

The Game's Legacy: Where its Story Lives On

    Unbelievably, right around the time that this game was cancelled in 2013, there was another project making a stir behind the scenes that would borrow pieces of its story: B.I.O. Corps. At this time, the announcement of Project U and all of its films was still a year away, but the final line-up was just being finalized, including this film that would act as a spiritual successor to the Com 50 Trilogy. In the original script, the villain was going to lead an organization named Crimson Sun... until the integration of the game's story made the connections to the Com 50 Trilogy more obvious. Now, the villain became Hayman Talon, who is trying to revive Cal Pada with identical guards and all. The world tour plot was dropped, but the integrations were otherwise absolutely seamless. In anticipation of this film, the films Solarum, Rift, New Year's Resolution, Clone, The Pen, and this year's Agent: Thorgood were released as The Clone Saga to allow audiences to connect to the characters ahead of time. B.I.O. Corps is expected to be released in 2029.

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