| 10/11/26 |
Thanks
to the generosity of AtariAge user Ianoid
we now have a late
beta for the 2600 game Glib.
For those not familiar with the game, Glib
was Selchow and Righter's attempt to bring
their massively popular board game
Scrabble to the humble Atari 2600.
The results were actually pretty
impressive for a 4K cart, but a minor
programming glitch may have doomed the
game to obscurity. Check out the new
Glib
page to find out more.
|
| 10/7/26 |
Early Atari Prototypes
Thanks
to AtariAge user ETWelty who released
three new prototypes for some early Atari
games. Prototypes from this era
(1977-1981) are quite rare and almost
never turn up. These new prototypes
also have fascinating differences from the
final versions.
First up is a mid level beta for Yars'
Revenge dated 8-12-81.
This prototype features some minor
gameplay differences and a completely
different variation with an invisible
shield. This variation was scrapped
for the Ultimate Yars variation in the
final.
Second we have a mid level beta for Warlords
dated 12-8-80.
Much like the Yars' Revenge prototype,
this prototype has some minor gameplay
differences (the ball physics are a bit
buggy) but also features different
variations from the final in the form of
'Team Variations'. In the Team
Variations two players share a life
counter and must play against another team
that also shares one life counter.
When one member of the team dies, the
other team scores a point.
Finally we have late
beta for Video
Pinball. While there don't
appear to be any noticeable differences on
the surface, the code has some changes to
it that requires more investigation.
It's possible that the ball physics were
still being fine tuned at this point.
|
| 9/28/26 |
Motorodeo
Madness!
Thanks
to the efforts of John Hardie and Ken
Van Mersbergen, we now have two new
Motorodeo prototypes. The first
prototype dated 2/16/90
is a very late beta that is dated only
days before the final version and only
differs by a few bytes. It's
unknown what the difference is, but
most likely a last minute bug was
discovered that had to be squashed
before the game was sent off to be
mastered. The second
prototype is far more
interesting. Dated 8/7/89
(almost 6 months before the final
release), this prototype is a
completely different version than what
was released. In this prototype
players compete in a series of seven
events in order to achieve the highest
score. The events are wide and
varied, but offer differing amounts of
fun. So why was the game
redesigned at the last moment?
You'll have to read the page to find
out!
|
| 8/16/26 |
Another
day, another Ken Van Mersbergen prototype
find. Today we have a rather early
version of Touchdown
Football for the Atari 7800.
While the released version wasn't exactly
a masterpiece, this early
prototype is very bare bones with
only some rudimentary gameplay
implemented. Best of all, the
prototype will crash if you attempt to
select a kick play (not that you actually
could kick or throw in this version
anyway). Be sure to gaze upon this early
prototype and see the beginnings of
where it all went wrong.
|
| 8/14/26 |
Thanks
to the extraordinary talents of Ken Van
Mersbergen we now have what is believed to
be the final version of Tower
Toppler for the Atari 8-Bits.
It was long thought that the prototype
that had been circulating the internet
since the early 2000s was the final
version, but now we know that that version
was actually a late beta. While the
new prototype is mostly the same
gameplaywise, it features a colorful new
title screen and text screens (no more
Mode 8 artifacts!) and some bug
fixes. Be sure to check out this new
prototype here.
Ken has also found a late beta for the 7800
version of Tower Toppler.
While the changes are fairly minor
compared to the final version, it's always
nice to have a new prototype. Check
out the 7800 version here.
|
| 7/29/26 |
Today
we have two new 5200 prototypes from the
'I didn't even know those existed'
department. Programmer Frank Cohen
of Cohen's Tower and Scrolls of Abaddon
fame (and many others) has graciously
donated his source code for his two
attempts at an Atari 5200 game.
While Frank was well known for his Atari
8-Bit efforts, it was unknown that he had
also been working on Atari 5200 titles as
well.
First up is Topsy
Turvee, an early demo for a 'two
dimensional' platform game. Although
it's a very early demo, it shows some
interesting ideas. Frank was
apparently trying to find a publisher for
the game but no one was interested so he
stopped development.
Next up is Mail
Boy. Mail
Boy is an early version of what
eventually became Cohen's
Towers. The 5200 port is in
the middle stages of development and is
very playable but is missing a lot of the
extras that the finished Atari 8-Bit game
had (and most of the fun). Still,
it's an interesting glimpse into what
could have been if Datamost had decided to
get into publishing Atari 5200 games.
Special thanks to John Hardie for
providing the source code an Ken Van
Mersbergen for compiling and getting the
code to run. Also thanks to
programmer Frank Cohen for providing
several bits of information about the
games.
|
| 7/15/26 |
Thanks
to the generosity of legendary programmer
Dan Kitchen AtariProtos has been allowed
to post reviews of two of his early
unreleased games from his time at
Activision. First up is Keystone
Cannonball, a sequel (of sorts) to
the legendary Keystone Kapers which just
happened to be programmed by his brother
Garry. This sequel would have seen
Officer Kelly running across the roof tops
of a train in order to catch the legendary
bandit Harry Hooligan. Unfortunately
the game only got as far as a nice looking
tech demo before being set aside.
Thankfully Dan revisited Keystone
Cannonball this past year and
released it as Casey's
Gold through Audacity Games.
Secondly we have The
Levee Game. This prototype is
a little further along and actually
features some gameplay, although it is
still quite early on in the development
process. The
Levee Game would have once again
featured Officer Kelly, but this time
guarding a crumbling dam rather than
chasing after Harry. Be sure to
check out both games to see what could
have been.
|
| 5/23/26 |
Today
we have something very special. Four
new versions of Crack'ed
for the 2600! These early
development versions were rescued from an
old Atari ST hard drive by archivist Ken
Van Mersbergen and thanks to amazing
talents of Thomas Jentzsch they were fixed
made to work. So go to the Crack'ed
page and check all these new versions
(I slaved over them all day just for
you!).
One thing to note is that these new
versions are meant to be run from an Atari
2600 development kit which could handle up
to 24K. As these prototypes do not
respect the 4K bankswitching limit of the
2600, they will not run on real
hardware. To run them you will
either need an Atari 2600 development kit
(you have one of those right?) or a
modified emulator that is capable of
supporting the 24K mode.
|
| 5/18/26 |
7800 Nintendo Madness!!
Ok
maybe it's not quite 'madness' but it's
still pretty crazy. Today we have
not one, not two, not three, but FIVE
different prototypes for 7800 Nintendo
arcade games. All three games, Donkey
Kong, Donkey
Kong Jr., and Mario
Bros, we done by the same small
company called ITDC and may have been
programmed out of China. These
prototypes are completely playable but are
still very much works in progress with
rough music (VERY rough) and slow choppy
gameplay. Be sure to check them out!
Thanks once again to Ken Van Mersbergen
for finding these prototypes!
|
| 3/11/26 |
It's
not often an Atari 7800 prototype shows
up, but thanks to generosity of SuperGun
we now have a prototype for Jinks
to examine. The prototype appears to
be the final version, but it came with a
WIP manual that shows lots of changes and
missing information. Be sure to
check out the new Jinks
page for more info.
|
| 3/10/26 |
CBS Update!
Today
we have three different prototypes that
were developed by Roklan but released by
CBS. First we have a VERY early prototype
for 2600 GORF.
This prototype is nothing more than a
movement demo, but it shows how the game
began. Next we have a late
beta of Wizard
of Wor for the 2600. The only
difference with this one is that the start
vector is set to a different address (this
change is not visible when playing).
Finally we have a version
of Wizard
of Wor for the Atari 5200 that has a
different title screen which credits
Roklan instead of CBS Electronics like the
final version.
Special thanks to Ken Van
Mersbergen for supplying all these
prototypes
|
