1993 Enigma Variations
Platform: Gameboy Original
Also known as: The Adventures of Dr. Franken: Part 3
Our next entry into the GTW archives is a surprise 3rd title in the Dr. Franken series which was being developed on the Nintendo Gameboy by Enigma Variations. However, when you look at the prototype we have recovered, you wouldn’t think it was the same series.
The 3rd game it seems was to take a very different direction, and had Dr. Franken heading off into space and travelling around to different planets to carry out certain puzzles to then escape to the next planet, and so on. We’re not sure exactly what the story-line was at this stage.
In the prototype that we have managed to recover, you seem to control Franky once more, but within a space suit. At the start, you seem to be situated within the rocket ship itself, and have to get around the rocket by opening locked doors by finding security codes on access panels. One access panel is broken, so you have to find a VDU screen to fix it.
Another area is also inaccessible, so you must find a jet pack to be able to fly into the area. You can also locate a CPU chip, but its uncertain what you need to do with this. If anyone can work it out, please let us know. However, the prototype can crash if you mess around too much with the code entry areas, and there is part of the map where you drop out and make your character out of sync with the map itself.
From what we can deduce so far, it seems you’d need to fix up your ship and then fly the ship in a “lander” style sub game to get onto a planet. The planets would range from “Main planet”, “Cheese”, “City planet”, “Satellite” and “Ringed planet” – and we assume there would be more puzzles to complete and objects to collect before you make your escape once more onto the next planet.
With the prototype – data might be present for the other levels, but they seem to be locked off and only the rocket ship level seems to be present. However, we think more work was done on the prototype before cancellation, so we hope to have more to show you in the future – but it may only be small bits and pieces.
The game itself was built over the top of the Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt codebase, or at least re-using elements from it and was developed by the same developer – Stephen Hey.
It isn’t clear why the game was actually cancelled – though certainly it would have needed a bit of a redesign in the game play front. The code entry puzzles are quite mundane after a while for instance, but then this could have just been something to have been refined at a later date. We hope to learn more soon from the developer very soon.
With a huge thank you to Mark Greenshields for allowing the prototype to be preserved.
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