Our next entry into the archives is something very interesting, which is sort of a set of prototypes of a game pack that was released, but then could be a cancelled attempt of some kind. Back in 2000, DC Studios helped produce a compilation for ToyMax in 2000, which was released and later re-released by JAKKS Pacific.
Within the Enigma Variations archives, we could a series of different builds from 2000, for surprisingly the Super Nintendo. It seems the games were being developed on that platform, and the console on a chip was essentially to be a SNES of some kind. However, when you look at videos of the final product, the menu is very different and looks almost NES-like. So, was this SNES development canned and made way for a NES version?
For now, you can check out a series of builds which mostly contain a test menu system to pick games from. Not all the menu items work, so its a bit of trial and error to know which game is present – though some filenames give clues and there are supporting text files we found alongside builds to help. One of the menus has the start of a nice interface, where it gives you a blurb about each game.
Emulation wise – the games are starting to look pretty faithful, though are painfully slow in some cases – especially Pitfall. Others like Spider Fight play very well indeed. The screens for some reason are also squashed and haven’t been stretched out – this may have been for debugging purposes.
Unfortunately it seems that Mega Mania was dropped from the final set, but you can find test builds of the game (I guess it was deemed too similar to Spider Fight, and so was replaced with Tennis).
It’s a very interesting curiosity overall to check out, and i’m curious to know now whether the eventual product did indeed have a SNES chipset of somekind or was it NES? If anyone knows – please do get in touch.
With thanks to Mark Greenshields for allowing us to preserve this set of prototypes.
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