jeffgamer

Hi, Andrew! The rules sorta confused me...if 61 is still open (the list suggests it is), put me down for that...otherwise, put me down for the lowest available number. And thanks!

The opening screen says "Happy Birthday Nancy Reagan". (Nancy Reagan isn't the real name, but it's the exact same number of characters as the one programmed into this particular cart).

Hopefully, it will indeed make it into an upcoming rarity guide. I've mentioned it to the different guide publishers in the past, written up brief game descriptions, but I suspect that, without the screenshots or label pictures, they may have been reluctant to publish the information. Should've at least been listed as vaporware/rumor mill. If any of them need more info on the game in order to include it, I'll be happy to provide whatever information they need. And, yeah, surely an R10. Fact is, I used to have this little fantasy in the back of my mind. One of the big-time collectors in our community comes to me, bets me his entire collection that there's absolutely nothing I have in my collection that he doesn't own. I lay the B.M. cart on the table, his jaw drops, and I fill in the remaining holes in my own collection... Ahhhh, fantasy......

Yeah, I covered up the name on the label and didn't take a screenshot of the opening screen, which says "Happy Birthday, **NAME**" and plays the Happy Birthday theme. The girl...well, woman by now...who once received this cartridge as a gift has a right to her anonymity, and I've never met her...so I'm protecting her privacy.

I tried a handful of times over the years...they're not around any longer, and there's no trail to follow...

Okay, while I've got the momentum, I went and took screen shots. Don't know why the images came out with a kind of double exposure, so I apologize for the quality of the pix.

I didn't fully know what I had. I got this 10 years ago, only a few months after discovering that there were other collectors beside myself and one other local guy. I was on RGVC, checking out the posts, when someone posted a message entitled "Has anyone heard of Birthday Mania?" I wrote him back, asked some questions, told him if he was interested in selling or trading it, I'd be interested. Apparently, I was the only one who bothered to write back to him...which led me to believe that either people thought he was making it up or that the other serious collectors already had the game...and he DID say he'd be interested in selling it. It didn't cost a dollar, no, but, if I recall correctly, he wanted something like $20, Pitfall, and Pitfall II. I bought it and sent him the two cartridges he'd wanted...it was a lot for me to spend on a cartridge at the time, since it was far more than I'd ever spent for a cartridge before in my life (except for a Sean Kelly multi-cart, I believe). But I still walked away feeling quite pleased that I'd added it to my collection...that same feeling you get when you find a game you don't have out at a flea market and you can't stop beaming down at it the whole drive home. And, yeah, 10 years later, I recognize how good a deal it was...!

My guess is there had to have been only a few made, as it's clearly a specialty/novelty item that, due to it's personalized content, couldn't be mass distributed. I'll see what I can do about that screen shot. Marco has been after me for well over a year to get a picture of the cartridge...clearly, I've been verrrry slow...but I'll try to take a shot of the screen some time in the next few days (if it actually comes out...I remember having a horrible time as a teen trying to take screen shots of my high score in Laser Blast...)

Yes, the cartridge does indeed exist, and it's high time I figured out how to upload pictures and then carved out the time so I could get some pictures of the cartridge, as well as more information, out there into the gaming community! The basic object of this paddle-based game is to blow out the candles as they fall toward you, similar to Kaboom! Each wave of candles is more intense than the last. As the candles fall toward you, you blow at them (your shots). You start with 50 breaths of air. Each time a candle hits the ground, you lose one breath, and when the 50 breaths has dropped down to zero, the game is over. The cartridge was sold somewhere in the US, I suspect in the mid-North part of the country. The company basically marketed it as a great birthday gift...each game is personalized to the birthday boy or girl. On the label, there's a spot to write who the cartridge belongs to, and when the game loads up, on the opening screen, it displays the birthday boy/girl's name while playing "Happy Birthday To You." The cart was made by a company called "Personal Games Co." It has a red and white label with blue balloons and a spot to write your name. The end label is white with red lettering, and reads c 1984 Personal Games Co. Note that the game actually does make use of the A/B difficulty level switch...when the right difficulty switch is in the "B" position, you have continual "shots/breaths"...when it's in the "A" position, you can only "shoot" one breath at a time. I'm not sure if the left difficulty switch does anything, though. I'm attaching two pictures below...one from a top-down angle and one that includes the end label as well. Note that I laid a small piece of white paper on the label, in the otherwise-white square for the birthday recipient's name. The name written in the appropriate space on the label is not my own...I bought/traded this from the cartridge's SECOND owner ten years ago...and there's no way for me to know if the original owner is willing to have her name splashed all over the Internet.