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Wild Western!


Tempest

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Ok, so call me a bastard, but I needed to wait until I had the prototype in my hot little hands before I could say anything. There was no way I wanted to jinx this deal, nor did I want certain people to get wind of it. I also wanted to take some time to examine the prototype to see if it was worth all the hassle I went through to get it.

 

As of yesterday afternoon, I am in the possession of a WIP version of Wild Western for the Colecovision. Sadly the game isn't really playable (more like supped up graphics demo), but it shows what the game would have looked like when finished. This is only my second Colecovision prototype (I had a Porkys a long time back that I traded away), and I'm really geeked that it's such an important one.

 

The whole thing started when I was trying to track down some ex-Colecovision programmers. I had a few names, but nothing was panning out (which is pretty common sadly). In the end I did make contact with one former employee (who wishes to remain anonymous for now), who didn't have any 2600 protos, but he did have a few Colecovision protos. He sent me a list of a few games (which I'm still in the process of trying to procure) and in the middle of that list was a title that caught my eye: Wild Western.

 

While I'm not the biggest Colecovision fan out there, I know an unreleased game when I see one (I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I didn’t). So after a little haggling (and some lightening of my bank account), I am now in possession of one Wild Western for the Colecovision. The actual prototype itself is about as generic looking as you can get. There's no label on the eproms and only a small sticker on cartridge shell itself with a faint WW written in black marker on it. Why is it that all the great prototypes are so plain looking? Then again, I’m not sure what a real Coleco proto label even looks like.

 

As I mentioned before, the game itself isn't really playable. There's a nice scene of an animated train and some train robbers running on one side of the screen. You can move the sheriff around and bump into the train (which doesn’t do anything), but that's about all. There doesn’t appear to be anyway to shoot or interact with the robbers (you pass right through them). I guess either the game was killed somewhat early, or this is just an early proto. The employee I spoke to actually didn't program Wild Western, so he didn't know much more about it other than he didn't think it ever got released. Unfortunately he also doesn't remember who wrote the game, other than it was "A tall guy with brown hair" (gee, that only probably describes a quarter of Coleco's staff).

 

Anyway I thought that it would be nice to release it to the rom to the community since there's not really much to it. It's sad to think such a cool looking game never made it. I've always wondered why so many of the early Colecovision arcade games (Side Trak, Rip Cord, Wild Western, etc.) never made it out the door? To me, the odd ball "non-mainstream" arcade titles were actually one of the Colecovision's strongest selling points.

 

And yes, I know what day today is. I thought about actually holding back on this announcementfor a day or two since everyone would think this was an April Fools prank, but then I got to thinking that A. I don't want to sit on this for too long, B. I don't have a Coleco section up on my site yet so I don't need to wait until I make a page about it, and C. Releasing it on April Fools just adds to the whole mystique (Is it real? Is it fake? Who knows???). So without further ado…

 

Colecovision Presents: Wild Western

 

 

Tempest

WILD.zip

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Well.. you succeeded in getting the "mystique" in ;) I'll withhold comment on this further until maybe next week or something.. if it's still around :lol:

 

<edit> Let me just say that Wild Western is a game near and dear to my heart as it was in a mom & pop store next to my house. I definitely put my time in it. So yeah, if real, I think it's pretty cool ;)

Edited by NE146
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Wow, is this the weekend for great finds or what! I was just getting ready to post that I had aquired a copy of MIA for the 7800 and Tempest has stolen my thunder (nice find btw). Oh well, I guess I should have posted last night. :ponder:

 

Mitch

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Very nice find! While I cannot say I am a big fan, Wild Western is one of those games I always hopped someone could find some day. Too bad isn't playable. :(

Tempest, now you're on it, maybe your source could tell you about the fate of some of the other Coleco lost games, like Dracula, the other Smurf games, Sword & the Sorcerer...

 

Eduardo

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Very nice Tempest. Are there many prototypes out there for the Colecovision and Intellivision or are they a very rare occurence? I've often wondered why more Intellivision prototypes haven't surfaced over the years but thanks for sharing ;)

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Very nice find! While I cannot say I am a big fan, Wild Western is one of those games I always hopped someone could find some day. Too bad isn't playable. :(

Tempest, now you're on it, maybe your source could tell you about the fate of some of the other Coleco lost games, like Dracula, the other Smurf games, Sword & the Sorcerer...

 

Eduardo

 

I can ask, but they didn't seem to know much about some of the other unreleased games I asked about. They weren't actually involved in the programming.

 

 

Very nice Tempest. Are there many prototypes out there for the Colecovision and Intellivision or are they a very rare occurence? I've often wondered why more Intellivision prototypes haven't surfaced over the years but thanks for sharing ;)

 

I don't know why more Coleco protos don't surface, but the reason most Intellivision protos are rare is that Mattel rarely let them out of the company. They kept a really close eye on them, so you'll almost never find a 1st party Intellivision proto (actually I can't think of anyone who actually has found one).

 

Tempest

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I don't know why more Coleco protos don't surface, but the reason most Intellivision protos are rare is that Mattel rarely let them out of the company. They kept a really close eye on them, so you'll almost never find a 1st party Intellivision proto (actually I can't think of anyone who actually has found one).

 

Tempest

 

Now that is interesting. Were they that paranoid of a rival getting wind of what they were planning to release? I know of at least a couple Coleco games that were advertised in a review mag with screen shots that were never released. Perhaps it is simply due to the systems short life span? ;)

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Very nice Tempest. Are there many prototypes out there for the Colecovision and Intellivision or are they a very rare occurence? I've often wondered why more Intellivision prototypes haven't surfaced over the years but thanks for sharing ;)

 

 

IIRC, The Blue Sky Rangers have a bunch of INTV prots/unreleased games. There was a page on their website (http://www.intellivisionlives.com) that gave descriptions of many of them , sadly that page has been gone for several years. However the page for the M-Network Atari 2600 proto/unreleased games is still available (http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/...ts/atari3.shtml)

 

I sure wish they'd issue a cd with all the INTY and M-Network protos/unreleased games that they have in their possession. I would be glad to have the opportunity to purchase such a collection.

 

JL

Edited by JL
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WOW! This is an amazing find, considering how few Colecovision proto's have ever turned up. I figured many of the games such as this that the Coleco put in their catalog had never even been started.

 

Here's hoping there more where this one came from!!!

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Hm, interesting....

 

I found this string in the very end of the binary:

 

"1.04.84"

 

I wonder if it has some special meaning... Peharps it's the file version or build date? :ponder: :D

 

Eduardo

 

That is precisely why I said nice work. :D

 

I looked at it in a hex editor first thing and noticed not only that, but also the fact the the size is exactly 32K, which is uncommon. Also the fact that back then, they would have filled the empty space with $FF and not $00, to make the programming of the EPROM faster. ;)

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Hm, interesting....

 

I found this string in the very end of the binary:

 

"1.04.84"

 

I wonder if it has some special meaning... Peharps it's the file version or build date? :ponder: :D

 

Eduardo

 

That is precisely why I said nice work. :D

 

I looked at it in a hex editor first thing and noticed not only that, but also the fact the the size is exactly 32K, which is uncommon. Also the fact that back then, they would have filled the empty space with $FF and not $00, to make the programming of the EPROM faster. ;)

 

January 4, 1984. Oh wait, that's April 1st, 1984. Isn't putting the day before the month a non-U.S. thing? Hmmm.. Coleco programmer, Hartford, Connecticut, United States...or....Eduardo, just arrived from South America (right?)....Hmmmmm??

 

:)

 

Allan

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