why did imagic never release wing war in the US?

[christianscott]

anybody know the story on this? the game was only released in europe, why did the US miss out. i always assumed imagic was a US company and the PAL market would have been an afterthought. also what do you think of the game itself, as it plays on the emus anyways. i like the joust style flap. imagic was one of the greatest classic era companies, its a shame to have missed out on one of their titles.

[surfnmadness]

Per the AA Rare database.

 

Game Notes  

This game was announced for the US market, but only released in Europe in PAL format. The game was initially called “Flap” before it was released. This is the only Imagic game that was not released in the US.

[Godzilla]

My guess would be that wing war hit after the big crash in the U.S. and that is why it did not see the light of day there. Around the time of the big crash EVERYONE ganked their 2600 games from being released for fear of losing their pants (hard for a $30-$40 game to compete with piles of $.50c games,) which is also why we keep finding so many wonderful prototypes :-) but I would have rather seen them released ah me'

[Numan]

As a huge Wing War fan I have to ask if anyone has the TI version or if it even exists?

 

Anybody know the status of the Intellivision version?

 

 

I'd like to see someone do a hack of the Colecovision version wherein your health doesn't drop simply by the passage of time.

[Godzilla]

nu: Ill check my TI collection at home tonight, I seem to remember having some imagic games. IIRC fathom on the TI really got enhanced with new game play elements (an extra scene on the ocean bottom with an octopus between you and the mermaid, and general graphic enhancery all 'round,)

[surfnmadness]

Does not appear Intellivision (USA) was released.

 

http://www.intellivisionzone.com/intv_guide.asp

 

http://www.digitpress.com/lists/intellivision.pdf

[Brad2600]

I wish I had enough cash to get Fathom for the INTV. I hear it's the rarest INTV game now.

 

I already have a total of 8 boxed Imagic games for the INTV..so I've gotten most of them but not all.

[Godzilla]

kep: its a nice version, gameplay wise ident. to 2600, just prettier. I have a complete collection of complete in box inty intellivision games :-) they are ALL great games. Inty atlantis kills the 2600 version, and all the Inty only games are STILL amazing, even today. There is NOTHING like white water, dracula, safe cracker, micro surgeon, truckin', swords n serpents, etc. even in todays market. And beauty and the beast and ESPECIALLY its sequel, the highly under-rated Tropical Trouble are great platformers that are pretty unique within their genre. TT is such a great game, I love the gfx & the atmosphere. anyway enough gushing

[Numan]

Godzilla: you read my mind, my brother showed me Fathom a few years ago and it has speech as well.

 

The Octopus scene is awesome.

[Brad2600]

kep: its a nice version, gameplay wise ident. to 2600, just prettier. I have a complete collection of complete in box inty intellivision games :-) they are ALL great games. Inty atlantis kills the 2600 version, and all the Inty only games are STILL amazing, even today. There is NOTHING like white water, dracula, safe cracker, micro surgeon, truckin', swords n serpents, etc. even in todays market. And beauty and the beast and ESPECIALLY its sequel, the highly under-rated Tropical Trouble are great platformers that are pretty unique within their genre. TT is such a great game, I love the gfx & the atmosphere. anyway enough gushing

 

I have most of those games except for Fathom, Safecracker, Truckin, White Water and Swords and Serpents.

 

I need to do a search on EBay for all of them sometime. I know where I can get a copy of Truckin CIB and a loose WhiteWater..but don't have the cash on me.

 

They are pretty games. Dracula is pretty funky and it's hard to catch the people so you can bite them. It's a good game to play while all trippy..LOL.

[Godzilla]

Godzilla: you read my mind, my brother showed me Fathom a few years ago and it has speech as well.

 

The Octopus scene is awesome.

 

really? wow... gonna have to try out fathom again and make sure i got the speech module attached. i know I also have TI microsurgeon... havent played that one yet tho.

 

I have most of those games except for Fathom, Safecracker, Truckin, White Water and Swords and Serpents.  

 

I need to do a search on EBay for all of them sometime. I know where I can get a copy of Truckin CIB and a loose WhiteWater..but don't have the cash on me.  

 

They are pretty games. Dracula is pretty funky and it's hard to catch the people so you can bite them. It's a good game to play while all trippy..LOL.

 

Safecracker and Swords are the two MUST haves there. I have an extra CIB white water & swords iirc... might have a loose safe too, havent looked at my inty extras in a long while.

 

Dracula is GREAT fun with two players, when you bite someone, instead of killing them you can make them a zombie, and the second player can control the zombie to get the policeman for you. micro surgeon is also great with two players (one to steer, one for weapons,) and they support two players simul (drac & micro,) swords & serpents is almost impossible without a second player, as well. Imagic made some GREAT co-op 2 player games, some of the best ever imho. I also love the 3d isometric graphics of safecracker, great stuff.

[Klove]

I'm fairly certain that the story behind it's Non-American release is just that. By the time the title was ready for release... early-to-mid 84, the 2600 had already took.. or was in the midst of "The Dump". You couldn't get rid of any title for that matter. Be it Imagic' or whoever else.

 

As what seems to be the case, the 2600 still had somewhat of a heartbeat over in Europe. Europe is sorta' funny that way. They tend to hold-onto platforms a little longer than say... "The States." We see that in the Gaming market today. That said, Imagic probably saw that they could get rid of what stock they had, over there.

 

Notice it shipped in the "Plain / Paper" box. (ie - Cheaper way to go rather then the expensive chrome.)

 

Imagic, like the rest of the publishers during that time period.. was hit pretty hard by the crash. I'd be willing to bet that Wing War was their last stab at trying to stay afloat via the 2600 boat.

 

As we all know, Imagic too tried to stay in the game ("No pun intended")by going the "Home Computer" route, but.. they too didn't fair too well there either. I think they did manage to put out a couple of titles for the PC, Apple, TI-994A and the TRS-80.

 

In the end, from what I've been told via ex-Imagic alumni... their PC line was sold off to EA. Activision got the 2600 and Intellivision assets, as well as the C64 and some of the other home computer / console bits.

 

I haven't yet dug into that side of Imagic just yet, but I plan to shortly. As soon as I have anything else to share with you guys on the Imagic story, I'll be sure to post it here.

 

Cheers,

[Pitfall Harry]

I'm fairly certain that the story behind it's Non-American release is just that. By the time the title was ready for release... early-to-mid 84, the 2600 had already took.. or was in the midst of "The Dump". You couldn't get rid of any title for that matter. Be it Imagic' or whoever else.

 

I don't think Wing War was "ready" even when it finally was released. There is an obvious color coding scheme related to the number of Super Crystals you've captured which loses consistency for a couple of the later game screens. Had the game been given the slightest level of beta testing, the inconsistency would surely have been corrected.

 

The Wing War manual appears rushed to the extreme. By all appearances, the 2600 manual was cloned from the manual for the ColecoVision release. The manual editor, apparently unaware of the gameplay differences between the two versions, did nothing more than replace all occurances of "ColecoVision" with "Atari 2600." The manual states that part of your mission is to find and return eggs to the dragon's den. That's true in the Colecovision version, but the gameplay element is missing in the 2600 version. The manual also lists several enemies, all of which are present in the Colecovision version but aren't present in the 2600 version. The back of the box boasts of 40 different game screens. I've played and mapped the entire game, but I found the 2600 version to have only 14 different screens. There are some hidden treasures (a candelabra, chalice and a mask) in the 2600 game for which you earn bonuses for finding, but they aren't even mentioned in the manual!

 

Were all of the documented but missing game features for the Atari 2600 release meant to be? Maybe. I get the distinct feeling some manager at Imagic held a meeting with the programmer before he was finished with the game and said to him something along the lines of, "The art department says the manual and the box are done. Hurry up and plug all the holes on this lifeboat as best you can so we can get it to market before the whole damn ship goes down. By 'hurry,' I mean by 5:00 PM....unless you'd rather do your hurrying to the unemployment office tomorrow."

 

And so, a game that was almost finished made its way into the European market only. And that is a real shame because even in its near complete state, Wing War for the Atari 2600 is truly a lot of fun to play.

 

Ben

[Godzilla]

Yea, I noticed that too. (the manual and stuff,) and I agree, wing war, tho good, doesn't have near the finished polish of other Imagic games. Real shame, considering how good it is as is. Id love to hear from the programmer and see what the real story is... was the Coleco version finished before the 2600?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

There is an obvious color coding scheme related to the number of Super Crystals you've captured which loses consistency for a couple of the later game screens.

Do you have an example for that? This could also be a bug that was introduced when porting the game to PAL (less colors in palette!).

 

BTW: I assume the game was originally developed for NTSC first. So, does a NTSC proto exist?

[MegaManFan]

BTW: I assume the game was originally developed for NTSC first. So, does a NTSC proto exist?

 

You would hope, but if it exists somebody's either greedily holding on to it hoping for big bucks, or it got lost in the great throw-away period of the 1980's when everybody chucked everything after the crash. *sigh* Oh well.

[Pitfall Harry]

There is an obvious color coding scheme related to the number of Super Crystals you've captured which loses consistency for a couple of the later game screens.

Do you have an example for that? This could also be a bug that was introduced when porting the game to PAL (less colors in palette!).

 

You begin the game of Wing War as the dragon in his den in Screen 1 (refer to the map). Until you retrieve and return to the den one of each type of crystal (Air, Water and Fire) you will have access only to the den plus screens 2, 3 and 4. The color coding is fairly obvious: The Blue Screen (screen 2) is where you will fight the beast that guards the Water crystal. The White Screen (screen 4) is where you fight the beast that guards the Air crystal, and the Brown Screen (maybe it's supposed to be Red on a PAL TV) is where you fight the beast that guards the Fire Crystal.

 

Once you've captured and returned one of each type of crystal to the dragon's den, they combine within the den to make a "Super Crystal." Generating a Super Crystal does three good things for you:

 

1. It earns you more fire power (ability to shoot fire at your enemies)

2. It earns you more life (ability to sustain collisions with enemies)

3. It grants you access to the next set of three screens, within which you can engage each of the guardians of another set of three crystals.

 

Notice that in screens 5, 6, and 7 the beasts associated with each crystal have changed. The type of crystal each beast guards, however, follows the same color coding rule established in Screens 1, 2 and 3. The beast in the Blue Screen guards the Water Crystal, etc.

 

After swiping the crystals from screens 5, 6 and 7 and returning them to the den, you generate a second Super Crystal and the doors to the next set of three screens, 8, 9 and 10, open up to you. It is in this set of three screen where the color coding scheme exhibits an anomaly. The Blue Screen (Screen is where you will find the Water Crystal, as expected. But notice both Screen 9 and Screen 10 are White! One of those two screens (9 or 10) is colored correctly, as you will indeed find an Air crystal in one of those two screens. But the other screen, where you will find the Fire Crystal, should have been Brown (Red?).

 

After you generate the next Super Crystal, you have access to Screens 11, 12 and 13, where you will find the expected color-coding scheme has returned to form.

 

 

Ben

[Thomas Jentzsch]

One of those two screens (9 or 10) is colored correctly, as you will indeed find an Air crystal in one of those two screens. But the other screen, where you will find the Fire Crystal, should have been Brown (Red?).

Hm, if I understand you correctly it's not determined in which screen which crystal is here? Maybe that's the reason for the "bug"?

 

And how about the treasures, they seem to follow the same color code you described. Where do you find them?

 

I must have a look at my NTSC conversion code, maybe that contains some hints.

[NE146]

Gotta love the attention to detail there..

[Pitfall Harry]

One of those two screens (9 or 10) is colored correctly, as you will indeed find an Air crystal in one of those two screens. But the other screen, where you will find the Fire Crystal, should have been Brown (Red?).

Hm, if I understand you correctly it's not determined in which screen which crystal is here? Maybe that's the reason for the "bug"?

 

I had to play through the game before I could answer your question, because it's been awhile since I last played and I could not recall the details of screens 9 and 10. To answer your question now: Each of screens 2 - 13 holds an enemy beast for the dragon to battle. Each beast in a given screen guards a crystal, and the type of that crystal is determined by the color of the enemy beast in that screen -- except that this rule is broken in Screen 9. The Screen 9 beasts are white, which would imply they guard an Air Crystal according to the established color coding rule. The fact is, the white beasts of Screen 9 guard a Fire Crystal. All other screens follow the color rule, as can be seen on the map and in the table below.

 

Screen         Enemy      Type of

Number         Color      Crystal



2              Brown      Fire

3              Blue       Water

4              White      Air



5              Brown      Fire

6              Blue       Water

7              White      Air



8              Blue       Water

9              White      Fire         <--- color should have been Brown

10             White      Air



11             Brown      Fire

12             White      Air

13             Blue       Water

 

And how about the treasures, they seem to follow the same color code you described.

 

The treasures are color coded, yes. If you get really good at the game, you can find each of the three treasures multiple times. The Masks are always white, the candles are always brown and the chalices are always blue. However, the color of each treasure does not seem to mean anything -- yet another reason why I believe the game was wrapped up and shipped out before the programmer was finished with it.

 

Other clues that the game was released before it was finished:

 

- The platforms in Screen #11 look undefined and ragged.

 

- The large island in Screen 12 sports an eye-catching, multi-colored object. What is it? Why is it there? It appears to do nothing.

 

- The layout of the screen-to-screen shortcuts makes it way too easy to rack up big, big points once you've earned three Super Crystals. A little bit of play-testing would have revealed this flaw.

 

- There could easily have been more screens, at least the 40 promised on the back of the box.

 

Where do you find them[the bonus treasures]?

 

I'll tell you in a private message, if you'd like. I'd hate to spoil the fun for anyone who wants to play the game and find them on their own.

 

I must have a look at my NTSC conversion code, maybe that contains some hints.

 

I haven't played your conversion yet, but I'm sure you didn't introduce a bug into the game that involves the color of the Screen 9 beasts. If you did everything right, your code would be guilty of nothing more than inheriting a pre-existing flaw.

 

Ben

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I haven't played your conversion yet, but I'm sure you didn't introduce a bug into the game that involves the color of the Screen 9 beasts.  If you did everything right, your code would be guilty of nothing more than inheriting a pre-existing flaw.  

No, I meant I would look at the code and check if I can verify what you said about the colors.

 

That's what I did now, and somehow the code is a bit different from your map. (e.g. it has a some more connections: 8->5, 11->7, 14->1, 14->1)

 

BTW: What exactly do the red arrows mean?

 

And the color data seems to be correct too, but I'll have to investigate further. Probably there really is a bug hidden somewhere.

[Pitfall Harry]

I haven't played your conversion yet, but I'm sure you didn't introduce a bug into the game that involves the color of the Screen 9 beasts.  If you did everything right, your code would be guilty of nothing more than inheriting a pre-existing flaw.  

No, I meant I would look at the code and check if I can verify what you said about the colors.

 

ok

 

That's what I did now, and somehow the code is a bit different from your map. (e.g. it has a some more connections: 8->5, 11->7, 14->1, 14->1)  

 

BTW: What exactly do the red arrows mean?

 

I have those same connections. They are represented by the red arrows on my map.

 

The green arrows indicate the connections between two screens which permit passage in both directions.

 

The red arrows indicate connections between two screens where passage is permitted in one direction only, indicated by the direction the arrow points. The red number next to a red arrow helps you locate the other red arrow in its pair. For example: Screen 8 shows a red exit arrow with a #1, indicating that you can exit Screen 8 on the left. Screen 5 shows a red entry arrow with a #1, indicating that this is the screen you enter when you exit Screen 8 on the left.

 

So, if I'm interpreting your notation correctly, your "additional connections" are really the same as the ones I've annotated on my map with red arrows.

 

And the color data seems to be correct too, but I'll have to investigate further. Probably there really is a bug hidden somewhere.

 

If there is, good luck tracking it down!

 

Ben

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Maybe you should add a legend to your map then (for stupid people like me).

[Pitfall Harry]

Maybe you should add a legend to your map then

Done.

 

Ben

[Mister VCS]

I own Wing War since the early 90ies. It was not an original Imagic-release in Germany. It came in an activision-cartridge-case with the

white text-lable from the late Activision-games.

Activison owned the rights of a few Imagic-games at this time (Demon Attack, Atlantis...).

I don´t think that Imagic planned to release the VCS Wing War game

in the classic area.

 

Any other informations?

 

Mister VCS