Pink hearts, yellow moons, IMAGIC STARS, green clovers & blue diamonds

[JayAre]

OK, so there's an imposter in this here Lucky Charms lineup - the IMAGIC Stars.  I believe Imagic sent these to players who submitted certain high scores.  I've read through Imagic instructions manuals, game catalogs, and the company's newsletter, the Numb Thumb News, and there's no mention of the stars.  Did Imagic ever promote/advertise these?  The newsletter does mention receiving an exclusive iron-on award decal for achieving high scores, but these are different from the stars.

 

Then there were the CBS Electronics decals that players would receive for discovering the hidden mystery word in SOLAR FOX and BLUE PRINT.  The insert that came with the games that promoted this offer indicates that it was a set of 6 decals, and a couple of images of the decals are shown on the insert.

 

Of these rewards, I've only seen online pics of the Imagic stars (but now I can't find the webpage), but not the other two.  All of these seem to be extremely rare.  If anyone has pictures of any of these rewards, it would be great to see them.  Thanks.

Edited September 11, 2019 by JayAre

[JayAre]

Just wanted to correct my original post where I indicated that there was no mention of the stars in the Numb Thumb News.  Well, I was reading through the second issue of that magazine, and there's a part that says "We've decided that all that work for all those intense playing hours deserves more than a simple star as reward!"  It sounds like they're referring to the gold stars there.  My mistake.

 

And I wanted to share some information regarding the CBS Electronics decals.  In an issue of the 2600 Connection newsletter from 2007, Al Backiel mentioned that he had submitted the correct mystery words for SOLAR FOX and BLUE PRINT.  He never received anything for BLUE PRINT, and for SOLAR FOX, CBS Electronics sent him a "SOLAR FOX ROCKS" t-shirt (see pic below).  In the very next issue of the newsletter, Scott Stilphen mentioned that he had also sent in the mystery word for both games and didn't recall ever receiving anything.  Maybe CBS Electronics never sent out the decals.  Or perhaps they sent them out in the beginning, and maybe ran out at some point.  At least they sent out the t-shirt instead, for Solar Fox.  May very well be the case of two more 2600 promotions/contests having gone somewhat awry.

 

Edited October 8, 2019 by JayAre

[+cvga]

Some of the Imagic posters appear to be reward posters with stars and scores at the bottom of them. I have a couple of them. I've included a picture of a regular Atlantis poster and a 50,000 point reward poster.

 

[JayAre]

CVGA, thanks for taking the time to post the pictures of your posters.  They're very cool.

 

I'm attaching a pic of the page from the Numb Thumb News which lists the high scores required for the 2600 and the Intellivision.  Based on the scores listed there, it appears that your 50,000 pt. reward poster is for the Intellivision, right?

 

[JasperAK]

Holy crap! I've spent the past year trying to earn the Activision patches and today find out that there were rewards for the Imagic games as well. Looks like I'll be firing up some Star Voyager, Atlantis, and Demon Attack in the very near future. I'd love to see what what these decals look like, though its too bad that Moonsweeper came out too late for this Expert club.

 

EDIT: Although I like playing both Cosmic Ark and Dragonfire, I don't think I'll ever get close to earning anything but a numb thumb. Kinda like Activision's Frostbite. Man I suck at that game.

Edited October 9, 2019 by JasperAK

[Troy_Whelan]

For the Atari 2600 games, you got stickers that were stars.  I believe the intent was to put your sticker on the bottom of the posters where the star is outlined.  On the newsletter page above, you can see where I earned Stars for Riddle of the Sphinx and Cosmic Ark.  I did not have the other games yet, but later also earned stars for Trick Shot, Demon Attack, and Atlantis (see pictures below).  The picture with the ruler is just to show each star is about 4.5" in size.  I had put these on the insert for a 8.5" x 11" frame.

[+cvga]

That's awesome! I've never seen those stars. Thanks for sharing!!

[Atari_Bill]

That is so cool.  I’ve been collecting now for more years than I would like to say and I didn’t know these even existed.  It’s great to find out new stuff after all this time!

[JayAre]

Awesome.  Thanks so much for sharing the star pics.

 

Troy, when you submitted your high scores, did you receive anything else, aside from the stars?  I'm asking because the Numb Thumb News says that you would receive an iron-on decal, and just mentions the star in passing.  Thanks.

[Troy_Whelan]

11 hours ago, JayAre said:

Awesome.  Thanks so much for sharing the star pics.

 

Troy, when you submitted your high scores, did you receive anything else, aside from the stars?  I'm asking because the Numb Thumb News says that you would receive an iron-on decal, and just mentions the star in passing.  Thanks.

No, the iron-on decals were never distributed or even made as far as I know.  There is also the reference to getting a t-shirt for achieving expert level on 3 or more games and a jacket for achieving it on 6 games; I never received the t-shirt or the jacket even though I achieved expert level on 6 games during that time.  This was the 2nd and last issue for the Numb Thumb News, and likely the free give aways ended including any future promises.  I believe there was a catalog insert where people could buy the t-shirt or jacket if they wanted to, but I wasn't going to pay for something I should have gotten for free.

 

This was also the case with Activision as I would submit pictures for the Activision patches and around this time gamers started getting letters indicating that the program was ending.  Activision would include a patch for the game you played if they had one, otherwise they would just grab a random patch and send it to you; eventually there were just letters once all patches were given out.  Nice if you didn't have the patch already, but I ended up with a lot of duplicates at the time as I played all of the Activision and Imagic games as they were so far beyond the typical Atari 2600 game before them.

[JayAre]

13 hours ago, Troy_Whelan said:

No, the iron-on decals were never distributed or even made as far as I know.  There is also the reference to getting a t-shirt for achieving expert level on 3 or more games and a jacket for achieving it on 6 games; I never received the t-shirt or the jacket even though I achieved expert level on 6 games during that time.  This was the 2nd and last issue for the Numb Thumb News, and likely the free give aways ended including any future promises.  I believe there was a catalog insert where people could buy the t-shirt or jacket if they wanted to, but I wasn't going to pay for something I should have gotten for free.

 

This was also the case with Activision as I would submit pictures for the Activision patches and around this time gamers started getting letters indicating that the program was ending.  Activision would include a patch for the game you played if they had one, otherwise they would just grab a random patch and send it to you; eventually there were just letters once all patches were given out.  Nice if you didn't have the patch already, but I ended up with a lot of duplicates at the time as I played all of the Activision and Imagic games as they were so far beyond the typical Atari 2600 game before them.

Thanks so much for the awesome information; those details are really interesting.

 

Troy, by chance, would you happen to know if CBS Electronics ever sent out the decals relating to SOLAR FOX and BLUE PRINT?

 

As far as the Imagic posters for the 2600, I've seen them with and without stars, for the same game.  I remember that you would receive a poster when you signed up for the Numb Thumb Club.  Do you recall when you would receive the poster with the star, as opposed to the one without it?  Maybe one version of the poster replaced the other at some point.

 

Thanks for your kind help.  It's great to finally get some clarification on all this.

[Troy_Whelan]

On 10/10/2019 at 9:50 AM, JayAre said:

Thanks so much for the awesome information; those details are really interesting.

 

Troy, by chance, would you happen to know if CBS Electronics ever sent out the decals relating to SOLAR FOX and BLUE PRINT?

 

As far as the Imagic posters for the 2600, I've seen them with and without stars, for the same game.  I remember that you would receive a poster when you signed up for the Numb Thumb Club.  Do you recall when you would receive the poster with the star, as opposed to the one without it?  Maybe one version of the poster replaced the other at some point.

 

Thanks for your kind help.  It's great to finally get some clarification on all this.

No idea about Solar Fox or Blue Print decals.

 

I remember having posters, but I don't have them now and I don't remember the poster specifics or how/why I got them.