Frostbite Prototype binary released

[Prizrak]

Seems there is a proto of Frostbite called Iceman back when it was under development with Activision. Here's the article/webcast and I've attached the binary.

 

 

https://2600gamebygamepodcast.blogspot.com/2020/05/ax-031-frostbite.html?m=1http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5eb46192bea9c/Iceman%20%28Frostbite%20Beta%29%20%2807-27-83%29%20%28Activision%2C%20Steve%20Cartwright%29%20%28Prototype%29.zip

 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

 

[+Spriggy]

@Prizrak  Thanks.  Interesting.

@Tempest

 

 

[Tempest]

I'll have to look at this one.  Thanks.

 

At first glance they look very similar, but the Iceman proto only has two variations where the final as four. 

[roadrunner]

Cool, thanks

[Tempest]

I played with the prototype a little bit and there are some major differences.  I need to actually take some more time with it, but here's what I saw:

 

Only two variations instead of four
Demo is different (doesn't start at night)
The snow at the top of the river starts a scanline or two higher (I only noticed this by putting two emulator windows side by side)
Th sound of igloo blocks being counted is different
There are no night levels
There are narwhals (swordfish?) instead of clams
The whole game seemed a bit harder
It seemed harder to enter igloo (must line up almost exactly)

 

I'm not 100% sure about the no night levels, but I played for a while and didn't see one.  Plus the demo doesn't start at one so that makes me think they're not there.  Like I said, I need to play a bit more and see.

[ferghead]

Thank you Matt and Prizrak, I wanted to post this yesterday but I haven't been getting much sleep these days.

 

My friend Curt found the cart back in 1997 at a flea market in NJ. He thinks someone may have cleaned out the Imagineering offices (which were an hour away from the market) and started selling off the stuff there. Last year he gave it to me for my show, and Rob (Ballblazer) dumped the rom for me in February. Dennis Debro disassembled the code and found a lot of the differences that happen later in the game, as did GlitchCat7, who previously held the Frostbite World record. I am very grateful to all of them. Hopefully Dennis doesn't mind, this is the list of differences he sent to me:

 

Looks to be no day and night scenes

The game ends after reaching over a million points. Score gets set to 999,999

The temperature value modulates colors instead of blinks when below 10 degrees

The number of lives doesn't "flash" when below 10 degrees

Magic Fish icon shows when player reaches level 24

Polar Grizzly appears after Level 2

Igloo door doesn't flash in DEMO mode

Only 2 game selections (i.e. ONE_PLAYER and TWO_PLAYERS)

There is no fish maximum per level...player can eat as many fish as produced

Production release no longer spawns fish for a level after the player captures 12

There are no Killer Clams

New obstacle (I don't know what that yellow thing is to be)

King Crab graphics are different

Fish colors are different

Additional Fish object (there are green fish and blue fish)

The game speeds look to be increased in this proto. I didn't get to deep in the math though.

 

 

Here's a picture of the cart, my phone is only letting me post one for some reason.

Wqw7eHb_d.webp

 

I've also attached the rom if you would like to try it out. (Edit: I missed the part where Prizrak posted the rom, sorry)

 

Thank you!

 

Iceman (Frostbite Beta) (07-27-83) (Activision, Steve Cartwright) (Prototype).bin

Edited May 7, 2020 by ferghead

[Ballblaɀer]

Here are the photos I took when we dumped @ferghead's Iceman cart. Huge thanks to @DEBRO and GlitchCat7 for their contributions, too!

 

 

 

[Tempest]

Page up!

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/frostbite/frostbite.htm

[DEBRO]

Hi there,

 

Thank you @ferghead for sharing this with the community. I'm curious to know about these game graphics and why they changed or who changed them. This may be lost with time.

 

Thank you @Ballblaɀer for recommending I take a look at this. I originally thought this would be done quick. I didn't anticipate too many differences from the released version. Of how surprised I was to find so many differences. 

[Supergun]

This is really cool man. Many thanks to all involved in this. Thread should be moved to the proto forum though, it’s only blind luck that I stumbled onto it.