Argus / Video Man / Protector / Guardian

pookdolie

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koolmoecraig's Q*Bert prototype thread piqued my interest in this Gottlieb game. Does anyone have or know of the whereabouts of a working original example (other than MAME)?

I'd love to see a vid of an original one in action...
 
I'd love to see a complete one if any survived. They tested that game at the arcade at the end of my block and I played it constantly every time they put it there (they tested it on at least 2 occasions for a couple months each time). I was always heartbroken that the game wasn't released. I'm thankful I can play it in MAME and do quite often. I think it's a great game and I absolutely love it.
 
I'd love to see a complete one if any survived. They tested that game at the arcade at the end of my block and I played it constantly every time they put it there (they tested it on at least 2 occasions for a couple months each time). I was always heartbroken that the game wasn't released. I'm thankful I can play it in MAME and do quite often. I think it's a great game and I absolutely love it.

Awesome!

Where was this? What do you remember about the cabinet? Which name was it going by? Trak-ball or joystick? Did the sideart resemble the art on the side of the prototype Q*Bert that was just found?
 
Awesome!

Where was this? What do you remember about the cabinet? Which name was it going by? Trak-ball or joystick? Did the sideart resemble the art on the side of the prototype Q*Bert that was just found?

Just Games, Inc. in Downers Grove, IL. Gottlieb tested a bunch of games there over the course of a year or so. Guardian, Tylz, Knightmare, curve ball, insector and wiz wars all tested there.

It was called "guardian" the first time it went on test. I think it still had the same name the second time. I only remember them testing it with the trackball, it would have sucked with a joystick.

Granted it was like 30 years ago but I'm pretty sure the cabinet was almost identical to Q*Bert. I don't recall what the artwork was on the cabinet and I'm doubtful there was any custom side art at all. The cabinets for all those test games were very similar.

A funny story that I'm pretty sure I posted on that mamezach blog about this game. One day while I was hanging out at Just Games (where my cousin was the manager back then), this woman from Gottlieb came by to check on the game and she was asking me all kinds of questions about what I liked about the games, etc. After talking to me for a little bit she said "when you get a little older you should go to work for a game company, you'd be perfect for it" or something to that effect. I just stared at her blankly while I was thinking that sounded awesome but wasn't likely to happen. Not to mention the 13 or 14 year old me never gave a thought to things like finding a job and growing up someday. Anyway fast forward about ten years and I end up going to work at Williams Bally/Midway, a job that just sort of fell in my lap and thus started a career in the game business that has spanned close to two decades now, complete with all kinds of ups and downs.
 
Just Games, Inc. in Downers Grove, IL. Gottlieb tested a bunch of games there over the course of a year or so. Guardian, Tylz, Knightmare, curve ball, insector and wiz wars all tested there.

It was called "guardian" the first time it went on test. I think it still had the same name the second time. I only remember them testing it with the trackball, it would have sucked with a joystick.

Granted it was like 30 years ago but I'm pretty sure the cabinet was almost identical to Q*Bert. I don't recall what the artwork was on the cabinet and I'm doubtful there was any custom side art at all. The cabinets for all those test games were very similar.

A funny story that I'm pretty sure I posted on that mamezach blog about this game. One day while I was hanging out at Just Games (where my cousin was the manager back then), this woman from Gottlieb came by to check on the game and she was asking me all kinds of questions about what I liked about the games, etc. After talking to me for a little bit she said "when you get a little older you should go to work for a game company, you'd be perfect for it" or something to that effect. I just stared at her blankly while I was thinking that sounded awesome but wasn't likely to happen. Not to mention the 13 or 14 year old me never gave a thought to things like finding a job and growing up someday. Anyway fast forward about ten years and I end up going to work at Williams Bally/Midway, a job that just sort of fell in my lap and thus started a career in the game business that has spanned close to two decades now, complete with all kinds of ups and downs.

That's an awesome story; thanks for sharing it! What did you do for Bally / Midway?

BTW, I did some searching, and this seems to be at the former site of Just Games in Downers Grove:

401027_10151032418346541_1888015537_n.jpg
 
I think you forgot to paste in whatever you were putting at the end.

There's a DGY (Yamaha dealer) in that location now that resides in the entire building. Makes me sad every time I go by it (often since I still live in DG). I do have some of the signs from Just Games though hanging in my basement that I kept when they closed down (I worked there the last couple of years they were in business including working the very last shift ever and closing the doors for good).

I started at WMS at a game tester right after MK2 and later ran their field test program until they got out of the coin-op business. After that I did game design for console games for a number of years.
 
I think you forgot to paste in whatever you were putting at the end.

There's a DGY (Yamaha dealer) in that location now that resides in the entire building.

That's actually what I pasted in. :) Must not have showed up...

Makes me sad every time I go by it (often since I still live in DG). I do have some of the signs from Just Games though hanging in my basement that I kept when they closed down (I worked there the last couple of years they were in business including working the very last shift ever and closing the doors for good).

I started at WMS at a game tester right after MK2 and later ran their field test program until they got out of the coin-op business. After that I did game design for console games for a number of years.

Great stuff, man.

It wouldn't be a surprise to find a surviving Guardian near your area, then. Hopefully one will turn up.

There was talk in the Q*Bert prototype thread of someone with a CP...
 
I wonder if a Qbert board could be converted to it? I know it's been done with Screw Loose, someone (Pr0k I think) got the conversion to work and did up a whole custom artwork package for it, looked awesome!
 
I recently spoke with Jeff Lee (Q*bert's creator) about this game, as I'm planning to write an article about him and Q*bert in general in the future. This is what he had to say about the Q*bert prototype's side art after asking him about the possible relation to this game:

"I believe that was just generic cabinet art, but there was a game variously called Videoman, Argus or Why Me? programmed by Tom Malinowski with art by me and sounds
by David Thiel. It didn't test well and was never manufactured beyond one or two prototypes. I believe it exists on the MAME project."

So it seems to have been just generic side art for whatever prototypes they were testing at the time.
 
Not sure if you saw this but it's pretty safe to say that this cabinet was indeed an Argus:

IMG_2775.jpg


Also, the colors on the cabinet are the same as the main character in Argus:

IMG_2690.jpg


DCDA759C-15E2-47EC-83DF-FF075947368D-4012-0000017B276A1538.jpg
 
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Thanks for the pictures, koolmoecraig.



I recently spoke with Jeff Lee (Q*bert's creator) about this game, as I'm planning to write an article about him and Q*bert in general in the future. This is what he had to say about the Q*bert prototype's side art after asking him about the possible relation to this game:

"I believe that was just generic cabinet art, but there was a game variously called Videoman, Argus or Why Me? programmed by Tom Malinowski with art by me and soundsby David Thiel. It didn't test well and was never manufactured beyond one or two prototypes."

This is the first I'd heard of yet another name for this game: Why Me?

Check this post 2 wks ago via the YouTube page; looks like it's from Jeff Lee:

jqbertlee said:
At one point Howie Rubin dubbed this game "Why Me?" I haven't seen this game in over 30 years- unfortunately it didn't do well in testing and was not manufactured. My favorite thing is the villains smashing the buildings...the rubble smashing the victims and the bulldozer cleaning up the mess. I developed the foreground and background sprites on an Apple II and would burn the eproms so we could see them in the prototype. Thanks for putting this up.
 
koolmoecraig's Q*Bert prototype thread piqued my interest in this Gottlieb game. Does anyone have or know of the whereabouts of a working original example (other than MAME)?

I'd love to see a vid of an original one in action...

I found a stash of Gottlieb prototype PCB's on an op raid in Ohio several years ago. The op told me he got them from some guy that bought out a bunch of parts when Gottlieb sold or closed their doors or changed over to Mylstar or Premier or something like that. He didn't know what they were, but also didn't want to sell them because he didn't know what they were.

He allowed me to dump the ROMs, which conveniently fit into the MAME Q*bert driver, so we got to see what they were. I donated the ROMs to MAME for about a half dozen Gottlieb protos (including the game in question here) and the op then sold the boards for some pretty big bucks on ebay. Same guy bought them all (he is on the forum, so I'll leave it to him if he wants to go public).

I have notes of ROM numbers and pictures of the the PCBs buried on my PC.
 
I found a stash of Gottlieb prototype PCB's on an op raid in Ohio several years ago. The op told me he got them from some guy that bought out a bunch of parts when Gottlieb sold or closed their doors or changed over to Mylstar or Premier or something like that. He didn't know what they were, but also didn't want to sell them because he didn't know what they were.

He allowed me to dump the ROMs, which conveniently fit into the MAME Q*bert driver, so we got to see what they were. I donated the ROMs to MAME for about a half dozen Gottlieb protos (including the game in question here) and the op then sold the boards for some pretty big bucks on ebay. Same guy bought them all (he is on the forum, so I'll leave it to him if he wants to go public).

I have notes of ROM numbers and pictures of the the PCBs buried on my PC.

Nice work!

So, the PCB probably exists...but I wonder if there's an intact cabinet?
 
Thanks for the pictures, koolmoecraig.





This is the first I'd heard of yet another name for this game: Why Me?

Check this post 2 wks ago via the YouTube page; looks like it's from Jeff Lee:

Yes, that is Jeff Lee. He told me he commented on the video after I pointed out him to it on YouTube.
 
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