Area69
Active member
What are the chances of resurrecting one of these from the original plans. Are there any roms out there, and did this game ever actually exist?
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KLOV member Keiths3 claims to have one.
And he was selling most of the lot it came out of:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=144698
Never posted a list, but it's possible the board was in there and may be for sale (or that you can figure out who bought it and contact them). Either way there is a PCB floating around waiting for a ROM dump.
If you want to try to ressurrect a prototype motion platform game you might have more luck making a Strike Avenger, it used a ROM card on the common Bally/Sente SAC-1 system, plus the ROMs are dumped and schematics are available I believe.
It's not likely that I'll be able to personally ressurrect the game, I'm just throwing it out there. As in the case of the Moon Patrol HS kit. =)
I'd love to see that game come back from the grave, I guess it was like a motion platform vector version of Tunnel Hunt, sounds kind of psychedelic! It's also a MAME ROM dump grail, so they'd be thrilled to see it turn up.
Personally I'd love to reproduce a Turbo Sub, it's an awesome game, the ROMs and schematics are available but it looks like a total hardware nightmare (like a stack of 5 full-size PCBs!), which I guess was why it was too expensive to be commercially viable.
Not to somewhat hi-jack the thread, but has anyone heard of someone reproducing a prototype game from just ROM dumps and schematics?
Not necessarily a real prototype, but one dude on the web made a Polybius cabinet using a fake ROM and basing it on a blurry black and white photograph. Of course, it's most likely the cabinet never existed to begin with, but that only makes it all the more impressive.
I think it is completely in the realm of logical possibility to recreate a machine that LOOKS like a Venture. But to build all the hydraulics or pneumatics or whatever makes it move around when the only schematic pic we have excludes that... not as likely.Even if you managed to make one that can move it would probably be too different from the original cabinet to actually work with the commands the PCB would send it to move to the game events.
http://www.spies.com/arcade/Manuals/Vertigo.pdf claimed to have a full manual. I tried to use webarchive to get it...
http://web.archive.org/web/20000824145926/http://www.spies.com/arcade/Manuals/Vertigo.pdf
But unfortunately... it says the file was damaged. Perhaps there is a manual somewhere?
A different link was posted on the last page, but thanks...
http://www.cityofberwyn.com/photos/TopGunner/index.htm
Supposedly Top Gunner was an exact copy cab wise of Vertigo. Did it ever have a wider release? Either way, it's good to know when piecing one together that pieces of either would work (though you have to be careful not to get confused with the Konami game Top Gunner).
Looks like the spitting image to me.
Maybe someone will chime in that has played this game. I left a PM for Keiths3, hopefully he'll get back here sometime soon and hand over the board!
I played the game at a local arcade here in Houston in the late 80's. I never knew it was a "prototype". I just thought it was a fun, challenging game that ate your quarters.
The basic premise of the game was to fly through different colored vectored objects, mostly rings from what I can remember. You also had to shoot various items within the rings and I seem to remember bad guys shooting back at you once you passed the initial "flight school" levels. The flight controls and force feedback were way ahead of their time. The sound was also top notch for the time period. It really immersed you in the game. I would love to see this ROM be found, although playing it through an emulator would not quite give the same experience as sitting in that chair. I do remember it was broken down quite a bit. I think the mechanical design wasn't quite perfected until they released Top Gunner. Sorry to show up late to the party, but I wanted to share my experience.
Here are some more links about this great game:
http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_exidy.html
http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-ultimate-so-far-history-of-exidy.html
http://arcadeheroes.com/2007/12/07/the-exidy-vertigo-simulator/