Top 20 "lost" arcade games video project

Tornadoboy

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I'm working on a Youtube video highlighting 20 arcade games where there are no confirmed surviving examples of or known existing ROMS, and I thought I'd run my line-up past people and see what they think:

Edit: Updated to 25

1 – Bouncer
2 – Ms. Gorf
3 – Kreepy Krawlers
4 – Black Widow (Taito raster game)
5 – Vertigo
6 – Witch Way
7 – Snapper (Exidy)
8 – Surfer
9 – AIM
10 – Mrs. Dynamite
11 – Limbo
12 – Fire & Forget II
13 – Battle Star
14 – Scramble (Vectorbeam)
15 – Vampire
16 – NY Warriors
17 – Aaargh!
18 – Antarctic Adventure
19 – Eeek!
20 – Rockford
21 - Zool
22 - 0077
23 - Angler Dangler
24 - Score
25 - Cutey Fatty


Basically it's going to be a collection of flyers and other pictures with whatever details I can provide in subtitles, I'm not sure yet what I'm going to use for background music. I've got mixed feelings about Crazy Otto being on the list as I'm pretty sure the ROMs and at least one boardset are confirmed to be safely in the hands of a former Namco employee, in the end I'm probably going to drop it for something else. Also Marble Madness II isn't on the list for the same reason, as are many other desperately wanted and undumped games but still are confirmed to be in the hands of collectors. And for the record Polybius isn't there because I think it's pretty well excepted that it's just an urban legend and never existed.

Ultimately I'm hoping I can shake loose a few leads and maybe direct people to MAME dumpers or collectors.

Edit: Here's a preliminary, and I do mean PRELIMINARY video of what I've got at the moment, it's basically nothing but a slide show of the artwork I've gathered thus far, with no music, no real editing, and no narration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RDmO8PkiFQ&feature=youtu.be
 
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I thought that there was a pcb of crazy otto (hacked pacman) so switch it with this...0077
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=18685

The only known existence of it is the flyer

G12

Maybe that, or I was thinking maybe Super Death Chase, although there's no flyer, pics or really any info for me to post.

My understanding of things with Crazy Otto is that the ROMs and a working boardset are in the hands of a former Namco employee, but thus far he's been afraid to release it because Namco isn't exactly known to be friendly about anyone infringing on their copyrights, so for now like Marble Madness II all we can do is hope he brings it to shows like CAX and such.
 
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I played Crazy Otto at PAX. The rom's exist. They just aren't sharing!

Would YOU take on Namco? :D I sure as hell wouldn't!

I don't hold it against the guy whom owns the one existing Marble Madness II either, the only reason he was able to get that boardset he has to work was because Atari gave him a copy of the EPROMs under the condition he wouldn't release them, so I can't fault him for keeping his word.

I think Ms. Gorf is going to get bumped up to second, it's in just as a precarious position as Bouncer if either still exists. Last thing I heard (A LONG time ago) is that the author MIGHT still have the data on 8 inch disks, which MAY still be readable, and if the data still lives it's in uncompiled form in a language the author isn't quite sure of that a MAME programmer MIGHT be able to figure out after an enormous amount of effort. So needless to say, that game is as much a Mount Everest in the collector community as Bouncer.
 
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I found some more info on 0077-I just wonder how many where made and where did they all go?


0077 (Exidy [ever finished/released?], 86)
John S writes:
I have played 0077 at the arcades, and it is a different version of the Exidy game Top Secret. The game play is *slightly* different, and so are the controls. The place that I played 0077 was the arcade in the Bronco Bowl of Dallas, TX. I'm not sure which game Bronco Bowl had first, 0077 or Top Secret, but one of those two games was there for about a week before being replaced by the other. They had similar cabinets, though the controls were slightly different. I think I prefered 0077 over Top Secret, since that is the game I've been looking for, for mame. Again, 0077 and Top Secret are almost the same game, the map, the game play, and the controls are all slightly changed from one version to the other. It is enough so, to give a different feel for playing the game.

copied from http://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_exidy.html

G12
 
I played Crazy Otto at PAX. The rom's exist. They just aren't sharing!

Would YOU take on Namco? :D I sure as hell wouldn't!

I don't hold it against the guy whom owns the one existing Marble Madness II either, the only reason he was able to get that boardset has to work was because Atari gave him a copy of the EPROMs under the condition he wouldn't release them, so I can't fault him for keeping his word.

I think Ms. Gorf is going to get bumped up to second, it's in just as a precarious position as Bouncer if either still exists. Last thing I heard (A LONG time ago) is that the author MIGHT still have the data on 8 inch disks, which MAY still be readable, and if the data still lives it's in uncompiled form in a language the author isn't quite sure of that a MAME programmer MIGHT be able to figure out after an enormous amount of effort. So needless to say, that game is as much a Mount Everest in the collector community as Bouncer.

What's the end game for these big ass companies witholding or suing people over outdated content?! I understand the stuff they an still make money off of, but the marble madness 2's and Crazy Otto's of the world?
 
What's the end game for these big ass companies witholding or suing people over outdated content?! I understand the stuff they an still make money off of, but the marble madness 2's and Crazy Otto's of the world?

I don't know about whomever actually owns Marble Madness II, but I've heard of Namco going after anyone whom tries to repro Pacman cab artwork without their permission.

I don't know if 0077 will make the list because it sounds like it's basically the same game as Top Secret which has been ROM dumped, so it might be space better reserved for something else. BUT I am thinking about bumping this list up to 25. :D There's also Spiders from Space attributed to Exidy, I've found a picture of its bezel as well as Score's bezel.

I stumbled upon this interview with the programmer of Star Fire, Fire One and Kreepy Krawlers, he sheds a little light on what the status of the later was, but doesn't really go into any detail about gameplay:

http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_david_rolfe.html
 
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Mr.Do Laser Disc?

Duley noted.

I just made an interesting discovery while during research, apparently Star Rub is the same game as Clean Sweep, in fact I'm almost certain of it, so given it's a discreet logic game with no ROMs to dump that may get dropped from the list... perhaps for Adventure Mr. Do!
 
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Fun little game on various home consoles. I hope this gets found...

Yeah me too, I used to love it on Colecovison!

There are some unconfirmed rumors that it made it to the arcades in Japan, but that's all I've been able to unearth so far.

FYI the reason Adventure Mr. Do! didn't make the list is there's simply nothing I could find that would have given me something to display for it in the video, no flyers, nothing.
 
A few mos back I posted that an Angler Dangler UR was actually a prize on a Starcade ep, so the ROMs existed at some point.
 
A few mos back I posted that an Angler Dangler UR was actually a prize on a Starcade ep, so the ROMs existed at some point.

It definately existed, in fact there's a rumor that the DECO cassette is in the hands of one of the MAME team, and that the Japanese version called simply "Fishing" has been dumped.
 
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