Clean up yer act - does it exist??

[kirin jensen]

Okay, I've been trying to find out for ages: Does a prototype for Clean up yer Act! exist for the O2?

Are there any O2 protos still floating out there that haven't been found?

[o2william]

It's an old topic, but what the hey, nobody answered it before.

I assume you've read the Bob Harris interview at Classic Consoles Center:

The only prototype involved a sweeper and some broomsticks running around. I was working on the "intelligence" of the broomsticks, and I wanted to see how they'd behave... I think the prototype exists, but I doubt it would be of much interest.

So a proto DID exist, although it doesn't sound like it was really even playable. Whether is still does, who knows? Nobody has found it yet as far as I know.

As far as undiscovered prototypes, you never know what might turn up. (Who could have guessed somebody would find a Videopac Dutch-to-Spanish translator?) But there are only three other "rumor mill" games that I can think of. The first is Pink Panther, which was supposedly in simultaneous development for the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, and O2. So far, only the 2600 proto has surfaced, but I have yet to see any confirmation that development for the O2 version was even started by the time Philips left the market.

The other is Star Wars, which Gil Williamson of The Amazon Systems (the designer of various Parker Bros. Videopac games) alluded to in this interview (link translates it from Portuguese). Parker published a bunch of Star Wars games for the 2600 of course, and Williamson indicates that work was at least started on a Videopac version, although it sounds like the game eventually just became the Atari 800 version.

The last is A Turma da Mônica, which is the name of a famous South American comic strip. A Brazilian game magazine said that the game was in development back in the '80s. Nobody's found a proto yet.

And in the "longshot" category: Power Lords was advertised on sell sheets as "Power Lords I," which makes you wonder if there could be a "Power Lords II." But this really sounds like nothing more than optimistic marketing to me.

The last "big" proto is Sherlock Holmes, which is owned by a collector in France. He's hinted at releasing it, but I don't know if he has any specific plans. I think we may see it someday.

[lurpak]

not to forget Impossible Mission / Programmed Trip, which turned up out of the blue from an unkown company Ectron in brazil.
which gives hope to us that there are prototypes and even full released games that are floating around there somewhere.

and then theres imagic, who release two full games, which means they had a development team..who Im sure didnt just stop at two games, until the company made a decision to pull the plug, Im sure there would be other early stage "work in progress"

[kirin jensen]

Thanks to both of you for the input on the possibility of this prototype's existence. It's been a great help.


Aren't there some Imagic catalog scans that indicate further game releases for the O2?

[ccc---]

Aren't there some Imagic catalog scans that indicate further game releases for the O2?

Yes, I have a European Imagic catalog that lists "Fathom" and "Moonsweeper" for Videopac as "coming soon". No prototypes have been found so far ...