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shadow460
04-13-2009, 12:36 PM
Sixteen Starpath prototype tapes surfaced in Dallas, TX last week. The thread at Atariage says 15, but when I posted that I did not know about the sixteenth tape.

The prototypes include versions of Killer Satellites, Excalibur (the forerunner of Dragonstomper), and Labyrinth (the forerunner of Escape From the MindMaster) that to my knowledge have never been documented before. Players are free to explore all of Labyrinth's third maze, however, the alien stalker, wrenches, and laser beams are not present. The Excalibur prototypes include one version that shows the dragon in the countryside and a second (quite playable) version called "Excalibur 36". Killer Satellites has the player piloting some kind of boat and just barely playable.

An interesting version of Fireball was also discovered with three loads, one on Side A and two on Side B. Any of the three can be loaded, however, the two loads on Side B are slightly different from one another.

Six tapes remain to be dumped. bin files are forthcoming and will be posted at AtariAge.

A very special thanks to Seymour at AtariAge, the tapes' owner, for sharing these with the community!

Link (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=142305&st=0&#entry1725616) to the thread in AtarAge's Prototypes forum.

Happy gaming, folks! :)

slapdash
04-13-2009, 10:14 PM
Oo, neat, though Labyrinth did show up in some form.

Steve W
04-13-2009, 11:12 PM
Yeah, I have a copy of Labyrinth on CD that I bought at some convention or other. It's cool that there's more versions of Arcadia/Starpath games out there. It kind of makes you wonder what direction they were originally going for with games like Labyrinth and what made them change it.