View Full Version : New Colecovision game discovered! (With screenshots)
Seaquest
01-02-2011, 12:56 PM
The Cat S.O.S game (Caterpillar scheduled oil sampling game)along with a colecovision was given to every cat dealership in 1983 to support the S.O.S. program. The customers would play it while waiting in the lobby. The game was made by the company Nuvatec. It was never sold commercially and could only be found exclusively in cat heavy equipment dealerships. My dad (who worked at cat) found that they were about to discard of both the game and the console so he saved it and gave it to me to add to my collection.
The game consists of a bulldozer that rides around and pushes dirt. Each dirt pile represents a "job". To keep from exploding you have to send in oil samples to the cat dealership ,then you will be told if the oil is good or bad. If you fail to do this occasionally your oil will go bad and your bulldozer will explode. To clean the oil you have to go to the cat dealership. The goal of the game is to make the most money from finishing "jobs".
I am pretty sure I have one of the last copys left in existense. If anyone knows anything about the value or has any questions please send me a message. Thanks!
Steve W
01-02-2011, 01:22 PM
I've never heard of this one. It looks pretty simplistic. Almost like a TI-99/4A Extended BASIC game.
swlovinist
01-02-2011, 01:58 PM
It is amazing what surfaces over the years. Congrats, and thank you for sharing
InsaneDavid
01-02-2011, 02:38 PM
That's pretty damn cool.
Greg2600
01-02-2011, 08:27 PM
Wow that's pretty amazing. Did your father get a hold of this recently or was it back then? I have heard of this game before, although any information known has been extremely vague. It was on one of these common forums, can't remember where. There was more skepticism that the game had even existed than there was information on it. Many people I think assumed it was Oil's Well that Cat was using, not a different game.
You may not have the last remaining copy, but you're probably the first person ever to come forward with one. Obviously it would be great to have the game dumped to a rom, for preservation sake. My guess is the value would be pretty strong, though I don't know what that would be since this might be one of a kind.
PS: I see that you Seaquest had posted (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144272) about this back in May, and as I thought then, you weren't joking. Ha ha.
PingvinBlueJeans
01-02-2011, 10:12 PM
The game was made by the obscure company Nuvatec.
While they're certainly not well known, Nuvatec isn't really that obscure. Although they never published any games themselves, they developed numerous titles for Coleco.
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Nuvatec
Many people I think assumed it was Oil's Well that Cat was using, not a different game.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Nice find.
God-Zilla
01-03-2011, 12:16 AM
Thanks for sharing the information, I had never heard of this before! I hope, at the very least, that the rom is archvied so it is not lost to the ages.
yurkie
01-03-2011, 09:24 AM
Awesome find. Hope you decide to dump the cart. I would love to play this game. Thank you for sharing the pictures and information!
Seaquest
01-03-2011, 12:23 PM
Wow that's pretty amazing. Did your father get a hold of this recently or was it back then? I have heard of this game before, although any information known has been extremely vague. It was on one of these common forums, can't remember where. There was more skepticism that the game had even existed than there was information on it. Many people I think assumed it was Oil's Well that Cat was using, not a different game.
You may not have the last remaining copy, but you're probably the first person ever to come forward with one. Obviously it would be great to have the game dumped to a rom, for preservation sake. My guess is the value would be pretty strong, though I don't know what that would be since this might be one of a kind.
PS: I see that you Seaquest had posted (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144272) about this back in May, and as I thought then, you weren't joking. Ha ha.
My dad just found the game about 4 years ago so it's a pretty recent discovery. I really don't know how to get the rom to the internet so if anyone has a suggestion I'd love to hear it.
MachineGex
01-03-2011, 12:34 PM
My dad just found the game about 4 years ago so it's a pretty recent discovery. I really don't know how to get the rom to the internet so if anyone has a suggestion I'd love to hear it.
I am sure there are a few guys on this forum that can help you with that. It would make a cool release. Good luck with all of it, great find!
Ikrananka
01-03-2011, 12:45 PM
My dad just found the game about 4 years ago so it's a pretty recent discovery. I really don't know how to get the rom to the internet so if anyone has a suggestion I'd love to hear it.
PM sent.
sniperCCJVQ
01-03-2011, 05:53 PM
awesome!
time to dump that sucker!
My dad just found the game about 4 years ago so it's a pretty recent discovery. I really don't know how to get the rom to the internet so if anyone has a suggestion I'd love to hear it.
A card-edge reader will do the trick or an ADAM Computer with a program called CopyCart+ 2.0... but then you still have to know how to transfer the resulting file to a PC.
Seaquest
01-05-2011, 07:00 PM
I'm in the process of dumping the cart! I'll keep you guys informed.:-D
Greg2600
01-05-2011, 08:04 PM
Many thanks!
megasdkirby
01-05-2011, 08:09 PM
Man, this is going to be awesome!
Thanks so much, Seaquest! :)
slapdash
01-06-2011, 01:43 AM
Neat +1. Sorry, just had to say it.
Tempest
01-06-2011, 09:40 AM
Wasn't there something just like this found several years ago, only for a Nuclear Power Plant in Canada? Energy Quizz or something like that? Did it ever get dumped?
megasdkirby
01-06-2011, 09:53 AM
Wasn't there something just like this found several years ago, only for a Nuclear Power Plant in Canada? Energy Quizz or something like that? Did it ever get dumped?
Oh, I never heard about that before. Do you have any links? Though if it was never dumped, "AtariAge" comes to mind for some reason.
Bill Loguidice
01-06-2011, 10:39 AM
Tremendous find! I never once heard of this! Just a heads up, I blogged about it.
Tempest
01-06-2011, 01:00 PM
Oh, I never heard about that before. Do you have any links? Though if it was never dumped, "AtariAge" comes to mind for some reason.
I think it's mentioned in the DP guide although IIRC there's not much of a description. I talked to someone and they filled me in the details. I guess it was designed to keep kids busy after touring the plant or something like that. I'll look for more info, but I'm sure someone here knows more about it.
Tempest
PingvinBlueJeans
01-06-2011, 02:12 PM
Wasn't there something just like this found several years ago, only for a Nuclear Power Plant in Canada? Energy Quizz or something like that? Did it ever get dumped?
Power Grabber by Sydney is the game that was (supposedly) used at nuclear power plants in Canada. Energy Quizz is another prototype that turned up in Canada (Quebec, I believe).
Neither has been dumped that I know of.
martyg
01-06-2011, 05:15 PM
The Cat S.O.S game (Caterpillar scheduled oil sampling game)along with a colecovision was given to every cat dealership in 1983 to support the S.O.S. program.
Glad to see someone finally found one. Heard about it 10 years ago when I was interviewing an ex-Nuvatec employee.
While they're certainly not well known, Nuvatec isn't really that obscure. Although they never published any games themselves, they developed numerous titles for Coleco.
Actually, according to the employee they did more than that. They were sent the original ColecoVision prototype system to do a complete redesign of the system, which became the version that was released. He mentioned it was their people that moved it to the more general purpose computer format and the expansion outlook via the expansion port. He mentioned what the original proof of concept game was on their system as well, and also passed along a bunch of the original assembly sources for the Nuvatec games.
God-Zilla
01-07-2011, 05:06 PM
That is awesome, thank you trying to help preserve this great piece of console gaming history :)
megasdkirby
02-05-2011, 10:01 PM
So the game seems to be missing in action?
I remembered this game and decided to do some checks, and it seems that neither here nor on AtariAge has Seaquest come forth to send the game to someone to dump.
Makes me think if this was some sort of cruel hoax. If it was real, I hope another copy surfaces and is dumped. Would be awesome to play this game.
I just hope the game was not sold to one of those "collectors" that have a phobia against dumping (roms that is).
sniperCCJVQ
02-06-2011, 09:07 AM
Power Grabber by Sydney is the game that was (supposedly) used at nuclear power plants in Canada. Energy Quizz is another prototype that turned up in Canada (Quebec, I believe).
Neither has been dumped that I know of.
I confirmed, however we lost track of the guy who found it, and we where not able to dump it in time....so it exist but it's lost "in the wild"
Greg2600
02-06-2011, 11:24 AM
I'm pretty sure the guy is legit. Atari Agers offered to dump it for him, but he was nervous about shipping it, so that was off. Then someone was going to offer to send him a cart dumper, or another person who lived in a nearby state would maybe have driven over to him. But Seaquest has gone AWOL. This is actually the second time he has. He first posted about this May of last year, then disappeared for 6 months.
sniperCCJVQ
02-06-2011, 05:29 PM
For Energy Quizz, refer to page 199 of the DP Guide #7 since the online rarity guide seems offline (cant find the link anymore)...not much from what was already said in this topic
wberdan
03-18-2011, 10:43 PM
I own the only known Power Grabber.
Can't remember who owns Energy Quizz.. but going by memory I think it was someone that lives in Canada.
Newcoleco may know the answer to that one...
Ikrananka
03-19-2011, 05:19 PM
I own the only known Power Grabber.
I know you have no plans to dump the rom, but how about having the game released in cart and box form in a similar way to coleconut with Fireman. I'm sure CollectorVision or Team Pixelboy would jump at the opportunity to publish this for you. This way you could recoup some of your costs while sharing the game with the CV community?
Daniel Bienvenu (newColeco) is not completely sure about the existence of Energy Quizz as a ColecoVision Cartridge. He has mentioned to me (and posted on AtariAge's CV/ADAM Forum) that THE ITEM in question could actually be a an ADAM program on Digital Data Pack (cassette tape). The issue is becomes muddied by the simple fact of language and how French Canadians sometimes refer to cartridges as cassettes... as far as what Daniel explained.
Here's hoping that it is a real ColecoVision cartridge based gameand one day more info. will be made available. At worst, maybe it's a rom dump that was made using an ADAM Computer and saved on a Digital Data Pack.