Virus: A Dr. Mario Prototype

[ColecoFan1981]

http://tcrf.net/Proto:Dr._Mario_(NES)

Have any of you familiar with Dr. Mario ever knew that the working title for this game was called Virus? Three prototypes existed under this title in 1989 and 1990 (including one for the PlayChoice-10 arcade machine). Later on, a third prototype existed but is now given the present name of Dr. Mario, but things still weren't finished yet.

~Ben

[Tanooki]

I've heard of it in the past, but I never really looked much into it. It's nice seeing how the game developed into what it became, but it's more just of an interesting footnote.

[wiggyx]

Nifty! I'll have to take a look at the protos and give em a whirl :)

[ColecoFan1981]

There is one thing I noticed in the Virus prototype version of Dr. Mario: the version of the Intermission tune heard in Dr. Mario (after completing levels 5, 10, 15 and 20 on Medium or High) that is heard in the prototype after winning (or losing) a 2-player game (where the menu screen's BGM is the Nintendo World Championship '90 theme) isn't the finished version (again, this is what to expect in a prototype). In this case, it just plays the first version of the main melody over again (with the small ascending flourishes before the second and third bars and without the descending flourish on the backbeat at the end of the third bar).

The Dr. Mario version adds a flourish to the descending backbeat at the end of the third bar when heard for the second time, and after the main melody starts again the third time, the small flourishes before the second and third bars of the song are omitted, and the song just plays this entire version of the melody (without the small flourishes before the second and third bars) from here on. This version first showed up on the Dr. Mario prototype build (where Mario's sprite on the title screen is similar to the PC10 version) that is mostly similar to the released version.

Intermission song analysis:
Intro: akin to intro of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link or even The Who's "Baba O'Riley."
Main melody - first time: small ascending flourishes after the end of bars one and two (and very short between bars two and three) and no flourish on the backbeat at the end of bar three. On Virus, the song just plays this version of the melody over and over.
Main melody - second time: as above but with the descending flourish on the backbeat at the end of bar three.
Main melody - third time: as above but omits the small flourishes before bars two and three; descending flourished backbeat at the end of bar three retained. This version plays over and over.

The Game Boy and Super Famicom/Super NES versions of the tune follow the same pattern as the NES version.

~Ben

[celerystalker]

Never looked into it, really. It and Tetris were two games I started to resent as a kid, as my parents played them constantly for a long time, and I quickly got sick of them. They were very good, and it took forever to get my turn to play something else with less repetitive music.