Intellivision Frog Bog early version found
Some of you may remember a little while ago when I found a mysterious white Intellivision at a thrift store. Well, I went back to that store today and found a box of Intellivision carts. Most of them were ordinary looking sports games that I passed on, but two things were more interesting. First was a cart with a plain white label that had BASEBALL in typewritten letters:
(Click image to enlarge)
When I got it home, it turned out to be regular Intellivision Baseball. Nothing unusual about the gameplay that I can see. I opened up the cart and found regular production ROMs... nothing special.
But, I was more excited about this large black box I found. It was completely unmarked, but had a cartridge connector:
(Click image to enlarge)
Got it home, popped it in my Sears Super Video Arcade, and saw this:
Yep, looks like an early version of Frog Bog! Unfortunately I don't have a regular Frog Bog cart handy to compare it against, but there are some obvious differences. Besides the "Frogs" name, there's the 1981 copyright date. I think all released Frog Bogs have a 1982 copyright. Here's a gameplay screenshot:
(Click image to enlarge)
Notice the frogs look larger and are different colors than the released version.
A few other notes:
* The Easter egg to view the programmer's initials listed in the DP Guide doesn't seem to work.
* There's no nighttime scene, it stays day forever. If you let the game sit for 2 and a half minutes, the screen goes totally black.
* There are almost no sound effects. Just a click when you jump and a series of clicks when you catch a fly.
* This version requires two players. There's no computer control.
* If you start a game by pressing 3, you move an jump slower than the other game options.
* The controls vary depending on which game you select, but basically the disk lets you move and jump, while certain keypad keys jump you in a specific direction and to a certain height. The fire buttons eject your tongue. There doesn't seem to be an "automatic tongue" option.
Here's an AVI movie of the gameplay (warning: large file!).
Now here's a question: the proto box is held together on the bottom by several screws, and it would be a simple matter to open it up... but I don't want to ruin it. I'm interested to see inside it though. Any advice? Have any of you encountered anything like this before?
If anyone in interesting in dumping the ROMs, feel free shoot me a PM.
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