What was the last Mattel game

[atari5200dude82]

Number jumble was a finished game , and the box was in the black and white mock stage. Game factory was completed on the last day, when Mattel Electronics closed.

 

So what was the last Mattel game that got released before they shut down.

 

Does anybody know.??

Edited August 14, 2012 by atari5200dude82

[+cmart604]

The last two that were actually released were Spiker and Stadium Mud Buggies to the best of my knowledge.

[cparsley]

I think he's referring to Mattel and not INTV productions C-Mart...

 

That would depend on whether your referring to Mattel Electronics in Hawthorne, CA or the Mattel office in France where the company was not allowed to close until having a new owner for the company, so production did continue, albeit on a limited schedule, from that office.

[+thegoldenband]

Hmmm, that's an interesting question. The Blue Sky Rangers' pages don't make it clear, unfortunately. None of the 1984 games were officially released by Mattel, so that leaves the 1983 games and the ECS games. The catalog numbers are too erratic to use as a clear guide, though The Jetsons' Ways With Words has the higher number among the ECS games.

 

Maybe the best bet would be to look at trade publications and magazines like Electronic Games from the end of 1983/start of 1984?

 

EDIT: cparsley has a good thought, but the World Cup Soccer entry indicates that the French office was bought out and changed name.

[+cmart604]

Hmmm, that's an interesting question. The Blue Sky Rangers' pages don't make it clear, unfortunately. None of the 1984 games were officially released by Mattel, so that leaves the 1983 games and the ECS games. The catalog numbers are too erratic to use as a clear guide, though The Jetsons' Ways With Words has the higher number among the ECS games.

 

Maybe the best bet would be to look at trade publications and magazines like Electronic Games from the end of 1983/start of 1984?

 

EDIT: cparsley has a good thought, but the World Cup Soccer entry indicates that the French office was bought out and changed name.

 

Yah, the 1983 releases really are hard to understand from the catalog numbers. Since a number of titles seemingly were finished at Mattel and then released later I'm not sure you can find a definitive answer.

[cparsley]

I think that france ideas became "Nice Ideas" after finally being bought out. I believe they had Buzz Bombers and the like out of that office.

[atari5200dude82]

Thank you, for pointing that out. I meant the Mattel electronics in California. The Mattel france office was still open. But change to either nice ideas or dextell ltd. Then when INTV corp started selling games again, then they bought the rights to those games. I think that was 1985. So what was the last release in 1983,

[+thegoldenband]

OK, let's use a little deductive reasoning. The BSR pages say that BurgerTime was the first 1983 release, and I think most of the ECS games were released in the earlier part of the year (but see below). So our remaining candidates are:

• Buzz Bombers
  
• Mission X
  
• Loco-Motion
  
• Kool-Aid Man
  
• Bump 'n' Jump
  
• Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man
  
• AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin
  

Tarmin has the highest catalog number, but its entry says that "Programmer Tom Loughry later designed The Dreadnaught Factor and Worm Whomper Intellivision cartridges for Activision." Since Activision stopped Intellivision development in late 1983, I assume that Tarmin was released early in the year, unless it was held up for some reason.

 

The BSR site says the Kool-Aid people were "delighted" with the tie-in, and wanted to do a second project starting in July/August 1983, so that probably implies an earlier release date.

 

The programming on He-Man was finished at the start of June 1983, which was also the deadline, so that'd imply a release within 1-2 months. So He-Man probably came after Kool-Aid Man, probably no later than July 1983.

 

The entry for Buzz Bombers has a joke about Mattel Electronics Josh Denham having to use a Marks-A-Lot on the boxes to block out the 2 player "option"; he resigned around the start of July 1983, so the game would've been released around that time too.

 

The entry for Bump 'N' Jump says that it "was released just after credits began appearing on boxes", and that He-Man was the first to do so. Unfortunately, my copy of Bump 'N' Jump is from INTV Corp. and it appears to have been redesigned, but there's a pic of the back of the Mattel box on Mobygames, and it's there. This was a huge policy shift, and from then on all new releases were to have it. So, Bump 'N' Jump came after He-Man.

 

My copies of Mission X and Loco-Motion are Mattel, and they don't have programmer credits on the boxes. Neither do any of the other games I have from 1983, except He-Man (and the missing Bump 'N' Jump), and one more: World Series Major League Baseball. None of my other ECS games have programmer credits on the boxes, but I don't have Melody Blaster, and I don't have a box for Jetsons.

 

Well, lookee here: Melody Blaster didn't have a programmer credit on the box. And neither did Jetsons' Way With Words.

 

So if He-Man was the first to have a programmer credit on the box, and Bump 'N' Jump was almost certainly the second, and World Series Major League Baseball, which is quite a rare game, is the only other one I can find that had it...

 

...then I'm guessing that, barring a major post-release packaging revision, World Series Major League Baseball was the last new release to make it out the door. I don't think it was the last one to be programmed -- there are 1982 copyright dates on the overlays, so I'm guessing it might have been ready for a while? -- but the evidence suggests that it was the last Mattel game to benefit from the "programmers' names on the box" treatment. And it certainly would make sense, since the game is so rare.

 

What do y'all think? Cmart, do you have any other games in your collection with the "black box" programmer credit on the back of the box?

[voltron]

ok quick question. is number jumble out there as a cartridge? Or is out there as a homebrew? Or it was never released?

[atari5200dude82]

ok quick question. is number jumble out there as a cartridge? Or is out there as a homebrew? Or it was never released?

It was never released. Mattel electronics shut down, before it got release. Maybe someday it will. I would like to see it get released.

[Intymike]

OK, let's use a little deductive reasoning. The BSR pages say that BurgerTime was the first 1983 release, and I think most of the ECS games were released in the earlier part of the year (but see below). So our remaining candidates are:

• Buzz Bombers
  
• Mission X
  
• Loco-Motion
  
• Kool-Aid Man
  
• Bump 'n' Jump
  
• Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man
  
• AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin
  

Mission X had an official international release (white box) - so it had at least a mid 1983 release.

Buzz Bombers and Treasure of Tarmin were released as the US version in Germany (with photocopied instructions)

Kool Aid Man is in the german catalogue announced for fall 1983 (but I found no indications that is was released in Germany)

Bump n Jump and He-Man are announced in the same catalogue for 1984 (but back in 1984 or 1985 I swapped Bump n Jump with a pen pal from Munich - was it released or imported?).

 

I would assume that He-Man was the last released Mattel cartridge. Maybe together wit 1 or 2 of the ECS carts.