Toki Prototype For 7800 Discovered!

[Tidus79001]

On 12/8/2019 at 9:51 AM, Propane13 said:

So, whatever happened with this?  Did it ever happen?

 

-John

 

On 12/8/2019 at 10:01 AM, CPUWIZ said:

 

Nope, had a shitload of boards prepped and ready to go, then he disappeared.

 

On 12/8/2019 at 4:48 PM, Greg2600 said:

Both he and his partner @BuddyBuddies have not been here in a long, long time, and their website (betaphasegames.com) is down. 

Sadly it seems this is all too often the case with highly sought after prototypes.  I think some people just like to hoarde them just to have bragging rights and enjoy frustrating others who would also like to enjoy those missing ROM's.

 

Beta Phase games has left a lot of classic gaming fans frustrated when they announced a new run of Hotdog for the Atari Lynx along with several other ROM's and then went silent even though they were supposed to start taking pre-orders on a stated date.  I hope that the guy running Beta Phase Games is well.  That being said if he is no longer watnts to take on the task of producing these titles he should just say as much and possibly let someone else take over the process.  If the copyright isn't owned by Beta Phase Games and is abandonware the ROM should be made available for all to enjoy.

[Tempest]

23 minutes ago, Tidus79001 said:

Sadly it seems this is all too often the case with highly sought after prototypes.  I think some people just like to hoarde them just to have bragging rights and enjoy frustrating others who would also like to enjoy those missing ROM's.

I don't think that was the case here.  They fully intended to release the fixed version of the game and eventually the rom (at least that was my understanding).  

 

[Jinks]

May as well keep waiting if it is safe all good.. eventually...?

[Lost Dragon]

There's always the Amstrad version whilst we wait:

 

http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/12/toki-in-dev-amstrad-version-of-arcade.html?m=1

[Shawn]

1 hour ago, Lost Dragon said:

There's always the Amstrad version whilst we wait:

 

http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/12/toki-in-dev-amstrad-version-of-arcade.html?m=1

 

The NES and Genesis versions are pretty good too. 

[Giles N]

I’m not much fan of Toki, but it could be cool to have a fully working 7800 version.

(I mean just to have another/additional title)

 

How many % is it complete?

 

Whats left to do?

Edited December 21, 2019 by Giles N

[Giles N]

On 1/29/2015 at 12:49 AM, Willard said:

As per the title, a complete beta of Toki has been found for the Atari 7800.

This announcement is a bit overdue, as it was found several years ago by BuddyBuddies (another AA member) and I on the same test department hard drives as our Lynx discoveries.

It appears to be PAL format and Information on the title screens indicate that it is "Toki Beta 2, Copyright 1993 Atari Corp" which would've made it an usually late release.

Although I've been interested in the 7800 for a little while and have a decent collection of games, we're not very familiar with the 7800 scene so we're starting from scratch in regard to exploring the possibilties of releasing Toki. We are going to try to get the game to the right people and hope to have more information with regard to what can be done with this soon.

For more information on Toki for the 7800, as well as the other titles we discovered on the test department hard drive, please visit our website HERE (where I've already gone through the trouble of organizing the information!).

Other stuff we found on the hard drive include what appears to be some of the latest stuff Atari was working on for the 7800 and Lynx, including Klax (7800), Toki (7800), Hotdog (Lynx), Road Riot 4WD (Lynx), Poker (Lynx), Relief Pitcher (Lynx) as well as an as-of-yet unannounced title.

Below are some screens. Here is the toki specific page of our site.

 

So, write 2019, soon 2020; did it end up with the right people?

[CPUWIZ]

2 hours ago, Giles N said:

So, write 2019, soon 2020; did it end up with the right people?

 

I'd say so, people with honor.

[Shawn]

1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

I'd say so, people with honor.

 

So, any word from Willard? Something tells me it's a solid "no" and he's nowhere to be found at all. I highly doubt he will be either.

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

I'd say so, people with honor.

It would seem to me, just reading the original post, getting it to the right people would be, in some way or another, connected to the possibilities of releasing Toki. And to obtain information about what can realistically be done with this...?

 

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Shawn said:

 

So, any word from Willard? Something tells me it's a solid "no" and he's nowhere to be found at all. I highly doubt he will be either.

I hope this doesn’t involve seeking political asylum to avoid intelligentsia going after people deemed to belong to a dark fandom-web, or ... something...?

Edited December 22, 2019 by Giles N

[Giles N]

Anyway, Toki wasn’t much of personal interest to me personally.

 

I was more curious what the 7800 could pull off or something like that.

[Lost Dragon]

6 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

I'd say so, people with honor.

I've always had great discussions with Willard on the boards here over the years and sometime ago he did contact me with regards to using some of the misc lost games research i had been assisting with, on his site.

 

Very shocked to hear he had gone dark as it were.

 

I hope everything is ok, life wise for him and he returns to the community,  even if only to let us know what has happened. 

 

We've lost some great people this year alone.

[CPUWIZ]

6 hours ago, Shawn said:

 

So, any word from Willard? Something tells me it's a solid "no" and he's nowhere to be found at all. I highly doubt he will be either.

 

No, but also not a bounced email.  Who knows, dudes, shit happens in life, especially as you get older.  Some of my friends here know all too well, how messed up I am.  But soldiers don't quit!  LOL

[Tempest]

Anyone know what the unannounced title was?

[Lynxpro]

Reminds me of how Glenn the 5200 Man went silent after being questioned about his comment from his Antic Podcast interview about allegedly having a bunch of unreleased 7800 prototypes that Atari [Corp?] employees provided him in exchange for his other services. If I recall, I DM'ed him on Twitter after his interview to find out if he had 7800 Elevator Action, Track & Field, or Demolition Derby. Crickets. 

[+davidcalgary29]

6 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

Reminds me of how Glenn the 5200 Man went silent after being questioned about his comment from his Antic Podcast interview about allegedly having a bunch of unreleased 7800 prototypes that Atari [Corp?] employees provided him in exchange for his other services. If I recall, I DM'ed him on Twitter after his interview to find out if he had 7800 Elevator Action, Track & Field, or Demolition Derby. Crickets. 

Quick, shoot him another email and ask him about Electrocop!

[Lynxpro]

1 minute ago, davidcalgary29 said:

Quick, shoot him another email and ask him about Electrocop!

 

He's in silent running mode. And based upon the time period he alluded to, they would've been the missing prototypes from the Atari Inc/GCC era, not the later Atari Corp era when Electrocop was developed and lost.

 

Then again, since he's also an Amiga enthusiast, maybe some Amigan could come up with some trade bait to compel him to reply...

[+davidcalgary29]

I was actually just joking; should have added the emoticon. I think the hunt for Electrocop has gone as far as it can.

[Lynxpro]

4 minutes ago, davidcalgary29 said:

I was actually just joking; should have added the emoticon. I think the hunt for Electrocop has gone as far as it can.

 

It's probably on some Atari ST hard drive sitting in an attic in the UK like Paperboy.

[Andromeda Stardust]

On 12/21/2019 at 2:32 AM, Shawn said:

 

The NES and Genesis versions are pretty good too. 

NES and Lynx versions are awesome. The Genesis port (going ape spit) has similar assets from the arcade but the levels are completely reeesigned so it plays like a poorly made hack.

[Lost Dragon]

On 12/22/2019 at 1:10 PM, CPUWIZ said:

 

No, but also not a bounced email.  Who knows, dudes, shit happens in life, especially as you get older.  Some of my friends here know all too well, how messed up I am.  But soldiers don't quit!  LOL

THIS.

 

I know poor health put paid to Colin Porch ever finishing Head Over Heels II on the Atari ST some years ago and there's nothing quite like life to throw a real game changing event your way with no prior warning..

 

It may well be Willard is facing real world priorities that have meant any hobbyist work is the last thing on his mind.

[Lost Dragon]

15 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Reminds me of how Glenn the 5200 Man went silent after being questioned about his comment from his Antic Podcast interview about allegedly having a bunch of unreleased 7800 prototypes that Atari [Corp?] employees provided him in exchange for his other services. If I recall, I DM'ed him on Twitter after his interview to find out if he had 7800 Elevator Action, Track & Field, or Demolition Derby. Crickets. 

And you can add:

 

Jim Gregory (HMS) who after being interviewed, wanted buyers for hardware clogging up his garage (old Atari systems,development systems etc).

 

Mate of mine was very keen to purchase, not a word back from Jim, then we started speaking to others from HMS and Jim it seems had spun us a brave tale or 2 throughout the interview (cue it being pulled)  and Jim had lied to the press over the years.

 

Andrew H.Tiertex 7800 Paperboy coder, all comms stopped after the interview,  ex-work mates of his from The Kremlin pointed out his accounts of Sega development didn’t add up in a number of places in said interview.. 

 

Phillip Morris, English Software :I have every Atari 8 bit game cover sat in a bank vault,  brilliant, can you scan the following for us please?

 

Actually I don't have any of those covers (6 games)

 

 

And the now legendary Jane Whittaker.. I worked for..I worked on..I worked with..

 

Ohhh no you didn't.. 

 

Not so much crickets in Whittakers case..

 

Angry voices from:

Graftgold 

Cyberdreams 

Bullfrog

Rebellion

Atari

E.A

Maelstrom 

 

Why do people pull this crap?

[Lost Dragon]

15 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

It's probably on some Atari ST hard drive sitting in an attic in the UK like Paperboy.

Given the behaviour of the guy who claimed to of coded it..

 

Holes found in his accounts of Sega work..

 

 

I really hope my cynical nature is proven wrong and it was coded, can be found..

 

But Vegas Odds and all that

[orange808]

Good that there is some honor out there.  That's hard to find.

 

This has 16 likes, folks.  Dude is proud of this.

 

Let's read what this clown did, shall we?

 

Quote

I'm also on team dump the game while you can. Bit rot is real people! I'm reminded of a incident that happened at a gathering in NJ. I will change the names of the people to protect the innocent and guilty.

In the mid 90s there was a gathering of video gamers that would happen about four times a year. On one particular occasion a collector came from a great distance. We will call him "Richard" or "Dick" for short. He had a copy of an Atari VCS prototype game that nobody really knew existed at this time. The game in question was Aquaventure. The people there were really surprised about this game that was basically complete and unknown.

I got to the gathering after the original collector that brought the game did, so it was cool to find out about it. Richard had spoken to "Clark" the owner of the establishment that hosted the gatherings and told him not to touch the cartridge. He then told "Peter", a well known collector that believes in preservation not to dump the cartridge. Dick was adamant in his resolve to not have this game dumped because it would lessen the value of his collection. So it was at this time that a plan was coming together. These gatherings would usually last way late into the morning of the next day. On this occasion it happened around 1 or 2 in the morning. Several of us started to hang outside the in the parking lot. We got Dick to come out and chill and talk story (I now live in Hawaii and talk story is a thing out here for having a conversation).

While this was happening Peter took the cartridge and put it into the rom dumper that they had there, but respected the wishes of Dick and didn't dump the rom. Clark whom was told not to touch the cartridge did what was asked of him and didn't touch the cartridge, but he did dump the cartridge onto the computer. I'm not sure how many dumps they attempted at this time. It could have been one, or it could have been a couple times. Once this was finished Clark turned the rom dumper off. Peter then took the cartridge out of the rom dumper and placed it back in Dick's collection. At the end of the day, both Clark and Peter respected Dick's wishes. Clark didn't touch the cartridge and Peter didn't dump the cartridge. A couple hours later every attendee that was there at the time (Well maybe not Dick) got a copy of the rom in their emails. Because of this you can now play Aquaventure on your Atari Flashback consoles and your flash cartridges and repros.

 

Yeah.  You're my hero, man.

 

I wouldn't trust most of you with a penny, much less something of value.