Space Dungeon Prototype 1-20-83

[+swlovinist]

I wanted to share my recent prototype of Space Dungeon.   I have not had a chance to play this one but wanted to share it here.    I know that tempest has posted this one on his proto site, but wanted to see if this one matches the differences he posted with the date mentioned.    Please let me know if this is a good dump.   I won this off of Ebay and will include the backstory.    Thanks! 

 

Here's the backstory:  From 1983 to 1984, I worked at Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, the advertising agency for Atari home video games.  I served as the account executive on software advertising, promoting the game cartridges.  It was a dream job for a young man on Madison Avenue!

 

As new games were under development, we would receive prototype EPROM cartridges from the marketing folks at Atari in Sunnyvale, California.  We'd use these to produce advertising with screen shots of the gameplay.  When the ads were completed, we'd send the cartridges back to the Atari marketing team.  

 

When the Atari business fell apart in 1984, our work was stopped immediately.  Commercial production already in-progress was cancelled.  Our client contacts lost their jobs -- there was basically nobody left in Sunnyvale to send things back to.  

Space Dungeon 1-20-83.bin

[Tempest]

This version has always bothered me a bit.  It's dated two months before the final version but it seems to have very few differences.  This is the third copy of this particular version that I've seen now so it must have been the version they gave out to reviewers so they must have felt that it was very close to the final.   So what did they do with it for two months?  All I can figure is that bug fixing and difficulty balancing took way longer than they were expecting or the 3-18-83 version I have on my page (the final) actually has an earlier date.  Sometimes they put later dates on prototypes for some reason (maybe the day they checked it out?).  It doesn't help that I'm pretty bad at Space Dungeon so seeing the differences is tough.

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/spacedungeon/spacedungeon.htm

[+Allan]

@swlovinist Do you remember what type/things you worked on for Atari? Do you have anything or pictures of anything advertisement related left?

[+swlovinist]

17 hours ago, Allan said:

@swlovinist Do you remember what type/things you worked on for Atari? Do you have anything or pictures of anything advertisement related left?

I did not work for Atari, the quote above is from the seller who worked at an advertising company working with Atari.   

Edited October 21, 2021 by swlovinist

[+Allan]

On 10/21/2021 at 8:14 AM, swlovinist said:

I did not work for Atari, the quote above is from the seller who worked at an advertising company working with Atari.   

Oh, I see now. Sorry for the miss understanding. You were quoting the guy you got the cart from.

P.S. Thanks for posing the cartridge dump.

[+swlovinist]

2 hours ago, Allan said:

Oh, I see now. Sorry for the miss understanding. You were quoting the guy you got the cart from.

P.S. Thanks for posing the cartridge dump.

Any proto that I get now will be dumped publicly if I have the means.   Just letting everyone know.   

Edited October 25, 2021 by swlovinist