The Unknown Atari 5200 Game

[Tempest]

After getting in touch with artist Alan Murphy I was able to piece together some details about the mystery 5200 game seen in the Atari CED 2Q 1983 video.  We still don't have a name or a rom, but at least we have some idea about how it would have played:

 

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

[Supergun]

That was a really interesting video and I enjoyed watching it. Those programmers were really into their work.

 

As an aside, I really don’t think the mystery game could have ever been Quagmire. Reason being the vast majority of the games shown in that video are very late titles. (Xevious, Sport Goofy, Xari Arena, Miss Piggy’s Wedding, Donald Ducks Speedboat, etc.) Mostly unreleased late titles.

 

The kiosk demo cart is very early. Almost around the launch of the console. It even has the first ever game on it, Asteroids. And an early working title for Countermeasure. So surely, Quagmire was a very early circa 1982 work in progress title for the 5200. The mystery game is late 1983 and would not have been released until 1984.

[Tempest]

11 hours ago, Supergun said:

As an aside, I really don’t think the mystery game could have ever been Quagmire. Reason being the vast majority of the games shown in that video are very late titles. (Xevious, Sport Goofy, Xari Arena, Miss Piggy’s Wedding, Donald Ducks Speedboat, etc.) Mostly unreleased late titles.

 

The kiosk demo cart is very early. Almost around the launch of the console. It even has the first ever game on it, Asteroids. And an early working title for Countermeasure. So surely, Quagmire was a very early circa 1982 work in progress title for the 5200. The mystery game is late 1983 and would not have been released until 1984.

I had the same thought.  Not only that but if the game had a name you'd think they would have mentioned it, also Alan didn't think the game had a title yet.

 

Alan also filled me in a bit on what Highway for the 5200 would have been (CX-5227).  He said that it was a top down driving game that looked kind of like APB, but it didn't get very far.  He also mentioned a 2600 game I never heard of called Tom Curran Surfing for the 2600 which sounds a lot like Surfs Up (Front view of breaking wave, surfer sprite had to stay in the pocket of the wave while it rose, and sped up, etc.).