Jelly Boy & Waterworld-Mega Drive/Genesis

Hi, recently picked up these 2 unreleased protos for the Mega Drive, Iknow the ROM's exist out ther but would like to dump these and compare against the other versions and hopefully share. I also picked up a non working Mr Nutz 2.

Couple of questions:

1. What is the easiest way to dump these? I own a retrode but searching on the net I can't find any easy instuctions on how to dump?
2. I hoping it is possible to rescue Mr Nutz 2, I have cleaned the contacts etc but no joy, any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

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Are these Mega Drive prototypes coming from the same Australian eBayer that recently sold a Putty Squad prototype to SegaAge and also auctioned some other unreleased Ocean Mega Drive games? I guess they are, because your prototypes seem to match the ones that were auctioned by this seller, Putty Squad aside.

How come the Mr. Nutz 2 prototype is not working? That's odd. The seller posted some pics in the auction which showed the game working.















I don't know how different the Jelly Boy and Waterworld prototypes could be from the already dumped versions which seem to be fairly complete versions of the games (though Jelly Boy has a broken ending, maybe this prototype is a later version which has it fixed), but the Mr. Nutz 2 prototype is very interesting as it seems to be the final version with the revised "Mr. Nutz 2" title that was going to retail, unlike the recompiled WIP prototype which is an earlier version still named "Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad" and is not 100% complete (along from the different title, the copyright and logo screens from those pics are missing in the recompiled version).

 

Back in the day, magazines often used screenshots of the Amiga version which could explain why the title didn't match with the actual Mega Drive version.
By the way, this Mr Nutz game was just a platform game that Ocean revamped at the last minute because of the high sales figures of the SNES/MD game.

 

No, on the contrary. This game got several reviews in many European magazines from different countries in Europe (as it was going to be a PAL exclusive release, same like Jelly Boy, Putty Squad and Waterworld) and all of them got a review version of the game which was already titled Mr. Nutz 2.

















Fact is, the Mega Drive version of this game had an uncompiled build leaked several years ago together with an uncompiled build of the Amiga version of Turrican 3 (both of them were developed by NEON, hence why these sources were bundled together). Last year it was compiled by some Russian Mega Drive coder and it turned out to be a WIP build of the game which was still keeping the Amiga "Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad" title and was fairly complete version of the game minus for a couple of missing things and unpolished bugs. The Mega Drive version of the game never appeared in the gaming media as "Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad", it was always presented with the revised "Mr. Nutz 2" title to add a direct follow-up continuity with "Mr. Nutz", previously released for the Mega Drive.

If you have played both the Amiga version and the WIP build of the Mega Drive version, you'll notice all those pics in the mags are depicting the Mega Drive verison and NOT the Amiga version. There are colour palette differences pointing out (the most noticeable is the sky in the "Nature" levels, which is blue in the Amiga version and yellow in the Mega Drive version, and all those pics are depicting the yellow from the Mega Drive), the map overworld is also way bigger in the Mega Drive version (you can see that in the pics too), and most of these reviews are also showing a pic of the title screen with the revised "Mr. Nutz 2" title. So it's definitely NOT the case.

 

Could be a region problem with Mr Nutz. Or the chips became unseated in travel

 

Sold to SegaAge? No.
Sold to someone who happens to be a member of SegaAge (as well as here and many other gaming sites)? Sure.

 

Yeah, that's what I meant. I know the details.

 

Thanks for the all the info folks.

If only the dam thing would work, ill check the EPROMs and see if they have moved but as it was a freebie I wasn't expecting it to work just hopeful it was fixable.

Any help on dumping these?

 

I'll dump the eproms for you and send it back if you like.

 

Oh right, so the auctioned Mr. Nutz 2 prototype (which those pics came from) ended up in the hands of someone else.

Let's just hope this faulty protoype could be fixed somehow, maybe it's the same thing contentwise.

 

Yeh that's spot on, I hope so to. I have a couple of offers to dump them for me so ill sort that and then let you know.

 

Thanks that would be great. Pop me through a PM and we can sort it out. Cheers

 

This cart is now repaired. I didnt bother removing the eproms and dumping, as the OP has a retrode and its a waste of time now that I have fixed the cart (plus, the data is his anyway - so this way I dont even have it).

He can dump it or play through and answer questions when he gets it back

 

A massive thank you for getting this sorted!!!! Top man!

This should be back with me soon enough, unfortunely I am away the tail end of the week so will dump early next week and let everyone know what build this is.

 

What was wrong with the cart?

 

Looked like someone had stored a few of them together back to back, so the pins from the eproms had cut through the traces on this board.

Patch up traces = working cart.

 

Great news. Hope this is the same final Mr. Nutz 2 build like the other prototype from the same seller that got sold to someone else.

 

Fingers crossed!

Wesker seems like you have done a lot of research on this, I am right in thinking that this build has not been dumped?

Bad_Ad84 from the test can you remember if the title screen showed "Mr Nutz 2" as per the screen shot above?

Cheers

 

That's right, it's not dumped. The publicly available version is an earlier build compiled upon leaked source code which is still named "Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad" like the Amiga version and has some omissions like the introductory copyright and logo screens you can see in message #2.

According to the auction description of that other prototype that was sold in eBay and assuming this one is the same thing, it should be the final version that was going to retail and therefore the one made it to the press for review purposes (see reviews in message #4).

 

Its title screen is as per the screen shots above