Jelly Boy & Waterworld-Mega Drive/Genesis

I have repro carts of both Jelly Boy and Mr. Nutz Hoppin mad. I played through both of them and I did not recognize any broken ending in Jelly Boy nor any missing content in Mr. Nutz 2. So would you be so kind to explain what you mean? Thank you very much.

 

Fire up Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad and you'll notice there's not any introductory copyright/logo screens between the Sega logo (which is fairly static, maybe it's animated in the final game) and the title screen which still uses the original Amiga title. This final build of the game not only has the revised Mega Drive Mr. Nutz 2 title, but also features both a copyright screen and a Ocean/Neon logo screen which are missing in that earlier build.

Some time ago I contacted the main programmer of the game (Peter Thierolf) and he told me Neon had to do several bugfixes which delayed the game a lot and eventually motivated Ocean not to release it when Neon delivered the final build of the game. The Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad build has some fatal errors and lock-ups which pop up randomly, hence matching what Peter told me about this issue. We can only hope this Mr. Nutz 2 is totally bug free since it should be the final version of the game (the EPROM board is stated to be an evaluation/production version intended for retailers that came from Sega Australia, after all).

Other than that, maybe there's also restored content from the Amiga version which is missing in the Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad like the 3D scenes, but that's just a guess and can't be stated for sure until we check their presence (or absence) in this build. I asked Peter Thierolf about it and for some reason he couldn't remember if they actually ported these scenes to the Mega Drive or not, though he told me they did a good job with porting graphics overall.

I'm not so sure about Jelly Boy because I haven't actually finished that game. Unlike the Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad build, the dumped ROM of that one seems to be a fully complete version, but the broken ending issue is something that noted fanprogrammer Sik has been stating over several sites since some time ago, like here http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=25129&view=findpost&p=586475 and here http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showth...nesis-releases&p=396239&viewfull=1#post396239

 

I swear to have finished Jelly Boy without the problems which were mentioned there. I had no broken credits and I could find all keys. I played it as a repro on original hardware.

Same goes with Mr. Nutz: Hoppin Mad. I played through the whole game without recognizing any flaws, bugs, glitches or something.

The only Beta so far which seems complete but missing the ending was Jim Power.

 

Again, I cannot speak for the Jelly Boy problems because I have not finished the game. I played a good length to check if it was a fairly complete game like it seemed from the startup (it has all introductory copyright/logo screens in place), but nothing else. Maybe I'll grab some password and check it out just for the sake of it.

The Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad build, however, is an entirely different thing because I know well this game and the development story for both the Amiga and the Mega Drive. The dumped Mega Drive build which was recompiled from laked source code is a WIP beta which its not fully finished. This is evident by checking out the game record in the gaming press (the Amiga version title still being kept in this build is what mainly indicates it's non-final copy) and it was also confirmed by Peter Thierolf himself when I asked him. Sure, you can clear the game from the beginning to end but that doesn't make a fully complete game because it lacks several polishments it should be done before retailing a game like inserting the introductory screens and bugfixing the game. Plus, like I said already, having the original title from the Amiga version is what mainly tells you this is not the final revised Mr. Nutz 2 build which made it to production/review copies like the one discussed in this thread and backed up by all the magazine scans from 1995.

Maybe you didn't find any bugs/glitches in none of your playthroughs, but I had them in some playthroughs and Peter Thierolf claims these were the reason the game got delayed and eventually cancelled because of delivering the final build to Ocean so late (around mid/late 1995). If you want to force them to appear, the easiest way to do it is leaving the game running the title screen and demos until it randomly crashes. It can take more or less to appear, but the game always ends like that because it's somewhat unstable at that state. Hopefully the Mr. Nutz 2 build won't have any of those, especially if it's final (taking into account where it came from, it seems to be).

 

Thank you for all that information Wesker. I will try that out. By the way you seem to have a huge knowledge about Ocean games. Do you know of any other unreleased Ocean game than Flinstones the Movie? Do you know how complete drx version of that game is?

 

As far as I know, The Flintstones The Movie must be the only Ocean unreleased game for the Mega Drive which is known to exist in developed form and still left to be dumped and preserved by the community. The rest of them are either available (all of them in final or almost-final forms) or they are going to be that way eventually, considering that Putty Squad is intended to be released by Mark and Matt in SegaAge at a certain date.

Some sources claim that Ocean's Cool World was going to be released but I'm not certain of how much this game was developed for the console, if any. Cool World is a circa 1993 game and back then Ocean didn't support the Mega Drive that much. Games like Jelly Boy, Mr. Nutz 2, Putty Squad, The Flinstones the Movie, Waterworld and Lobo are all circa 1995 games (Lobo was going to be released in 1996 though) so it makes sense they were all pretty much finished and intended for release. Plus, most of them made it to production/review state, and even The Flintstones The Movie made it to the Sega Channel for a brief time.

That The Flintstones The Movie prototype which drx owns seemed to be quite developed at first when drx showcased some screens to prove it, but unfortunately it is not complete. SEGASaturno (which got and released an unreleased Ocean Mega Drive game, Lobo) was interested on getting and releasing it at one point, but then drx told us the prototype had no sound at all and only seemed to contain a few levels. That was a massive dissapointment because the screenshots promised more. So it was the case with his Putty Squad prototype which was not only unfinished but didn't even work properly (the prototype which surfaced now from that Australian seller seems to be fairly complete in comparison).

This Flintstones game was developed by Ocean America and intended primarily for North America much like Lobo, so it falls to a different lot than Jelly Boy, Mr. Nutz 2, Putty Squad and Waterworld (all of them European developed games which were ready for retail as PAL exclusives, which is why now prototypes from these four games have surfaced from a former Sega Australia source). But the fact that it made to the Sega Channel should be enough to guess that a completed prototype of the game must be around somewhere, aside from the drx's incomplete proto. Who knows when if it will surface one day or not.

 

Why were so many Ocean games completed and not released then? Seems like a lot of work went into developing for very little reward! Was it typical legal/licence issues a la Tetris?!?!?!?

oh and FYI hoping the fixed Mr Nutz 2 will be at home later! Screen shots to follow.

 

It was sent today, so probably tomorrow =/

My work hours at my new job are pretty much completely at random (field based, cover the whole country), so making the post office doesnt always happen.

 

Cool, no worries it was "hopeful", I know how you feel my job is the same! Monday it will be then, I'm away for the next few days.

Cheers

 

Probably friday, worst case monday

 

Congo and Beethovens 2nd also have no music and only few levels and I am so happy they were released. So why didn't want SegaSaturno to release it anyway? I would like to spent much for a release of that Flintstones game even in Alpha status. I hope someone will get it someday from drx and will release it.

 

The only confirmed reason was the one I got from Peter Thierolf regarding Mr. Nutz 2 and he just told me Ocean was not longer interested in publishing the game because of the long delay it had in order to bugfix it. Had the game been delivered earlier, they would have probably published it. Funnily enough, Ocean had to pay a compensation fee to Neon Studios because of contractual reasons as a consequence of not releasing the game, up to the point that it was not worth for the publisher to do that instead of just producing and releasing the game even if it would have been in limited quantities (like Addams Family Values, which was released by Ocean that way).

In a general basis, it seems like Ocean was just dropping 16-bit support in general and Mega Drive support in particular during 1995 in order to shift focus and costs in the upcoming systems, despite having a great lot of games completed and ready for release. These are all mid-late 1995 games after all (Ocean only published TWO Mega Drive games in 1995, Addams Family Values and Worms), though it seemed like they had a particular lack of faith over the Mega Drive in 1995 they didn't had towards the SNES until 1996, when they also left some finished games unpublished like the SNES version of Lobo (still not dumped, unlike the Mega Drive version). But it was just the general trend between both consoles that year if you take a look to what was the situation of both: Mega Drive support was diminished/overshadowed by the arrival of the Sega Saturn, SNES on the other hand didn't have the Nintendo 64 to make that happen until late 1996.

Let's just say that we reconsidered other possible priorities over getting that particular prototype, given the circumstances. The game having a released SNES version also added a lot to the fact of not having a fully complete version of the game like we were expecting.

Believe me, I wished it would have been possible. This batch of unreleased Ocean Mega Drive games have some charm of their own and after we released Lobo, I was eager on having done the same with this one too. :/

 

Here is the proof that Jelly Boy hasn't any flaws:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?18476-Why-did-Ocean-cancel-their-Genesis-releases/page3

 

To be honest, I always had the impression that the Jelly Boy prototype was pretty much a fully complete version of the game by the looks of it, until I noticed what Sik claimed about the supposedly broken ending (maybe it's just designed to be that way?). Again, I haven't finished the game so I couldn't check that issue for sure.

There's a chance that comparing dyer60's prototype with the already dumped version could shed up a light into the matter and have a better conclusion if it's is a final version of the game or not, but I suppose it is anyway.

 

Hi all, I have now received the working prototype back from bad_ad84, firstly can I say a massive thanks for getting it running it was any easy fix in the end (well for someone with a bit of know how!!!). I dumped it earlier and have been playing ever since, it's good news looks like a final build the same as the one in the other auction.

here are some pics:

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Good to know.

Could you check possible differences with the previous "Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad" beta build? Aside from the obvious ones in the introductory and title screens. See if the 3D stages from the Amiga version are present or not (in the Amiga version they were placed just before the boss fights), and if there could be some other minor changes in the music tracks or something else.

This is how the 3D stages look in the Amiga version.