Deep Pockets: Super Pro Pool and Billiards

INTELLIVISION CARTRIDGE [UNRELEASED]

Produced by Realtime  Associates for INTV Corporation

Program: Steve Ettinger

Ball Physics Program: Rick Koenig

Graphics: Connie Goldman, Steve Ettinger

Sound: David Warhol

Music uncredited


Instructions Posted Here

GAME DESCRIPTION (Back of 2019 box)

Chalk up your cue stick and call your shot! Whether you're a prowho can already run the table, or a newcomer just learning the game, DEEP PPOCKETS SUPER PRO POOL & BILLIARDS brings you into the action! Play traditional pocket billiards classics like Straight Rail and Three-CUshion. With enough practice, you can hustle like a SUPER PRO!

  • One or two can play
  • Five pocket billiards games, four carom games - nine in all!
  • Control your aim, spin, and force of shot
  • In-game instructions assist with game-play
  • Realistic physics

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

Programming pool was a challenge: with 16 balls on the table, the game requires more than the Intellivision's 8 moving objects. At Mattel Electronics, Marketing had rarely allowed programmers to multiplex objects because they objected to the resulting screen flicker (the one exception had been the fireballs in Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man, since it made sense for them to flicker). But for pool, it was the only practical solution.

Producer Dave Warhol tapped math-whiz Rick Koenig (Motocross) to work out the multiplexing and movement of the balls. Steve Ettinger (Hover Force) did the overall game design and program, becoming an expert in all the variations of pool and billiards in the process.

By the time the game was completed, however, INTV Corporation had fallen into financial difficulties and was unable to pay for it. Realtime Associates retained ownership of the game and it was never released. The last game for the Intellivision system completed, it carries a 1990 copyright date, making Intellivision the only cartridge-based game system to have software produced for it in three separate decades (the earliest games carry a 1978 copyright date).

Intellivision Productions included the ROM image on the Intellivision Lives! CD-ROM.

In 2019, Blue Sky Rangers, Inc, finally issued an official cartridge release.

FUN FACT: The process of programming music for the Intellivision was a tedious, time-consuming job that Dave Warhol and Steve Ettinger, both musicians, had plenty of experience with. But for Deep Pockets, they tried an experiment: they programmed an interface that would convert a MIDI file into Intellivision sound chip code.

They then hired a professional Blues pianist to improvise a theme on the piano. They recorded him, then processed the tapethrough a MIDI synthesizer, through their interface, and wound up with Intellivision code that accurately duplicated the music. The result: the first "live" Intellivision music playing on the title screen. Unfortunately, neither Dave nor Steve can remember the name of the pianist.

EASTER EGG: To display credits, press 0 (zero) while the title screen is displayed.