INTELLIVISION ALBUM CARTRIDGE [#5393/UNRELEASED

Used under license from OCOG Sarajevo '84

Working Title: Olympics Album

Includes modified versions of the previously released Boxing, U.S. Ski Team Skiing, NHL Hockey and NBA Basketball produced by APH Technology Consultants for Mattel Electronics

Title screen & menu program: Keith Robinson

Title screen graphics: Monique Lujan-Bakerink

Title screen & menu music: David Warhol

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

After Chris Markle, who was working on the official Winter Olympics cartridge, left Mattel Electronics, no one was assigned to continue it. Midway through 1983, Marketing suddenly realized they had spent millions of dollars to obtain the Winter Olympics license, but didn't have a Winter Olympics cartridge.

Salvation came in the form of the multi-game album concept that Design & Development had demonstrated with Happy Holidays. Keith Robinson (TRON Solar Sailer) was assigned the task of slapping together some old sports titles and calling it an Olympics cartridge.

Of the previously released Intellivision Sports Network cartridges, six -- Boxing, NBA Basketball, NASL Soccer, Tennis, U.S. Ski Skiing, NHL Hockey -- were, in their amateur form, Olympic sports, so those were chosen to be in the album. Keith modified their code to remove designations such as HOME and VISITOR from the scores to make them look more like Olympic events.

Monique Lujan-Bakerink animated a runner lighting the Olympic torch for the title screen, and David Warhol composed a fanfare that sounded very close to the familiar Olympic theme.

The game went together very quickly and Marketing was delighted, even though it meant that six sets of hand controllers and an especially thick instruction book would have to go into the package. The boxes were already printed and ROMs were just about to be manufactured when the legal department threw a wrench into the works: Mattel had purchased a license for the 1984 Winter Olympics. They didn't have the rights to the Summer Olympics. Including summer sports on the Go For The Gold cartridge could open Mattel to a lawsuit. Legal demanded the summer sports be removed from the cartridge.

Keith pointed out that would leave only Skiing and Hockey. Two games made for a pretty poor album. Marketing agreed that the cartridge couldn't be released that way. Keith, his boss Mike Minkoff (Snafu), and Marketing worked out a compromise that Legal thought they might be able to get away with: in addition to Skiing and Hockey, Boxing and Basketball would also be included. That would make half the cartridge winter sports (as opposed to before when it was mostly summer sports) and, since Boxing and Basketball are played indoors, they could be played in winter. (Yes, that was stretching it.)

Keith reworked the cartridge to remove Soccer and Tennis, and new packaging was designed (only a black and white mockup was finished), but Mattel Electronics closed before the game went into manufacturing.