I’ve decided to resurrect the ‘Weird and rare’ series after a long hiatus. And what better game to choose, than something that has only a handful of copies – approximately 10 officially released and a few given out to helpers according to the author? And one that is considered the holy grail of all the released Atari 2600 games. It was also the last remaining released game for which there was no dump, meaning the original ROM was not available.
What follows is information on the subject, kindly supplied to me by William Cortez III (Trevgauntlet):
Back in 1984, a programmer named Anthony Tokar, developed a game Birthday Mania. He is now in his 70s and is experiencing health issues. He decided to make the game because he loved Atari and wanted to make one of his own as a token of appreciation for the console. So he found a book on how to program the 6502 chip, he doesn’t remember what he used and it took him several months to make it. The only form of advertisement he used was the Newark Star-Ledger, or the Sunday Star Ledger, he doesn’t remember the days but it was sometime after the game was registered after August 13, 1984. This was his only game and sold between 10-15 copies. The manual was a tri-folded piece of paper.
Source: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/204909-birthday-mania-unwrapped/page-1
The saga of this recently rediscovered rarity is ongoing with the rights to the game being kindly given to a member of the Atari Age forums by Mr. Tokar – as long as any proceeds made from sales go to charity. Hopefully soon there will be reproduction cartridges available – watch this space.
In the meantime check out Trevgauntlet’s Birthday Mania game play footage below and for more information on the topic, click the Atari Age link above.
i had this game given to me by a friend he did some work for a lady in the toledo ohio area and she asked him if he wanted her atari and games he took it and ended up giving all of it to me for free,i went through the box clearly remember the game it had balloons on it and i said to myself why would they make a game with balloons on it and no name just balloons and lines on the front put it back in the box with the other games and never even tried it,ended up moving and ended up loosing it its either in the dump or the ass holes who worked at self storage who went through my stuff and stole my laptop and atari system.i had it in my hands and had no idea it was rare.kills me thinking of it.probably given to me 2014-15 lost 2017.toledo ohio
Oh no! Well, you weren’t to know so don’t dwell on it too much! I wonder who has that now? Or whether it is lying in a landfill right now? Thanks for your comment.