Game Boy: July-Sept. 1990

Rainbow Chips

Not much information about this one. The blurb from this September edition of GameBoy Magazine just says that you can choose from 3 cute characters, and you have to guide them towards the goal. That's quite generic-sounding but it would have been nice to see a game from developer Interstate / Kaneko.

Trickle

Here's an intriguing one from completely unknown publisher METEM.

Trickle appears to be a Pac-Man-styled dot-eating maze chase, only with a first-person 3-D view to supplement the overhead action.

The game looks to have had a 2-player link up capability, so players could play a version of 'tag' in the maze. There are graphics for the monster sprite, and player sprite, respectively.

I don't think METEM ever released any video games, so I'm presuming that this game never got a release due to the company going belly-up or some similar fate.

Trickle appears to have received an upgrade in gameplay and graphics later on (before being cancelled), as seen in the article to the right. The dots and vortices in the maze have been replaced with cherries, skeletons and rollerskates.

It's a shame the game never got the chance to have its day in the sun.

Dr. Mario prototype screenshot!

The Japanese ad for GB Dr. Mario contains a prototype screenshot, with a rather engorged proboscis on Mario and different enemy appearances, showing it evolved and changed in a similar way to the NES version, with its "Virus" incarnations and the Mario shown therein.

Not too much here, but a few early screenshots of the overworld and cave area of Cosmo Tank (left, compared to the final screenshots, right.)

Your tank looks completely different, as do the (possibly mocked-up?) spider/crab enemies.

In the 3-D cave view, the terrain, monsters, and your tank's console display all are quite different. Intriguing!

Though this game did get a release by Romstar in the US, it never was released in Japan, where it had been programmed/planned by SETA.

The screenshots seen here don't look too much different from the final release, save for different publisher text, and perhaps some background scenery in-game. (I think those owls are still faintly there in the prototype screenshot.)

Duck Tales

Nothing too special in this preview version of GB Duck Tales. The only visible difference is that the title screen is a hybrid of the Japanese version's title graphics, and the US version's copyright notice.