Just yesterday we reported on the announcement of Berzerk: Recharged, you can check that out by clicking here. Today we have more Atari news for you. The folks over at Atari have started the Atari XP initiative, which is collectible cartridges for rare and never released Atari games. The latest game to get the Atari XP treatment is Save Mary. Save Mary was reportedly in development for over two years, but was never released. Atari shuttered 2600 game development in 1990 after the release of Fatal Run, before Save Mary made it to market. Save Mary was developed by Tod Frye, a veteran Atari developer who was also responsible for the 2600 version of Pac-Man and the Swordquest series.
In a 1989 interview in Atari Magazine, Nolan Bushnell called out Save Mary as a game he was looking forward to, saying, “There’s one [game] called Save Mary that I really like. It is the first game in which you rely on construction rather than destruction to save the princess. You can lose a life by either squashing Mary with a piece of building material or building so slowly that you fail to get her out of the water and she drowns. The guilt you feel is tremendous.”
Despite its simple premise, Save Mary has a notoriously steep difficulty curve. The odds are stacked against you, but Tod Frye added power-ups to make your life a little easier. Pac-Man was credited as the first game to feature a power-up, so perhaps that is where Tod Frye got the inspiration. But he did not make getting them too easy; power-ups appear on the cliff sides, and you need to pick them up using the crane and drop them off at the top of the canyon to activate them. Check out some game play below:
Atari XP cartridges are manufactured to exact standards from all new parts and materials, with beveled edges to prevent pin damage, strong gold-plated connectors, and identical power draw to the originals.
Another victim of the 1983 game crash, Save Mary never got an official Atari cartridge release until now! This fantastic work from Tod Frye will keep you on your toes as you build a platform that Mary can use to escape the flooding canyon. Use the crane to carefully lower the different blocks and piece together a platform that Mary can safely stand on — but be careful! If you swing or drop a block carelessly, you may end up crushing poor Mary. The game is for the Atari 2600 and has 1 or 2 player modes. If you want to pre-order your copy of Save Mary, you can do so directly on the Atari website by clicking here.
What do you think about Atari XP Save Mary being available for pre-order? Is this a game you will be adding to your 2600 collection? Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on our Twitter account (X). As always stay tuned to Culture Splat for more content coming your way!
