1982 Vid Kidz
Platform: Arcade
As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus content to share with you.
Within the book is a detailed 8 page full story about the unreleased Conquest by Vid Kidz. We speak to developer Larry DeMar about the development, with additional input from Eugene Evans and Sinistar developer Sam Dicker and help from Jeff Vavasour (who took screenshots from the compiled sources).
We share a few bonus extra screenshots that didn’t make it to print, as well some development notes from Larry DeMar. Sadly the game was shelved initially to focus on the more promising Robotron, but ultimately fully cancelled when the quite similar Sinistar game was spotted in development at Williams by Vid Kidz. This wasn’t the early beginnings of Sinistar, but a purely co-incidental and separate development that had similarities.
During our research, we also found an arcade flyer showing a game of the very same name and which looks very similar to the Vid Kidz game, but was a pure co-incidence. A big thanks to Dan Hower from Flyer Fever for providing a very hi-res copy of the flyer.
Ironically, this Tago arcade was also never released and was once a game called “Journey” by Stern (not to be confused with the 1983 Bally Midway game) that was showcased on an American gameshow called Starcade. Used in competition and given away as a prize at one point. It is unknown why Stern gave it to Tago, but the name likely changed because of the Bally game. Another mystery that cropped up, but was outside of the scope of the Vid Kidz write up. Here it is in action.
All three of these titles (including the Vid Kidz game) are yet to be dumped and made available. However, Larry has given permission for his Conquest prototype to be released, and on the last day of 2020 – Jeff Vavasour got the game up and running for people to finally check out at http://www.codemystics.com/conquest/
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