Patrolling the Skies with Sky Patrol
By Scott Stilphen
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I'm not sure where the idea for Sky Patrol originated. I do remember that when I was in college I helped out on a hot air balloon's ground crew. It was foggy that day, so the balloon never lifted off, but the pilot sure talked a lot to pass the time while we were waiting for the weather to clear. He mentioned the time delay between hitting the burners and when the balloon would actually rise. This struck me as an idea for good game play; to require the player to perform an action now that won't have an effect until some time later. The player would always have to be thinking a step or two ahead of what was happening at the moment. Sadly, Sky Patrol remains unfinished. I envisioned the goal as getting from point A to point B in the minimum amount of time. There would be clouds at several different altitudes that would show the speed and direction of the winds at that level. The player would then burn fuel to ascend, or dump hot air to descend to the altitude that had the most favorable winds. Of course, the supply of fuel would be limited, and the winds would constantly be shifting. There was an anti-aircraft gun in the game design that would force the player to ascend. As I remember it, ascending was a good thing because faster winds would be blowing at higher altitudes. Biplanes might have been hard to work into the game play because they made short work of barrage balloons. The player would have no easy escape. All cartridges had a two player option, but I planned on having a race between two balloons. |
Apparently the game was never released because of lack of interest during Imagic's testing phase (whether or not this statement came from Brad Stewart is unknown). Brad's co-worker at both Atari and Imagic, Bob Smith, brought a prototype (picture #1) and a promotional box (picture #2) for the game to CGE99. After the show, Brad gave permission for the ROM image to be shared with the classic community. Glenn Saunders posted in the alt.atari.2600 newsgroup in August 1999 about a Sky Patrol prototype that Bob Smith gave him. From Glenn Saunders:
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Bob Smith lent me a proto that probably came from Brad Stewart himself, and this seemed to run although it was flaky at the shoot 2 years ago. By the time I got an EPROM burner and read the thing in, I could not get it to read and the cart would never run in a real 2600. So I think Bitrot took it, but I told Bob Smith about it at the show when I returned it to him and he said he'd get in touch with Brad Stewart to see if there is another copy of the game anywhere. So there may be a chance. From what little I did see of the game, it looked pretty interesting. |
The game was included on the 2003 Activision Anthology and Remix packages. At least 2 of Rob Fulop's Cubicolor carts (#12 of 50, and #48) were originally labeled Balloon Race (picture #3). A news blurb in the April 1983 issue of Videogaming Illustrated (pg. 77) states:
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The player is a World War I flying ace in an observation balloon crossing enemy lines. Firepower from below and whimsical winds from above are but a few of the challenges the ace must face. |
The artistic screenshot (picture #4) shows a multitude of objects (including a biplane, which is depicted in the box artwork). Most of these actually appear in the game. Although the game was planned to be a race between 2 hot air balloons, the name and artwork seem to suggest something more war-themed.
Base/launch(?) – you start the game here. There is one screen to the left, and 25 to the right.
Balloon – you start one cloud level up directly over your base
Clouds – each level has a different wind speed and direction (left or right). Faster winds blow at higher altitudes. The sky has 9 levels of clouds/wind currents. 5 are visible at the start.
Trees – all 3 parallax-scrolling levels worth
Tanks – presumably meant to be a hazard for players to avoid. They currently cannot fire and remain stationary, although the treads show otherwise.
Anti-aircraft (aka "ack-ack") guns – another hazard, meant to force players to ascend.
They are currently 'active', as evident by the activity in the windows.
Hangar(?) – purpose unknown
Mystery object - purpose unknown. A destination base/landing? The man constantly waves his hands.
In looking through the code, I found there are some unused graphics that appear to be meant for Sky Patrol (that don't appear during the game):
Trees (these are found in the code with the graphics for the other trees)
missile/rocket?
Storm clouds?
This is a rendering done by Imagic graphics artist Michael Becker showing what the game was to have looked like. If you notice, many of the objects shown here (hangar, tank, factory, ack-ack gun) are in the game. The biplane and enemy dirigible/Zeppelin weren't yet implemented. It's also possible the right set of "storm clouds" (above) are actually parts of the enemy dirigible.
Also notice the train graphic to the left of the score counter. It's the same train that appears in Im
agic's Shootin' Gallery game (shown at left)! What's even more strange is that ALL of the graphics from Shootin' Gallery are in the code
(everything from byte offset $0af0 to $0fee is the same in both games)! Brad doesn't recall why this was, but it's possible he used parts of Shootin' Gallery when starting on Sky Patrol. Other programmers have done this, in an effort to save bytes and help cut down on development time.
Below are screen shots from the PBS show, Enterprise, which showcased Imagic in one of their episodes. Near the end of the show, there is footage showing programmer Brad Stewart and Imagic president Bill Grubb discussing some ideas for the game (including storm clouds) while riding in a hot air balloon!
Here's the PBS Enterprise show:
This is a fake cartridge label by Sean Kelly, who Photoshop'd the box photo and name onto a photo of a Riddle of the Sphinx cartridge: graphics
