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Unreleased 'BreakThru!' for the Game Gear
Post Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:21 pm
Last edited by Bock on Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:27 pm; edited 1 time in total
Hello,

Happy to announce we have uncovered another unreleased game: BreakThru! prototype for the Game Gear !

(Those prototypes are part of a collection of loose EPROMs recovered by the Video Game History Foundation on behalf of an anonymous collector. This lot contained prototypes from various systems. The prototypes for Sega 8-bit systems will be released on SMS Power!, the prototypes other systems will be released on other sites, such as Hidden Palace and SNES Central)



In development in 1994 at Realtime Associates, the Game Gear port of BreakThru! went unreleased.
According to the BreakThru! Wikipedia page:
"The game is commonly attributed to being designed by Alexey Pajitnov, who also originally designed Tetris, and published by Spectrum HoloByte, the company who first published Tetris outside of Soviet Union, Pajitnov's home country. However, despite Pajitnov's name and face being on the game's title screen and box art, the PC version of the game clearly states that he only "endorses" and his only actual credits for the game is a "Special Thanks"."

The build we obtain appears final or near-final, tho admittedly the game is not particularly polished nor great, and was probably pulled out from release from that reason.

Note the dual control scheme, you'll have to hold a button and press a direction to move the top row of blocks.




The version we obtained has a bug preventing is to run on more systems, so we are also provided a patched version (thanks to Calindro for reverse engineering the timing bug and making that patch).

Graphics Assets



Additionally, we obtained through another person a Package of Graphics Source Assets. This is essentially a backup of some folders that some of the team used. We provided a unmodified folder and one with some of data converted to modern file formats. The package seemingly contains assets for both Game Gear and Game Boy version.

Enjoy!
Graphics Archives.png (132.62 KB)
Graphics Archives.png

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Post Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:23 pm
This message will auto destruct itself someday

+ Link to the Graphics Package:
https://www.smspower.org/uploads/Development/BreakThruGraphicsArchives1994.zip

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Post Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:48 pm
LOL !

Thankyou, I'll try it !
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:53 pm
I own a copy of this game for another platform. As I understand it, it's essentially the SameGame as Chain Shot and Swell Foop. Is this correct?
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Post Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:09 pm
Alexei Pajitnov did game endorsements at that time too, didn't he?
I have a game called ClockWerx, which I guess was for some computer platforms (though the one I have is the Super Famicom port). I think that was one sold with his name attached.

I have seen this title confused with a Data East shooter of the same name (though that game was coming close to being a decade older).
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Post Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:04 pm
Thank you for this new dump! Here a small gameplay:

 
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Post Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2021 6:20 pm
Ooh excellent!
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Post Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 9:04 am
Another amazing find, just wow. Thanks a lot Omar! *clap clap*
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Post Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:14 pm
I can't believe I'm so late for this, but I played through the first loop of levels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQyVyXwizls.

After that, it goes back to Berlin, with a harder difficulty. I don't know how many times it loops, if not forever. Maybe I'll try to tinker with a savestate eventually, dunno, it's not the best of times for me.
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:58 pm
Congrats for the awesome discover!! Really cool little game.
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 8:33 pm
Definitely feels like SameGame, which is a game that has been copied so much it's hard to believe, but I think BreakThru! might slightly predate it.
(Same Game was made in 1995, BreakThru! was made late 1994, I think.)
Any other variants of the game earlier than that?

The difference I see here is that BreakThru! is designed to be finishable, whereas SameGame (and other clones I've seen) seem to just last until you create an unwinnable board.
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