Atari Opens Preorders for Save Mary — the Unreleased Game from 1991 Finally Gets Official 2600 Cartridge Release
Atari is excited to announce preorders for a Save Mary collectible Atari 2600 cartridge. Each cartridge comes in a special silver collectors edition box and includes a full-color user manual. Only 500 copies are available for $59.99 each.
View the Save Mary cartridge here: https://atari.com/products/save-mary-limited-edition
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.”
The goal of the game is to save Mary, who has somehow got herself stuck in a steep canyon that’s rapidly filling with water. Fortunately, there happens to be a crane at the top of the canyon. You must use the crane to build a platform out of blocks that Mary can use to escape the rising water. Once the platform is high enough, you can pull her to safety with the crane. If you swing a block into Mary or drop one on top of her, you fail to save her.
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.
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.
To learn more about the Atari XP initiative and follow stories about the many included games’ inception, visit the official website.
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