Mr. Bill's Neighborhood (lost build of cancelled Atari 2600 game; 1983)

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Mr. Bill's Neighborhood Unreleased2600 Game.jpg

Flyer of the game.

Status: Lost

Mr. Bill's Neighborhood is an cancelled 1983 Atari 2600 game based on a clay figurine character from Saturday Night Live by Walter Williams. The game was developed and published by Data Age and planned to released in April 1983. If this was released, it would have been the first Mr. Bill video game. The game was shown at the 1983 Winter CES.[1]

In this game, you would try to save Mr. Bill and his family away from the neighborhood from their arch rival Sluggo. Mr. Bill's travels would have been hampered by speeding traffic, streets with dead end alleys and the ever-present Mr. Hands who would grab you and push you toward Sluggo.

Along with another one of Data Age's licensed games, Smokey Bear, both games were finished and ready to be released but were cancelled[2] due to their previously license game Journey Escape did so poorly that they couldn't afford to pay the licensing fees and an another reason for their cancellation was the 1983 video game crash. According to an article in the October 1983 issue of Video Games magazine (page 32), when Data Age folded, the license for the game was sent back to Mr. Bill creator Walter Williams.

After the cancellation of the game, no Mr. Bill games had been made until 2010, when two Mr. Bill games were released in the App Store by Capcom.

No prototypes of the game have surfaced.

References

  1. Atari 2600 unreleased games list. Retrieved 14 May '16.
  2. Atari HQ Page about Data Age. Retrieved 13 May '16.