Dynamic Trial 7 (lost unreleased arcade racing game; 1993)

The title screen of the game.

Status: Lost

Dynamic Trial 7 was a 1993 arcade game developed by Toaplan. It was a vertical racing game where the PCBs could be linked for a multiplayer experience of up to four players. Players could select seven types of cars with their own unique racer, and use power-ups to impede the opponents' progress.

History

Dynamic Trial 7 was developed in very late 1993 and heavily promoted by Toaplan, but the feedback at location tests and events wasn't well enough for it to be released in arcades. When @GoldWing1992 on Twitter brought the game up to Tomonobu Kagawa (graphic designer for Truxton II), he stated that Naoki Ogiwara was involved in the graphic design. Toshiaki Tomizawa was also the project leader for Dynamic Trial 7. As of September 2022, the rights are currently owned by Tatsujin, Masahiro Yuge's company.

Availability

During the early 2010s, a cabinet of the game was playable at the Try Amusement Tower in Akihabara, though it isn't likely that they still have it, nor is it known where the whereabouts of the PCB are. At the Toaplan fansite shootingstar.game.coocan.jp, someone by the name of "Mr. Kakiuchi" provided a sticker of a limited edition Dynamic Trial 7 certificate congratulating players of the game.

In June 2016, arcade PCB collector Eric "ShouTime" Chung acquired a Dynamic Trial 7 PCB, and posted a few photos and a video of the attract mode. However, his copy was silently put on hold and not dumped. Following the exA-Arcadia/MAME debacle at the end of 2021, that PCB's data won't be leaking any time soon.

In June 2018, Twitter user @7144GMI uploaded a different (but still un-emulated) recording of the attract mode, which additionally shows the name entry at the end with the following names in order: "OGIYAN" (Naoki Ogiwara), "TOMY!" (Toshiaki Tomizawa), "MON.!", "SHINYA", "MITURU", "MIKIO" (Mikio Yamaguchi), and "UCCHAN".

In late September through early October 2022, MAME developer David "MameHaze" Haywood built a driver for Dynamic Trial 7, showing that the game ran on a specialized modification of the Toaplan 2 hardware used by the company's other games at the time. The pull request is currently closed in regards to the authenticity of the PCBs.