If you appreciate the work done within the wiki, please consider supporting The Cutting Room Floor on Patreon. Thanks for all your support!

Proto:Major Havoc

From The Cutting Room Floor
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Cactus 2.0!
This article has just been started and needs the article basics added.
Help us out and add them.
Elementary, my dear Cactus.
This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

This page details one or more prototype versions of Major Havoc.

This is a prototype of Major Havoc, under a working title of "Alpha One". So far as the specific role this ROMset served, lead developer Owen Rubin believes it may have been a location test.

(Source: Owen Rubin)


Intro

The introductory text is worded differently, and the enemy descriptions are not present.

Prototype Final
AlphaOne Title.png
"Catastrofighter" is totally a better name.
EONS AGO, THE EVIL VAXIAN EMPIRE OVERRAN THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY AND PUSHED HUMANITY ONTO THE TINY PLANET STAKK. HERE, THE VAXIANS LOCKED OUR ANCESTORS IN WITH A STOPALL FIELD WHICH STILL RINGS THE PLANET.

THE VAXIAN EMPIRE DECAYED, AND ALL BUT A SMALL CLUSTER OF VAXIANS DIED. YET, VAXIAN SPACE STATIONS, CONTROLLED AND DEFENDED BY ROBOTS, STILL PATROL THE GALAXY AND TRACK DOWN INTRUDERS.

OUR SCIENTISTS HAVE JUST CREATED A TEMPORARY WORMHOLE THROUGH THE STOPALL FIELD. YOU HAVE BEEN PICKED TO FLY ALPHA ONE AN EXPERIMENTAL ASTRO-FIGHTER, TO THE VAXIAN HOMEWORLD. THERE YOU MUST DESTROY THE SHIELD GENERATOR TO FREE THE HUMAN RACE.

BUT BEWARE!!!!!

VAXIAN SPACE STATIONS ARE WELL EQUIPPED. THEY WILL ANALYZE YOUR SHIP FOR SPECIAL FUNCTIONS. WATCH YOUR SCANNER FOR INTERCEPTED MESSAGES THAT MAY BE HELPFUL IN THE FUTURE.

YOU ARE MAJOR HAVOC, THE LEADER OF A BRAVE LITTER OF CLONES. YOU ARE THEM, THEY ARE YOU, ALL FROM ONE, ONE FROM ALL, FIGHTING FOR HUMANITY.....

EONS AGO THE EVIL VAXXIAN EMPIRE OVERRAN THE GALAXY. MOST OF YOUR ANCESTORS WERE ENSLAVED AND TAKEN TO THE VAXXIAN HOMEWORLD OF MAYNARD. ONLY A FEW SCIENTISTS ESCAPED.

TODAY, THEIR EMPIRE IS ALL BUT VANISHED. YET VAXXIAN SPACE STATIONS, CONTROLLED AND DEFENDED BY ROBOTS, STILL PATROL THE GALAXY AND KEEP YOUR PEOPLE PRISONER.

THE SMALL BAND OF SCIENTISTS CLONED YOU, MAJOR HAVOC, TO FLY YOUR CATASTROFIGHTER THROUGH A WORMHOLE IN SPACE TO LEAD YOUR CLONE ARMY AGAINST THE DREADED VAXXIAN ROBOT ARMADA. DESTROY THE ENEMY SPACE STATIONS AND LAND ON THE PLANET OF VAXXX TO FREE YOUR PEOPLE.

(If DIP Switch is not set to Free Play) FOR ONLY X COIN(S) YOU CAN NOW FINANCE Y CLONES.

(If DIP Switch is set to Free Play) CLONES ARE FREE, WE ARE GIVING THEM AWAY.

YOU MAY EVEN EARN A BONUS CLONE NOW AND THEN.

Aesthetic Differences

  • No music is present in Alpha One, and most of the sound effects are radically different.
  • The font is more jittery in Alpha One.
  • Many graphical effects are different in this prototype, including the explosion at the end of each space station stage.

Diagnostics Differences

Prototype Final
FFFFFFFF
MajorHavoc Bookkeeping.png
(In order)
  • Tally of one player games, Time
  • Tally of two player games, time

The rest are unknown currently.

(In order)
  • Adaptive difficulty settings
  • Coinage settings
  • Attract sounds
  • Various dip switches
  • Roller position
  • Difficulty
  • Sound Test
  • Live Settings Readout
  • Score Settings Readout


  • There seems to be a small status display consisting of various Xs at the bottom right of the screen. It is currently unknown what these represent, and the lead developer has no memory of their presence.
  • The maintenance mode mode dipswitch behaves differently, creating a screen overlay that displays a statistics screen. This screen attempts to display various statistics (eg. playtime, though not all are currently known), but fails. Owen has suggested this may be tied to MAME not emulating certain PRAM functions.
(Source: Owen Rubin)

Gameplay Differences

This isn't actually true in this version.
  • The single-use shield is seemingly not present, though it appears to have been planned by this point in development as the stage 3 hint text refers to it.


  • This might be an emulation bug, but the maze stage opener's vectors either are absent or blink in and out of existence. This makes the stages substantially more difficult.