Monster Party

Monster Party is...well. It's one of those games that really doesn't lend itself well to description, but in one word, it's weird.

The Japanese version went unreleased, but it was apparently even more gory there...which is saying something considering that the stage intro, password screen, and second half of the first level are more or less oozing with blood.

Deleted Graphics
The gray inner-room graphics shown in these screenshots is an attempt to reconstruct (or visualize, in the second case) how these rooms originally looked in prerelease screenshots. In the final, all of these graphics were overwritten with blank tiles, leaving an empty room (with a pot in the case of the first room) with nothing but walls and a roof.

In the first room, the speaker is a platform that can be stood on. This was not changed when the graphics were deleted, meaning you can effectively stand on thin air.

There exists a poor-quality screenshot of the Japanese title screen which shows that the pumpkin used for a cursor was originally a head. Additionally, the giant spider boss who appears on the title screen was originally a rather grotesque human head with spider legs. Presumably, these touches were considered too scary for the release, although - as mentioned before - there is still masses of blood in the game (between-level and password screens, the second half of the first level). In prototype footage of a different (apparently later) build, the jack-o'-lantern boss was originally a reference to Planet of the Apes, and had a background which reflected this.

Unused Controller Code
Located at is a controller-checking routine that runs when the game starts (Stage 1 title card): AD 68 04:   lda P2InputNow ; ($0468) 85 10:      sta $10 AD 67 04:   lda P1InputNow ; ($0467) 18:         clc 65 10:      adc $10  ; Combine P1+P2 input C9 CF:      cmp #$CF ; Check if it matches CF (UDLRAB) D0 00:      bne #$00 ; Branch if not equal. Cheat code should follow, but...

...                 ; Too bad! There's nothing here. Code was removed and branch skips over nothing.

A9 80:      lda #$80 ; Branches to here, the next opcode. This cheat seems to have been disabled by removing the code immediately after the branch. To trigger it, hold Up + Down + Left + Right + A + B on Controllers 1 and 2, the easiest way being to hold Up + Left + A + B on the former and Down + Right on the latter.

Hidden Passwords
The game accepts 8 passwords in the following format, where # is a digit from 0 to 7 (periods are blanks/skulls): 055-.#.-... These passwords will start you on the numbered stage + 1 (so 055 0 would start you on Stage 1, etc.)

Wolf


A little wolf guy in a race car, found among the Stage 1 enemy graphics.

Music Notes


This musical note is stored with the graphics for the Stage 1 plant boss. Prototype footage shows that the boss originally spewed musical notes, back when it still had a microphone and amplifier; it's likely that one of the notes was overwritten with the bubble graphic seen in the final.



These notes are stored with the punk rocker boss of Stage 4. In the final game, he only shoots eighth notes at you.

Powerups


A series of unused powerups, made to resemble those from popular arcade games of the time. Unused code reveals that the game once utilized an incremental, item-based powerup system (similar to that of arcade shooters like Raiden) for Bert's shots, as opposed to the stage-based powerup system used in the final version.

Monkey/Bone


A cheeky monkey and bone projectile, stored with the other Stage 1 boss sprites.

Key


It's...a key. While you do receive keys after defeating certain bosses, you never actually see them as collectible items and the key graphic in the status bar looks very different than this sprite.

Totem Pole Boss


A bunch of totem pole faces for a scrapped boss, stored with the graphics for the giant rolling caterpillar boss of Stage 7.