Days of Thunder (NES, Mindscape)

Days of Thunder
Developer: Mindscape Platform: NES This game has unused graphics. This game has a development article

This game was never completed and/or given a public release. As a result of this, keep in mind that the developers might have used or deleted some of the content featured here, had the game actually been released.

Mindscape's NES Days of Thunder was developed internally by only four people: Chris Oberth, Lou Haehn (program, design, audio), Mark Sprenger, and Keith Cooper (graphics).

Unlike most prototypes that are found on ROMs, this game was found as source code spread over 20 5¼" floppy disks that Chris had kept over the years. Chris unfortunately passed away in 2012, but his family sent the disks over to the Video Game History Foundation who, with much effort, were able to compile a complete working copy of the game.

Like the released version, the game uses 3D graphics, but that's about where its similarities end. The 3D effect in this game is in first-person (the released version is third-person), and for the qualifying races only. The main game is played from a bird's-eye view where the player must steer their car by pressing Up and Down.

When it came to testing both this version and the one developed by Beam Software, the QA testers preferred the latter, resulting in this version being shelved.

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Development Info

Paperboy Leftovers

Part of the graphics seem to have been written over the title screen graphics from the NES Paperboy, which had been published by Mindscape.

Days of Thunder	Paperboy