Family Circuit '91

Family Circuit '91
Developer: Game Studio Publisher: Namco Platform: NES Released in JP: July 19, 1991 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material.

Unused Graphics

An unused logo for Knight Games can be found in a headered ROM at 0x81600. It might have been intended for the game's intro, as it is within its PPU bank. However, it's overwritten with the game's logo during the intro.

Also there is an other unused logo "End's".

Knight Games refers to the developer Satoshi Naito, as his last name in katakana is a direct translation of the word "Knight/Night". End's is Masanobu Endo. These graphics were used in other Namco titles. For example, the End's logo was used in The Quest of Ki, so it's possible these were leftovers from another game.

(Source: Cah4e3)

Unused Text

The Reset routine uses string

KNIGHT

as a RAM signature to test if the game were powered on or just reset.

RAM Test

Some of the Namco games which use the 19 mapper contains also the specific self-test routine. It can test and initialize the internal RAM buffers. Just like some other Namco games but much simpler somehow. In order to run these tests you must plug in a special device to the Famicom Expansion Port. This device just takes one bit of data and immediately returns it inverted to the data port, there is no FIFOs inside.

When the program detects the device presence, it performs RAM test and initialization. If RAM is already tested/initialized, the screen will turn blue. If RAM isn't initialized, but after init and test all is fine, then the screen will turn yellow or pink. If, even after the reinitialization, RAM test fails, then the screen will turn red.

After the tests, the program goes to the infinite loop, so you must unplug special device to boot into the game. Using the Game Genie code GAXTNAEI you can skip the special device check and jump directly to the RAM initialization routine.