Gumshoe

Gumshoe
Developer: Nintendo R&D1 Publisher: Nintendo Platform: NES Released in US: June 1986 Released in EU: June 15, 1988 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has revisional differences. This game has a notes page

Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Pixel male genitalia.

A detective (the titular "Gumshoe") named Stevenson must rescue his daughter Jennifer from the mob boss King Dom in this ridiculously difficult side-scrolling Zapper game, unreleased in Japan and long forgotten everywhere else.

Somewhat unique in the fact the VS Multisystem version was developed alongside the NES version.

Sub-Page

Notes

Unused Graphics

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: These bonus items might just be really well-hidden secret items, but I doubt it.

These bonus objects simply never appear in either loop on either version of the game. The bullet is a different graphic from the exploding bullet object that appears on the second loop onward (or from the outset of the VS version).

A Time graphic that seems to be intended for the in-game HUD but isn't used in either version. The time limit is pretty much never an issue, which might explain why this is unused.

"Go!" in the in-game HUD font, possibly intended to be used at the beginning of each level. Stevenson already automatically moves, which makes this graphic redundant.

One of King Dom's men, no doubt. He has a bullet which he would fire, and apparently you would somehow remove his pants and then undershorts. This graphic only appears in the VS version; the graphics are blanked out in the NES version.

A gargoyle enemy that does not appear on either loop, in either version, even with hard difficulty dip switches set.

Unused Music

A very short and very Tanaka-esque loop, located at track 8 in the NSF. It doesn't appear to be used in the VS. System version, either.

Version Differences

To do: Investigate VS. Gumshoe.

VS. System	NES

Aside from a myriad of gameplay differences that are outside the scope of this Wiki, one interesting change between the VS. System version and the NES version is the music in Stage 2. In the earlier VS. System version, this music is an almost exact cover of the song "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, which was a chart-topper at the time Gumshoe would have been in development. The NES version instead uses a piece more reminiscent of Gyromite, another game Hirokazu Tanaka composed for.

The theme used in VS. Gumshoe still exists in the NES version's ROM. Interestingly, the final Stage 2 theme appears as track 1 in the ROM's NSF followed by the Stage 1 theme as track 2, the unused Stage 2 theme as track 3, and so on, suggesting that the theme was indeed written specifically for the NES Gumshoe and tacked on to the rest of the transplanted music from the VS. System version (though a proper investigation of the VS. System version's data would be necessary to confirm this).