Proto:DuckTales (NES)/Feb 5, 1989

This is a sub-page of Proto:DuckTales (NES).

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: Cover level differences Cover cutscene going back to duckburg differences Cover unimplemented stuff (ending, locked doors, etc.) Cover control differences Cover glitch differences.

Download DuckTales (Feb 5, 1989 Prototype) ROM and NSF File: DuckTales (Feb 5, 1989 Prototype).7z (128 KB) (info)

Title Screen

February Build	May Build	Final

The differences are easy to notice right off the bat. The logo is less shaded and uses a different palette, the background is darker, there's no copyright text to be found and all of the options are arranged vertically and colored white, with a mysterious "INFORMATION" option that was later replaced with the CONTINUE option from the May build (which would eventually be removed in the final game). Scrooge also winks at a much faster rate. Though the main theme does, eventually, play, it is led off by a small portion of Jungle's/The Amazon's opening. (When the song repeats, the small sequence from Jungle/The Amazon does not repeat with the main theme.) This is probably due to the Amazon song preceding the title theme in the internal soundtrack

This build lacks a cursor for the menu and the difficulty options aren't implemented. Pressing Start or Select begins the game.

Monetary Inflation

Item	February Build	May Build	Final
Small Diamond	$100	$200	$2,000
Large Diamond	$300	$1,000	$10,000
Red Diamond	N/A	$3,000	$50,000
Hidden Treasure	N/A	$10,000	$1,000,000

All diamonds would wind up having their values boosted a bit for the May Build, and then again for the final.

Red Diamonds aren't yet implemented in this prototype, and treasures are valueless. Pressing Select to refill your life at the cost of $3,000,000 is also not present yet.

Map Screen

February Build	May Build	Final

Scrooge's nephews, the platforms they stand on, the arrow on the map view, and the preview of the level's treasures haven't been implemented yet.
Levels can be re-entered repeatedly after clearing them.
Clearing all five levels does not yet trigger the message from Glomgold or take you to the final stage.

Debug Features

• Holding Left or Up on the D-Pad on controller 2 disables collision for ground blocks. Up will disable vertical transitions, a feature that was left in the final version.
• Pressing A + B on the same frame will reset the game.
• Holding A when entering a boss room will replace the boss with Dracula Duck. However, this only works properly in the Ghost House Transylvania, and will cause various glitches if used elsewhere.

Gameplay and Level Differences

General Differences and Bugs

• A handful of music tracks and sound effects are not yet present. This includes the invincibility, boss, and bonus stage themes, as well as the "treasure collected" and "lost a life" jingles. Note that the "game over" jingle is present.
• Completed levels can still be selected on the map screen. The final stage does not trigger upon completion of all levels.
• The timer has not been implemented yet.
• Leading zeroes are not yet trimmed from Scrooge's money totals.
• Pausing the game does not display which key items have been collected, as they have largely not been implemented at this point in development.
• NPC dialogue often fails to render properly, instead showing a glitchy sprite in the top-left corner of the dialogue area. You can still advance the dialogue by pressing the A button, though.
• After the first bounce off an enemy or destructible object, Scrooge's cane remains deployed until the player lands on a solid surface. This makes traversing the surface of the Himalayas rather tedious, as Scrooge will frequently get stuck in the snow when he lands.
• After obtaining a level's boss treasure, Scrooge can still be controlled for a few seconds before warping back to the level select screen. The fanfare and time bonus have not been implemented yet.
• Touching Launchpad immediately triggers the "Return to Duckburg" sequence. No dialogue is present in the ROM at this point.
• The "Return to Duckburg" sequence is missing some cloud tiles, leaving black squares in the sky. The HUD is also entirely black, aside from the sprite-based elements.
• The food items that Mrs. Beakley throws fall off the screen very quickly, making them much more difficult to collect. These drift down much more slowly in the final game.
• Events that unlock areas or change the background tilemap are not yet implemented. Locked doors and the wall at the end of the Moon surface can be passed through.
• The game does not yet keep track of revealed items and treasure chests, meaning they will respawn indefinitely when going offscreen and returning.
• Scrooge cannot interact with Beagle Boys, though objects such as red barrels can still defeat them.
• Large treasure chests cannot be opened.
• All bosses require only three hits to defeat.

Jungle/The Amazon

Prototype	Final

• An extra statue is present at the left side of the underground area and is reachable with a pogo jump, rendering the red barrel pointless. This was removed in the final game, requiring Scrooge to smack the barrel to the left and bounce off of it to get on top of the tall statue.
• The secret area to the left of Launchpad is inaccessible, as touching him immediately exits the level. Pressing Up/Left on controller 2 to wrap to the top of the screen reveals that the area is present and populated with chests, though.
• One bee flies through the center of the screen during the vine-climbing sequence. In the final, two bees are present.
• There are no spikes present during the boulder chase sequence.
• The large statue asks for $3000 to pass through, though it does not actually subtract the money from your total. The "YES - A/NO - B" prompt is present in the dialogue, but is non-functional.
• A small piece of ground in the final is not present during the falling rocks sequence; players can simply walk forward to avoid the hazards.
• Additional red barrels are stacked at the boss' entrance.

Ghost House/Transylvania

• The mirror leading to the room with the Underground/African Mines key is accessible at all times, though the chest cannot be opened. (However, early text for the key is present in the ROM.) Entering the left mirror returns Scrooge to the main hall, much like it does during the final stage in the final build.
• The wall to Huey's left is not yet present, meaning Scrooge does not have to defeat the Beagle Boy to rescue him. Not that it matters at this point, since the Beagle Boys cannot harm Scrooge anyway.
• The secret treasure chests that appear on top of certain suits of armor must be hit from the side or top to open them. This renders a few chests unobtainable; in these cases, there is not enough room between the armor and the ceiling to reach the chest. The final game fixes this by requiring Scrooge to hit the armor once more to open the chest, which causes the item to slide towards him.
• The entire minecart area and the mirror leading to it are not yet present in this build.
• The secret area for the life extension is present, but the chest merely contains a large diamond at this point.
• Fighting and defeating Dracula Duck on this stage activates the final gameplay sequence, but it is incomplete: while the game does move Scrooge to the alternate boss room with the rope and pillar, both Glomgold and the final treasure chest are absent, effectively ending the game at this point. Text for this sequence is present in the ROM, but is unused at this point in development.

Underground/African Mines

• Louie is present at the entrance to the mine and talks about the key hidden in the Ghost House/Transylvania, but does not actually warp you there yet. Scrooge can simply pass through the door.
• Touching Webby from above (while Scrooge is overlapping the HUD) will cause her dialogue to appear as corrupted sprites. This was fixed in later builds by placing a ceiling above her, though the final game renders text to the background layer anyway, rendering this fix pointless.

Snow Mountain/The Himalayas

• The falling icicles in the hallway leading to Bubba cannot harm Scrooge yet, and merely disappear when touched.
• Bubba has a two-frame animation in the prototype, which loops while he's in the ice. Touching Bubba triggers his dialogue, but does not release him from the ice, nor reveal the treasure. Touching the ice block also causes Scrooge to pass behind the background layer, a feature that was removed from the final game.
• The hockey stick-wielding ducks cannot actually hit the ice blocks yet, and will merely skate away when Scrooge approaches them.
• After you return to the main menu and your score is totaled up, the last "N" in "SNOW MOUNTAIN" doesn't get erased, resulting in a "LAND SELECTN" menu. This bug still exists in the May prototype.

Moon Surface/The Moon

• There are no bottomless pits implemented in the stage yet, making the path to the underground area much less dangerous.
• Although Webby is present above the door leading to the remote control and even asks for the UFO key, the key itself is not yet present; the chest that should contain it instead produces a large diamond. The graphics and pickup text are not yet present in the ROM.
• Touching Gizmoduck's (or "Roboduck's") remote control triggers the dialogue stating that he will break the wall at the end of the stage. However, the remote does not disappear, and Gizmoduck never shows up. On the plus side, Scrooge can simply pass through the green tiles and drop into the underground area.

Music Differences

To do: Many more differences. Every song seems to have at least some slightly different instrumentation, including the Transylvania theme.

Title Screen

February Build
May Build/Final

Slower than the final version (matching the pace of the original song), and with slightly rougher instrumentation all around.

Land Select

February Build
May Build/Final

The land select screen uses a completely different music piece in the prototype! It's much longer and less repetitive than the final song, but doesn't fit a menu particularly well.

Ghost House/Transylvania

February Build / May Build
Final

Transylvania's stage theme is completely different. This music survived unaltered until at least the May Build.

Moon Surface/The Moon

February Build
May Build
Final

About 20% slower than in the final. The song itself is a bit more fleshed out than in the final version; the melody was unfortunately simplified for the final game.

Graphical Differences

Prototype	Final

Scrooge heads representing extra lives (à la Mega Man) were shrunk and given bodies.

Prototype	Final

Aside from the tombstone's cross in the Ghost House being removed for obvious reasons, a wall tile was given the more stunning glow up of three pixels being changed.

Prototype	Final

While unused since the sequence he's in wasn't programmed yet, Flintheart Glomgold would've had an entirely different sprite for racing Scrooge to the treasure in the final boss. Here, he reuses the body of Scrooge's climbing sprites, but with his own unique head sprites that would eventually become leftovers in the final game, as they can still be found near Magica's graphics.

Prototype	Final

While also unused, Scrooge's good ending sprite used to have pupils.

Prototype	Final

An 8x8 placeholder tile, found within Scrooge's player graphic bank near the beginning of the ROM, was replaced with the graphic used for moving platforms.

Unused Graphics

The clouds in the sequence where Launchpad flies Scrooge back home have a few graphics unmapped, leaving black squares where the tiles needed, and present in-ROM, should be.

Bubba has graphics for eyes that are loaded when his sprite is on-screen in Snow Mountain, but they're never properly seen since the body sprite is always on top of it, and unlike other characters, Bubba doesn't have holes in his sprite where these eyes can be seen. They've been overwritten with duplicated graphics of the Green Cheese of Longevity by the May 25th prototype.

Gyro Gearloose and Roboduck (Gizmoduck) both have graphics present, but Bonus rooms haven't been implemented yet, and the sequence for Roboduck blowing up the wall on the Moon hasn't been programmed yet, leaving these unused.

Text Comparison

The game's dialogue strings are stored at ROM address 0x138B8. They remained largely the same in the later May build, though several misspellings, typos, and strange line breaks were fixed, and a couple of new messages were added. These were all rewritten to sound less awkward and take advantage of the expanded dialogue area in the final game.

February Build	May Build	Final	Notes
THE BOSS CAN BE DEFEATED BY LOWERING SCROOGE' S CANE.	THE BOSS CAN BE DEFEATED BY LOWERING SCROOGES CANE.	USE YOUR CANE TO DEFEAT THE TREASURE KEEPERS.
OH NO! HUEY HAS BEEN CAPTURED ! HELP HUEY.		HELP! HUEY HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED! SAVE HIM PLEASE.
THANKS SCROOGE. BEWARC THIS HOUSE HAS AN ILLUSIO- N WALL INSIDE OF IT.	THANKS SCROOGE. BEWARE THIS HOUSE HAS AN ILLU- SION WALL INSIDE OF IT.	THANKS UNCLE SCROOGE. GUESS WHAT. THIS HOUSE HAS AN ILLUSION WALL.
YOU CAN'T ENTER THIS HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY. THE KEY IS SUPPOSED TO BE INSIDE THE GHOST HOUSE.		YOU'LL NEED A KEY TO GET IN. IT'S IN TRANSYLVANIA.
TRY GETTING ON THIS SEESAW.		USE THE SEESAW UNCLE SCROOGE.
UNCLE SCROOGE IT LOOKS LIKE BUBBA DUCK IS LOST SPMEWHE- RE BACK HERE. PLEASE HELP HIM .	UNCLE SCROOGE IT LOOKS LIKE BUBBA DUCK IS LOST SOME- WHERE BACK HERE. PLEASE HELP HIM .	BUBBA'S TRAPPED IN THE ICE! PLEASE HELP HIM.
THANK YOU SCROOGE. TO SHOW MY APPR- ECIATION I'LL GIVE YOU THIS TR- EASURE.	THANK YOU SCROOGE. TO SHOW MY APPRE- CIATION I'LL GIVE YOU THIS TREASURE .	YOU SAVE ME! GOOD! I SHOW YOU SECRET TREASURE.
UNCLE SCROOGE ROBODUC- K'S REMOTE CONTROL HAS BEEN STOLEN BY A SPAEE MONSTER. IF ONLY ROBODUCK WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BREAK DOWN THIS WALL.	UNCLE SCROOGE ROBO- DUCK'S REMOTE CONTROL HAS BEEN STOLEN BY A SPACE MONSTER. IF YOU COULD FIND IT ROBODUCK COULD BREAK DOWN THIS WALL.	FIND GIZMO DUCK'S REMOTE CONTROL! THEN HE CAN BLAST THE WALL.	Gizmo Duck was known as "Roboduck" in the Japanese cartoon. However, he's "Gizmo Duck" in the earliest known Japanese prototype build.
ALRIGHT I'LL CALL ROBODUCK WITH THIS REMOTE CONTROL AND HAVE HIM BREAKE DOWN THE WALL THAT IS IN THE WAY.	ALRIGHT I'LL CALL ROBODUCK WITH THIS REMOTE CONTROL AND HAVE HIM BREAK DOWN THE WALL THAT IS IN THE WAY.	BLESS ME BAGPIPES! NOW GIZMO DUCK CAN BLAST THAT WALL.
THE KEY IS HIDDEN SOMEWHE- RE INSIDE THIS UFO. IT SEEMS WE CAN'T MOVE FURTHER WITHOUT THIS KEY .	THE KEY IS HIDDEN SOME- WHERE INSIDE THIS UFO . IT SEEMS WE CAN'T MOVE FURTHER WITHOUT IT.	THERE'S A KEY INSIDE THE UFO. WE CAN'T GO ON WITHOUT IT.
PAY $3000 IF YOU WANT TO GO THRO- UGH HERE. YES - A NO  - B.	PAY $3000 IF YOU WANT TO GO THROUGH HERE. YES - A NO  - B.	PAY $300000 TO PASS THROUGH HERE. YES - A. NO  - B.
SHOOT I NEVER THOUGHT DRACULA DUCK WOULD BE DESTROY- ED. BUT WE CAN'T GIVE YOU THE TREASUR- ES. IF YOU WANT IT THAT BADLY YOU'LL HAVE TO CATCH UP TO ME.	SHOOT I NEVER THOUGHT DRACULA DUCK WOULD BE DE- STROYED. BUT WE WON'T GIVE YOU THE TREA- SURES. IF YOU WANT IT THAT BADLY YOU'LL HAVE TO CATCH UP TO ME.	YOU MAY HAVE BEATEN DRACULA DUCK BUT NOT ME! IF YOU WANT THE TREASURES BACK YOU'LL HAVE TO CATCH ME.	Unused in February build.
DARN! GRAMGOLD TOOK THE TREASUR- ES. WE'LL HAVE TO START OVER FROM DRACULA DUCK.	DARN! GLOMGOLD TOOK THE TREA- SURES. WE'LL HAVE TO START OVER FROM DRACULA DUCK.	CURSE ME KILTS! GLOMGOLD HAS THE TREASURES. I MUST FIGHT DRACULA DUCK AGAIN.	Unused in February build. "Gramgold" is a plausible, but wrong, transcription of the Japanese name グラムゴールド (Guramugōrudo).
I GOT THE HIDDEN TREASURE .		IT'S A HIDDEN TREASURE.	Unused in February build.
I GOT THE SKELETON KEY FOR LAND-3.	I GOT THE SKELETON KEY FOR UNDER- GROUND.	EUREKA! IT'S THE SKELETON KEY TO THE MINE.	Unused in February build. Likely written before the stages had proper names. In the Japanese prototype and release, this area is still known as "Underground".
N/A	UNCLE SCROOGE ARE YOU GOING BACK TO YOUR HOME. YES - A NO  - B.	YOU WANT A LIFT BACK TO DUCKBURG MR. MC D. YES - A. NO  - B.	Not present in February build.
N/A	I'VE GOT THE KEY FOR THE UFO.	IT'S THE KEY TO THE UFO.	Not present in February build.
I BROUGHT YOU A PRSENT KING OF TERRA FERMICS.		HERE'S A GIFT FOR YOU OH KING OF THE TERRA FERMIES.	Unused in all builds. In the Japanese prototype and release, it's been replaced with an empty string.