Thin Ice

Thin Ice
Also known as: Duncan's Thin Ice (title screen) Developer: Mattel Electronics Publisher: INTV Platform: Intellivision Released in US: August 1986 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has hidden bonus content.

Thin Ice is an icy Qix clone.

Voochko on Ice

Hidden within the game's data is Voochko on Ice, a Winter Olympics-themed reskin of Thin Ice starring the 1984 event's mascot, Vučko. It can be accessed by holding Enter on the Left Controller and Clear on the Right Controller, then pressing Reset.

The changes are rather minimal: Duncan is replaced with Vučko, the monochrome dancing penguins are replaced with colorful dancing Cossacks (with new names for everyone except Bobo), and an extra item is placed on the field which resembles a bottle of vodka.

The history of this reskin is quite complicated: after going through several name changes, Duncan's Thin Ice was turned into Voochko on Ice by the request of Mattel's marketing department. However, Mattel Electronics - with the permission of their vice-president, Gabriel Baum - secretly hid Duncan within the data of Voochko. "Voodun" had a programmer-exclusive counterpart nicknamed "Dunvoo", which had Voochko as the hidden version.

Voochko on Ice was never released as intended due to Mattel Electronics' collapse. The released game, as you may have gathered, is the Dunvoo version.

(Source: Digital Press (Blue Sky Rangers))

Hidden Credit

Present on the leftmost mountain of the title screen are the initials "JH". This refers to the game's programmer, Julie Hoshizaki.