Wheel of Fortune (NES)

Wheel of Fortune
Developer: Rare Publisher: GameTek Platform: NES Released in US: September 1988 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused text. This game has revisional differences.

The NES Wheel of Fortune is the first of the console's four adaptations of the famous game show, and probably the most faithful translation of that group...even if the top amount in each round is a paltry $1,000.

Unused Coca-Cola Logos

Two unused versions of the classic Coca-Cola logo. It would appear that during the game's development, Coca-Cola wanted to advertise its ownership of Merv Griffin Enterprises (the company that created and produced Wheel), but the sale of MGE to Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc. in 1988 scuttled the idea.

The first logo is loaded into VRAM on the title screen, and was likely intended to appear in the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen (the palette used for the text fits the logo perfectly). The graphics data seems to have been shifted upwards by several pixels (note the bits of ribbon below the logo), and most of the ribbon is missing.

The second logo is loaded into VRAM on the copyright screen. While this version contains the missing ribbon tiles, it also has a couple of miscolored pixels inside the top loop of the "L".

Unused Puzzles

At the start of the puzzle bank (109D0 in the ROM) is a puzzle not referenced at all by the game:

WHEEL
OF
FORTUNE

It seems to be a copy of the text shown on the puzzle board while the game is setting up, but the data for that is located at 6BB-6FA in the ROM.

The puzzle selection routine is unable to select the final puzzle in the puzzle list:

FIRST DAY
ON THE JOB

(Source: Puzzle list - TASVideos)

Unused Wheel Wedges

The game supports a lot more variety in Wheel wedges than is actually used, including values much higher than the normal top dollar of $1,000 (although oddly, despite being released nearly a year after they were introduced, neither $2,500 nor $3,500 are present).

Wedge ID	Letter Value	Notes
0D	$2,000	Top value used on the daytime version from 1979-89.
0E	$3,000
0F	$4,000
10	$5,000	Top value used on the nighttime version.
11	$6,000	Not used on the show until a special week in 2014, replacing $5,000.
12	$7,000
13	$8,000
14	$9,000	Space appears glitched on the Wheel due to the lack of a 9 graphic.
15	$10,000	Displays a value of "0" and is glitched on the Wheel, but awards $10,000 properly. The show did not introduce a $10,000 space until 1994, and even then it was a cash prize.
2F	$450
30	$550
31	$650	Retired in 1979, but returned in 2012.
33	$850	Retired in 1979, but returned in 2021.
34	$950	Space appears glitched on the Wheel due to the lack of a 9 graphic. This space was not introduced until the Celebrity Wheel of Fortune specials in January 2021.
35	$1,050	Shows a value of "5" and is glitched on the Wheel, but awards $1,050 properly.
B4	$900	Space appears glitched on the Wheel due to the lack of a 9 graphic.
B5	$1,000	Shows absolutely no value and appears glitched on the Wheel, but awards $1,000 properly. Why this wasn't fixed up and used instead of 0C, who knows.

Revisional Differences

For reasons unknown, one puzzle was changed between the Revision 0 and Revision 1 releases:

Revision 0	Revision 1
I CAN'T GET NO RELIEF	I DON'T GET NO RESPECT

The former is a line from Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, while the latter was Rodney Dangerfield's catchphrase.