Syndicate

This prototype of Syndicate is owned by Retrology. Thanks to him for the pictures. By: Evan G Last updated: August 27, 2011

Syndicate is a game by Bullfrog Productions. The prototype uses a copy of Power Monger for the SFC as a donor (another Bullfrog game), with a sticker placed over the label. The prototype uses a custom PCB made by Ocean (the same one was used in a Rock N' Roll Racing prototype I own). This is a prototype of US version of the game.

Retrology attempted to dump this game with a Retrode, but was only able to dump the first 128 kB. Looking at the fragment of the rom image, it appears this prototype is different from the final release. I tried splicing the piece of ROM image to a completed binary, but it did not work. Within the binaries, there is a build date for the games:

• 11/10/1994 - Prototype
• 28/9/1994 - PAL
• 20/4/1995 - North America
• 31/3/1995 - Japan

As can be seen, the internal build date for the prototype post-dates the final build date for the PAL version of the game.

As luck would have it, the entire script for the game happened to be in the fragment of ROM image. Most of the text is the same between the various versions of the game. The following chuck is different between the prototype and European final version:

Europe:

SELL ORIGINAL GAME BY BULLFROG PRODUCTIONS LTD

Prototype:

SELL PLEASE WAIT ORIGINAL GAME BY BULLFROG PRODUCTIONS LTD

Between the Prototype and US version, there are three differences. The country "Venezuela" is spelled differently. References to the Super Scope (presumably if it was plugged in) was taken out of the US version:

Prototype:

MOUSE SUPER SCOPE ??????????? 

US version:

MOUSE PERIPHERAL PERIPHERAL

Also, the following text string is in the US version and not in the prototype:

FOR OCEAN  QUALITY ASSURANCE OCEAN QA

Though we don't have a full binary of this prototype, it is clear that this was some transitionary version between the European and US versions of the game.

Syndicate prototype

PCB

Download partial dump here