Rare NES Game MagMax Prototype

                                                                             What is a game Prototype?
A prototype is one of the first copies of the game, programmed by the programmers & mainly used to test the game for bugs and to display their ideas. Prototype Nintendo games usually contains Eprom, as opposed to the actual production roms. These are rare items and seldom found "in the wild"





MagMax is an arcade game which was developed by Nihon Bussan, and published by FCI. The game was released in Japan on March 18, 1986, and in the United States in October, 1988. A horizontal scrolling shooter, players controlled the title hover ship in an attempt to completely construct the ship into a giant robot and to destroy any enemies attempting to stop it.

I recently received this game in a trade for repair services.  This is the first game prototype to enter my collection and I wanted to share the images with the public.

Buying prototypes is risky business and the board must be viewed and authenticated by experienced collectors.  As stated before prototype games usually contain Eproms, as opposed to the actual production roms.
Eproms are easily identified by the center clear window that is often covered with a protective decal. Eproms are early forms of rewritable chips, the chips can be exposed to strong UV light (with decal removed) and erased.  Very popular and economical process in the 1980s when testing and writing Roms.

In the future I may make this Rom available to the public but so far the game seems identical to the final 1988 release.