2025-01-26
In 1987, Hybrid Arts released the claim to fame of Xanth Software F/X--MIDI Maze, a game for the Atari ST where multiple machines can duke it out in a pseudo-3D maze as a bunch of floating smiley faces. It accrued attention before and after its release as a result of its networked multiplayer feature, allowing up to sixteen players by forming a ring of STs through the MIDI IN/OUT ports. Yes, a protocol dedicated to powering musical instruments was used to power a first-person shooter's Local Area Network!
Xanth subsequently produced a port for the Atari 8-bit line, with multiple options for the multiplayer network, but its 1989 release was cancelled. With the publishing help of Bullet Proof Software, they also produced a Game Boy port called Faceball 2000, which supports the system's Four Player Adapter for four players rather than the Link Cable's two, as well as an unreleased custom cable that aimed to allow for up to 16 players. After that came a SNES version with two players maximum, a PC-Engine CD version with four players maximum via the Multitap, and a Game Gear version with two players maximum.
Even after Xanth went under, BPS was set to publish a version of Faceball for the infamous Virtual Boy, known as Niko-chan Battle in Japan. Not only did this get cancelled, but the Link Cable set to release for the system didn't come out, either, and the game was meant to use that. The only other entry after that was Faceball 3000 for Shockwave in 2001. I'm not sure the IP has made an official appearance since, apart from the MIDI Maze cameo in 2024's Tetris Forever.
Oh yeah, and the Atari ST got the unofficial "Plus" version of the original game, as well as a II and III. Xanth had nothing to do with these as far as I know.
Now let's backtrack a little bit. We know that Faceball 2000 was a title given to two portable games--one for Nintendo's Game Boy, and one for Sega's Game Gear. If you know much else about portable gaming in the early 90s, you may also know about another competitor here, the Atari Lynx. Releasing shortly after the monochrome green Game Boy in 1989, the Lynx boasted a full-color display, with hardware features better suited for a pseudo-3D aesthetic like in Faceball than the tile-based Game Boy. Furthermore, its ComLynx feature for networked multiplayer allowed for more than two players out of the box, unlike the strictly two-way Game Boy cable.
Despite the Lynx packing more potential to the state-of-the-art crowd, it didn't do nearly as well as the Game Boy in the end. With an abysmal battery life powered by double the battery count, and a measly double-digit games library, it just didn't get very far before Atari discontinued it in 1995. Meanwhile, the Game Boy was still getting years of more support, even in its own lesser years before the Color variant dropped, helping give it new life until 2003.
The Lynx also didn't get MIDI Maze/Faceball. Its seemingly less-suited competitors did, but the poor kitty here didn't. I think the game would've been a great fit for the platform, especially with the Atari brand already being graced by the game's ST version. It makes one wonder if a Lynx version was ever considered.
Well, I've been on a bit of a MIDI Maze/Faceball history kick lately, putting some of my findings out there onto The Cutting Room Floor. Amidst my search throughout old webpages and usenet threads, I've come across some mentions of higher-ups throwing the idea at the wall back in the day.
First, let's start off with these ramblings by former Atari shareholder Jeremy Wilburne. I found this page linked on Don Komarechka's fansite for the Game Boy game. It's mostly just other Atari stuff until one last portion at the very end:
Oh, one other thing, regarding the Lynx. Back in 1990, Bob Brodie, who held the publicity job before Don Thomas at Atari, came to my computer users group to talk about Atari. Bob mentioned that he tried convincing the Atari programmers to convert the Atari ST game Midi Maze over the the Lynx, since it was so hot at the time as the pioneer of networked video games. The programmers thought it was a stupid idea.
So as early as 1990, we have a PR person from Atari interested in a Lynx version of MIDI Maze. Yet their programmers thought the idea was stupid when confronted about it? What boring taste they must've had. Or maybe they didn't see the game as suitable for a portable, I don't think BPS's Game Boy game was revealed publicly until Winter CES the year after. Whatever the reason, Bob Brodie's interest didn't seem to amount to anything.
Okay, now let's go over the usenet posts I found. This first one is from a June 1992 thread called "MidiMaze 4 LYNX!", where the OP, Oscar Fowler, is petitioning Atari to do just that, even claiming Xanth wanted to make a Lynx version. The reply from Stephen H. Landrum, apparently a former Epyx employee, says this:
It has been suggested many times in the past. The head of Atari's marketing (at least at the time when I was at Epyx) hated Midi Maze, and thought that the only games that should be done for the Lynx were old coin-op retreads. Leonard Tramiel thought that Midi Maze should be done for the Lynx, but he had no influence over or much contact with anyone working on Lynx stuff. Epyx even started a Midi Maze-like game, but Atari didn't want it.
So apparently numerous folks had already been interested in a Lynx port of MIDI Maze, to the point that even Epyx had something like it in the works once. But Atari didn't budge. Not even Epyx's "pics or it didn't happen" saved the chance here!
The other usenet post I found is from September 1992, not too long after the first. Poster Robert A. Jung went to the "Glendale Atari Faire" that day, jotting down things they saw there. The last big thing mentioned is this:
MIDIMAZE ON THE LYNX. Yes, Atari does know that people want to see a version of Midimaze/Faceball 2000 on the Lynx machines. Some people in Atari Corp. have been actively pushing for it, but with little result so far. With Atari abandoning their exclusively-arcade-game-conversions focus, though, there is a good chance that this might change.
And the demand was still there, unfulfilled! Probably didn't help fans seeing both of Nintendo's then-current systems get Faceball 2000 by this point. This post seems hopeful of the idea finally being realized, but it evidently didn't happen, and it probably really didn't help that Atari shifted basically all focus to the Jaguar in 1993.
So the Atari Lynx, on top of its already unceremonious demise, went out without any MIDI Maze/Faceball-like thing, despite numerous voices requesting it. Unless someone makes a homebrew Lynx game like it, there is no way to Have a Nice Day on that system.
Well, this is quite the rabbithole I've gotten myself through. Main difference from other such web-surfing holes I've been through throughout the years is that I'm writing about it all and posting it. Maybe I should do this more often.