LoginRegisterContact

Dumbo's Flying Circus [Model CX26115]

Unreleased Atari 2600 cart. published 41 years ago by Atari, Inc.

Listed in MAME

Dumbo's Flying Circus [Model CX26115] screenshot

Dumbo's Flying Circus © 1983 Atari, Incorporated.

The object of the game is to guide Dumbo around the screen and catch or shoot balloons before they reach the top of the screen (sort of like Kaboom in reverse). Some balloons have bombs attached to them and are deadly to the touch, so they must be shot down using peanuts from your trunk. Every now and then you will see a balloon with a clown riding it, you must shoot these balloons and catch the falling clown before he hits the bottom. If the clown makes it to the top of the screen he'll stay up there and begin to drop things on you. Every time three balloons reach the top of the screen the ceiling gets slightly lower, this gives you less and less room to grab the incoming balloons. The ceiling can be raised a bit by safely catching clowns or by winning the bonus round.

At the end of each wave you are presented with a bonus round where your mouse friend (Timothy Q. Mouse) comes flying from the left side out the screen. If you can catch him before he bounces off to the right (which is very difficult to do), you earn some bonus points and he'll raise the ceiling a bit. After the bonus round you are shown a status screen which displays the number of clowns you've caught, and the number of lives you have left.

TECHNICAL

Model CX26115

TRIVIA

This game was never released.

Dumbo's Flying Circus was scheduled to be part of Atari's Kids Library, but for one reason or another never saw the light of day. Atari advertised the game in European Atari 2600 catalogs and even had a prototype box made, so the decision to shelve it must have been made quite late.

After two waves you are presented with a strange intermission of sorts where Dumbo picks up and flies around the screen with a banner that says Dumbo. It is unknown what this intermission is for, but since the game was made for children this may simply be a chance for them to rest a bit before continuing on with the game. Another theory is that much like the intermission in Bugs Bunny, this was simply a cute reward for beating a few waves.

Scoring exactly 10,000 points (or multiples of) causes the balloons to turn into the initials PcN (for Peter C. Niday).

STAFF

Programmer: Peter C. Niday
Graphics by: Jerome Domurat

SOURCES

Game's ROM.