Sky Skipper

Sky Skipper
Japanese arcade flyer
Developer(s) Nintendo
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Parker Brothers (Atari 2600)
Platform(s) Arcade, Atari 2600
Release Arcade
Atari 2600
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) 1-2 players, alternating
Cabinet Upright, Cabaret, Cocktail
CPU Z80 @ 4 MHz
Sound AY-3-8910A @ 2 MHz
Display Raster (Horizontal) standard resolution (Used: 512×448)

Sky Skipper is a 1981 arcade game by Nintendo. In the game, the player pilots a biplane and must save animals and a royal family from gorillas holding them captured. This is done by dropping bombs on the gorillas to knock them out and unlock the cages, then diving down towards the cages to pick up the freed characters before the gorillas lock the cages again. An Atari 2600 port was released in 1983.

The game was poorly received in arcades, leading Nintendo to convert the cabinets into Popeye machines. Nintendo of America stored one cabinet in its archives which years later remains as the only known Sky Skipper cabinet in the world. The cabinet was scanned and photographed by arcade enthusiasts in 2016, who also sourced one of four known remaining Sky Skipper arcade boards to build a faithful cabinet restoration. The board from the Nintendo of America cabinet is the only known unmodified boardset of the game. Nintendo copied the ROM image from this board and released it on the Nintendo Switch eShop on July 20, 2018.

Gameplay

A player attacks a gorilla (arcade version)

In Sky Skipper, the player pilots a biplane through scrolling mazes to save animals caged by enemy gorillas. The player must drop bombs onto the gorillas which will temporarily knock them out and unlock the cages. Then, the player must swoop down to pick up the animals before the gorillas get up and lock the cages again. Flying into a gorilla or wall will result in the loss of one life. The plane also runs on fuel which is measured by a fuel gauge on the screen. Fuel can be replenished by picking up the animals. After the first stage is completed, the game continues up to a fourth stage, after which the four stages are repeated on increased difficulty.[1]

History

Sky Skipper was developed by Nintendo and released in Japan in 1981 as a follow up to their highly successful Donkey Kong, which was released earlier that same year.[2] It was designed by Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto with assistance from Ikegami Tsushinki.[3] The cabinets were produced in upright, cabaret, and cocktail variations[2][4] with cabinet artwork done by Miyamoto.[5][6] The game tested poorly in Japan and was not widely released.[3] Around a dozen cabinets were sent to Nintendo of America in Seattle for location tests.[3][6] but the game was also poorly received and as a result was never widely released.[6][7] Nintendo's Howard Philips called Sky Skipper a "confusing thematic mess".[3] Because of the poor reception Nintendo decided to convert the Sky Skipper cabinets into Popeye cabinets, released in 1982.[2][8][9] One of the ten North American cabinets escaped this fate and was stored away at Nintendo of America.[6][10]

In the early 2000s, developer Factor 5 founder Julian Eggebrecht made a deal with Nintendo that if he was able to ship Rogue Leader (2001) on schedule, he could borrow the machine for his company's arcade. Factor 5 shipped Rogue Leader on time and so they received the machine. Upon booting it up, they realized one of the ROM chips was dead. They reached out to Takeda who pulled the original files from Nintendo's archives, enabling Eggebrecht to repair the machine.[3]

Although the game was never widely released in North America, Parker Brothers negotiated for a license to publish a home version of the game for the Atari 2600 as part of its licensing deal for Popeye.[10][11] The port was naturally of lower production value than the arcade version.[12] Atari HQ found the port to be average, with simple gameplay and unremarkable graphics and sound.[11]

The restored Sky Skipper cabinet on display in 2017

In 2016, a group of arcade restoration enthusiasts started a project to build a restored Sky Skipper cabinet.[13] No complete cabinets were known to exist in private collections. There were only four boards in the hands of collectors which, although loaded with Popeye ROM images, were known to be converted Sky Skipper boards based on their serial numbers.[10][14] Sky Skipper ROM images had mysteriously found their way online at some point in the past,[10] so the team was able to deconvert the boards and reload them with Sky Skipper ROM images.[3] They still needed information on the design and colors of the cabinet, so contacted video game player Billy Mitchell to put them in touch with Nintendo of America.[3] To their surprise, Nintendo told them they still had one of the original Sky Skipper cabinets,[3] and granted them access to examine it.[6] They spent several hours in house scanning and photographing the cabinet.[10] With the scans they took, and sourcing one of the four known boards, they were able to create a faithful recreation of the cabinet in Nintendo of America's archives.[14]

On June 14, 2018 (during E3 2018), Nintendo revealed that they will release Sky Skipper on the Nintendo Switch eShop in July 2018 under the Arcade Archives series run by Hamster Corporation. The ROM image for the game was copied from the board in the cabinet at Nintendo of America because it is the only known unmodified boardset.[7] According to Nintendo World Report, the rerelease may have taken years to come to fruition because of legal issues with Ikegami, a company that helped Nintendo program many of their early arcade games.[15]

Reception

Reviewing the Switch release, both Nintendo World Report and Nintendo Life felt the game was enjoyable when playing for a hi-score, but also felt it lacked variety.[15][16] Nintendo Life enjoyed "striking a balance between completing the levels quickly and plotting a route to maximise your point-scoring."[16] Nintendo World Report did not like how the game repeated the same few stages and felt as though the game was not finished. They also panned the stage graphics, calling them "extremely crude" compared to Donkey Kong.[15] Nintendo Life agreed in that the colors were garish in places and the environments were blocky, writing: "The simple design and plain backgrounds ensure everything is easy to follow, but Sky Skipper certainly shows its age."[16] Both praised the extra options included with the Arcade Archives release.[15][16]

References

  1. ↑ "Sky Skipper - Videogame by Nintendo". The International Arcade Museum. Archived from the original on October 14, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Wales, Matt (June 14, 2018). "Nintendo's lost arcade oddity Sky Skipper is coming to Switch". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on June 16, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Retroradar: Discovering Sky Skipper". Retro Gamer. No. 170. July 2017. pp. 6–7.
  4. ↑ "Sky Skipper". The Arcade Flyer Archive. Archived from the original on June 10, 2017.
  5. ↑ Glagowski, Peter (June 14, 2018). "Unreleased Nintendo arcade game Sky Skipper is coming to Switch". Destructoid. Archived from the original on June 26, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Kohler, Chris (June 14, 2018). "Two Long-Lost Nintendo Arcade Games Are Heading To Switch". Kotaku. Archived from the original on June 21, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  7. 1 2 McWhertor, Michael (June 14, 2018). "Donkey Kong, Sky Skipper come to Nintendo Switch Arcade Archives". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  8. ↑ Humphries, Matthew (June 15, 2018). "Nintendo's Lost Arcade Game Sky Skipper Heads to Switch". PCMAG. Archived from the original on June 23, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  9. ↑ Horowitz, Jeremy (June 14, 2018). "Nintendo releases arcade Donkey Kong for Switch, slates Sky Skipper for July". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on June 16, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Calvert, Darren (October 31, 2016). "Nintendo Of America Shows Off Its Unreleased Sky Skipper Arcade Cabinet". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on September 26, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  11. 1 2 Iida, Keita. "AGH Atari 2600 Review: Sky Skipper". Atari HQ. Archived from the original on April 3, 2018. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  12. ↑ Kohler, Chris (May 13, 2011). "Weekend Thrifting: Sky Skipper, 'Adult' Atari Games and Other Oddities". Wired. Archived from the original on December 26, 2016. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  13. ↑ Whitehead, Thomas (September 19, 2016). "Sky Skipper Project Aims to Revive a Rare Nintendo Arcade Game". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on January 13, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  14. 1 2 Calvert, Darren (June 12, 2017). "Sky Skipper Arcade Restoration Revealed To The World". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on November 22, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Berube, Justin (July 26, 2018). "Arcade Archives Sky Skipper Review - Review". Nintendo World Report. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Frear, Dave (July 25, 2018). "Review: Arcade Archives Sky Skipper (Switch eShop)". Nintendo Life. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
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