I went to a local thrift shop that is near to me and found an Odyssey2 cartridge that I had never seen before, so I picked it up. It cost $3.
It says PEPPER II written on it. It is kind of faded. D.B. Leafinmajick appears to be the name of the programmer. I did some searching online. I found him on LINKEDIN. His first name is Dewyah and he is originally from Indonesia. ( His full name = Dewyah B. Leafinmajick ) I read on Dewyah’s profile that he did work for CBS GAMES out of Terre Haute, Indiana. Research shows that in 1982 CBS Games and Twentieth Century-Fox Corporation formed CBS/FOX Company, a joint venture to acquire and distribute prerecorded video entertainment and operate Studio Center. So it is likely that this is where Leafinmajick did the bulk of the work for PEPPER II for the Odyssey2. On his LINKEDIN profile, he lists the PEPPER II game as being part of his resume under the unfinished work section.
I sent him an email and he replied that Coleco had wanted to get into the Odyssey2 market and saw the potential in 1982, so they outsourced the task to CBS Games. CBS Games wasn’t quite sure what to do, so they put an ad in the Terre Haute Today newspaper, looking for a programmer. D.B. applied for the job and was hired. He said that it was very difficult programming the Odyssey2. He managed to get a title screen programmed and the mazes for the four levels of the game.
D.B. planned to utilize the VOICE MODULE to play the musical soundtrack for the Pepper II game. At the title screen, Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette" would play. This is also known as the theme from the Alfred Hitchcock show. During gameplay, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" is briefly heard (the same excerpt heard in the middle of the intro of The Wonderful World of Disney in the 70s and 80s) when a maze has been completely filled. Unfortunately, D.B. stated he ran into a mental roadblock and could never get the code to work correctly. It’s in there, it just doesn’t play. Just for giggles, I hooked up my VOICE MODULE and plugged the cartridge in and hoped for a miracle. No luck. No songs played. Bummer! Maybe one of the talented homebrew programmers can figure it out.
If you are unfamiliar with PEPPER II, this is the basic gist of the game: There are four mazes per level in Pepper II. Each maze has an three exit doors that leads to three other mazes. All four mazes must be filled to advance to the next level. To fill in a maze, the player maneuvers "Pepper" around different segments of the maze. As Pepper travels, he leaves a "zipper". Once he encloses or "zips" a segment, it fills in and points are awarded. If Pepper backtracks on an uncompleted segment, it unzips.
Gameplay appears to be unfinished. I can move the white "Pepper" character around freely.
The character "Pepper" is an angel. There are two types of enemies that must be avoided: Roaming Eyes and the Whippersnapper. The Whippersnapper unzips all uncompleted, zipped segments by moving over them. Pepper's one defense is to enclose an area containing a pitchfork, which turns him into a devil for approximately four seconds. At that time he can go after all Roaming Eyes for points while the Whippersnapper freezes. There are four pitchforks in the corners of every maze. A deluxe energizer is located in the center of each maze. This energizer alternates between being a pitchfork and a halo symbol. If Pepper encloses the middle area when the energizer is a halo, the Whippersnapper disappears from the maze. I do not see any of these creatures in this Odyssey2 game.
Points are made for enclosing a segment, consuming a pair of roaming eyes when energized by the pitchfork (similar to Pac-Man), obtaining prizes, completing a maze, and completing four mazes. A bonus turn is awarded at 40,000, 50,000, 70,000 or 90,000 points. When four full screens are completed, a small cube appears at the bottom of the screen to mark your progress at completing cubes. I don't see any scoring system. No points! No nothing! I don't think Leafinmajick got that far.
On the profile, he lists this as the proposed artwork that was selected for the PEPPER II game:
Each maze also contains a prize in one of the segments. The player must enclose the area it appears in to gain the prize and points, and then the prize is shown beneath the maze. Again, maybe I am doing something wrong. I am not seeing any of this when I play the game. I feel like throwing my Odyssey2 across the room. Did I get ripped off $3?
What are your thoughts? or if you have more information , send an email.
