ANCIENT ATARI PAL*DIVISION: SMURF!

S M U R F S 2 6 0 0 P A G E

Why Smurfs? Because they were born in PAL-land, France to be exact, because there is a rare and special smurf deal that was withheld from us poor Europeans, and because we have rare pictures to show.
For the 2600, these smurf games were made, or about to be made (in 1982):


Name                                   Producer          Serial#     

Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle    Coleco            2465 
Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle    CBS Electronics   244325 
Smurfs Save the Day                    Coleco            2511
Smurfette's Birthday         (NR)      Coleco            2661 
Papa Smurf's Treasure Hunt   (NR)      Coleco             ??

We all know Rescue in Gargamel's Castle, a mighty cool game with nice graphics and sound. But what about the other smurf games ? The last three are pretty interesting. Actually, the last two were never made, not even found as prototypes. Papa Smurf's Treasure Hunt is also mentioned as Smurf's Hunt.
As for Smurfs Save the Day, this one comes with a load of extras, and is hard to find all complete. It was released in 1983, and only in the United States. The package consisted of:

1 cartridge
3 cassette tapes (#1="Harmony Smurf", #2="Handy Smurf" and #3="Greedy Smurf")
1 Kid Vid Voice Module (/Controller)
1 lead

The Berenstein Bears set (#2658), which also consisted of a cartridge and three tapes, was the only other game developed for the KidVid Voice Module, and was sold seperately (and makes it even tougher to find these days)

As you can see, the Voice Module looks like an ordinary tape-player. The difference is that it has a remote port for the lead. The controller-lead jacks into the right joystickport of the VCS. The tapes tell the program on the cart which game to bring up, and the cart and tape interact with each other throughout the game, providing dialog and music. Imagine this must have been quite some radical stuff for children.

The three games on the cartridge corrrespond with songs on the tapes. Instead of a bleepy 2600 tune, the player will hear a smurf's song coming from the Kid Vid speaker. After a while the tape will be stopped (don't be afraid here, the tape is not being eaten by the recorder, it is simply stopped in a rather primitive way). The graphics are simple, ugly even, in the charming 2600 way we're all familiar with and love.

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