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ATTENTION / DISCLAIMER:
It is speculated that the original 1994 game was assigned the NGM-077 software
product code. However, after its cancelation, the number was reassigned in 1995
to another title in development, Pinball Fantasia. The version of this game that
was released by NCI is NOT the same game from 1994. And NCI did not use NGM-077
for its homebrew release. The original game remains lost and may never be found.
But while the story of this game is complicated, and we still don't know the full
truth, the one thing that is certain is that what we have today is a homebrew game.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION:
Carib No Zaiho, the actual original prototype game, was a puzzle game designed in
1994 by SNK's 3rd party licensee FACE. Face Corporation was rather active in this area
of the game list with Gururin (NGM-067) and Zupapa (NGM-070) Their 4th and final NEOGEO
title was Money Puzzle Exchanger (NGM-131) in 1997. 1994's Zupapa was also canceled, but
for unknown reasons, SNK would later release Zupapa seven years later in 2001.
First shown at the Japan AM show in September of 1994, this game simply never made it
out of the gates. Puzzle games seem to have been the focus of the company because 3 of
the 4 games they developed for the NEOGEO were puzzle games. The original shots shown here
were captured from page 220 of the March 1994 Gamest #109 Japan magazine. High praises and
credit to Twitter's Frankie Coleman for posting better quality and higher resolution scans
of the magazine and for the additional information regarding the games appearance at the show.
VISUAL OBSERVATION:
If you look closely at the character selection screen you can clearly see that the choice
of FRANK is highlighted. Further evidence of this is the fact that it is in full color while
the other two are in black & white. It appears as though when the user highlights a character,
it changes into full color AND when selected, it animates it as well. And in the case of FRANK,
his pet monkey screaches and pulls on his mouth with his hand!
INFORMATION TIMELINE:
-- September 1994 -- the game is shown at the 1994 Japan AM show (Amusement Machine) show.
-- November 1994 -- Game Machine reports on Caribbean at the AM show with a screenshot.
-- November 1994 -- Gamest #131 (JAPAN) publishes an article with screenshots of Caribbean.
-- December 1994 -- Dengeki Oh Magazine publishes a photo of the cabinets at the show.
-- June 2011 -- NCI (Neo Conception International) announces that they have received a PC computer disk with the incomplete prototype ROM build of the game.
-- July 2011 -- NCI states that the rom data is corrupted and too far gone to be used.
-- August 2011 -- French developer Le Cortex begins programming a new homebrew rebuild.
-- February 2012 -- NCI (Neo Conception International) releases the game to the community.
-- March 2012 -- The original game remains lost and unconfirmed as NGM-077.
CURRENT STATUS: UNDISCOVERED
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