A long-lost platformer game called Cooly Skunk has been found and preserved by Gaming Alexandria, an organization dedicated towards keeping gaming history alive.
You might be asking "What the heck is Cooly Skunk?" That's a fair question considering that the game more or less never saw the light of day. Here's a quick gameplay video from Gaming Alexandria that shows you what it's all about. (Spoilers: they found the game.)
As noted in Gaming Alexandria's writeup on the game, the development of this title was rather troubled indeed. Originally planned to be a more serious title, a shift in market focus towards North America had them change up the graphics to the adorable skunk you see today.
Unfortunately, this particular game was being made for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the mid-90s. Those of you unfamiliar with gaming history should note that this is right around the time Sony's first PlayStation console made its debut and practically blew the SNES out of the water.
That was more or less the deathblow for Cooly Skunk, and it was destined to never see the light of day — but a keen-eyed retro gaming shopper managed to find something very interesting in Akihabara.
How the Satellaview Saved Cooly Skunk
More than two decades later, a shopper in Akihabara discovered a BS-X 7M cartridge for the Satellaview labeled with our lost game's name. That entire preceding sentence is going to require a little unpacking.
Firstly, the non-weebs out there might not be familiar with Akihabara, but it can best be described as "Gaming Mecca". Also known as "Akihabara Electric Town", it is jam-packed with all sorts of geeky storefronts including manga shops and retro gaming stores.
The cartridge in question was for the Satellaview, an absolute unit of a peripheral that connected to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and allowed games to be downloaded via satellite. This particular game cartridge was said to have a demo of Cooly Skunk, but it cost around $500.
Money was quickly raised, the cart was secured, and people began digging through the game's code only to discover that the demo basically had the entire finished product available but artificially locked. A tweak here, a montage there, and the full game was put together as a playable ROM.
Now, you can play this lost piece of gaming history for the very first time. Head on over to Gaming Alexandria's page about Cooly Skunk to read more about its history and find out how you could play it.
What do you think of Cooly Skunk? What other "lost" games do you hope will eventually see the light of day? Let us know in the comments below!
