Mark of the Mole (video game)

Mark of the Mole is an unreleased video game for the Atari 2600, based on the 1981 album of the same name by The Residents. Designed for Atari by Greg Easter between 1982 and 1983, it was never completed, as Easter left Atari in 1984 when the video game industry went into recession. 
Although at least two prototypes are known to have existed (and a digital ROM file of an early prototype has circulated privately among a small number of Atari enthusiasts), the Mark of the Mole game has never circulated among the wider public. 
Nevertheless, it is noted as the first known example of The Residents' interest in producing video games and interactive media, as well as an early pioneer in music-based video games. 
==History ==
In 1982, Atari designer Greg Easter developed the idea of a video game for the Atari 2600 based on The Residents' 1981 concept album Mark of the Mole when he listened to the album while developing another game based on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
The development of Snow White had been plagued by management indecision, and Easter ultimately shelved it in favor of Mark of the Mole, apparently intending to return to the earlier game when management had made a decision in regards to what type of game they wanted it to be.Snow White at Atari ProtosSnow White at Atari Mania 
Mark of the Mole would have been one of the first music-based video games, as well as being one of the earliest video games based on the work of a contemporary music group - in one of Easter's performance reviews at Atari, it was noted that "he designed an original game that was based on a current rock group album, a category of games that represent a new concept for Atari.""Mark of the Mole - Atari's DDR Game That Wasn't" by Nicola Ferrarese on Atari Compendium
The Residents provided original art and hand-written sheet music of several songs from the album for use in the game, including "The Hole-Worker's New Hymn" and "Don't Tread On Me". The game's graphics (in particular the sprite of the protagonist mole character) were designed by Mimi Nyden, though Easter noted that "'designed' isn't really the right word, because she was copying it from a drawing. Her job was to make it look as good as possible on the 2600, which was always a challenge."
It is not publicly known what plans Atari had for the release of the game; there are no direct references to it in any known internal documentation, aside from one second of gameplay footage which was featured in Atari's 1983 second quarter in-house promotional video."Mark of the Mole" at Atari Mania The game was never close enough to completion to have been assigned a CX catalog number, and is not known to have been referenced in any gaming magazines, or in any of Atari's promotional catalogs at the time. 
By September 1983, Atari's fortunes had declined significantly following a series of failed releases, resulting in the notorious burial of 14 truckloads of unsold Atari 2600 games in the New Mexico desert,"Atari Parts Are Dumped", The New York Times, September 28th 1983 and reported losses of over $130 million over the year. By mid-1984, Atari's internal game development for the 2600 had shut down completely. Easter left the company around the same time, leaving both Snow White and Mark of the Mole permanently incomplete and unreleased. 
Easter later estimated that Mark of the Mole was around 75 percent complete at the time he left Atari. He auctioned all of his materials related to the development of this game on eBay in 2008, including his design notes, Polaroid photos of the game in action, and The Residents' hand-written sheet music. 
==Gameplay==
Like the album it derived from, Mark of the Mole would have focused on the Moles, a hole-dwelling, hard-working race who are driven from their homes by a severe storm, seeking refuge from the Chubs, a lazy, materialistic and shallow race who live by the sea.
Designer Greg Easter described the gameplay of Mark of the Mole thus:
"First a line of music plays (one of the songs from The Residents' Mark of the Mole record) - you are a mole with a hammer who travels down into a cave and taps on walls with a hammer. Different parts of the cave make different musical notes, and when you find the next note you need to complete the line of music which was just played.You are building a song note by note, and you have to remember the tone of the next note you need in order to get it right. Each time you play the caves are different, so you can't just remember where to go. The game actually teaches you what is called 'perfect pitch' in music - the ability to hear notes and know where they are on the staff."
==Prototypes==
At least two prototypes of Mark of the Mole were created during the game's production, and only one is known to exist today.
An early "buggy and incomplete" prototype dated March 25th 1983 was given to The Residents. This prototype, the only one known to currently exist, was held in the Cryptic archive for many years, and now belongs to a private Atari collector. A picture of the prototype was released to a Residents fan page in 2007."Mark of the Mole Atari 2600 game" at Meet The Residents on Tumblr
The Residents' prototype has since been "dumped" to a digital ROM, and shared among a "select few". To date it has not circulated publicly, although a detailed review of the game can be read on the website Atari Protos, which also features a number of screenshots captured from this ROM. 
A later, more developed version of the game was produced by Easter towards the end of its production, and is now thought to be lost. This version included a "pitch only" option, and also implemented the Chubs (the antagonists of the Mark of the Mole album)."Mark of the Mole" at Atari Protos 
==See also ==
*Mark of the Mole
* Mark of the Mole (novel) 
*The Mole Trilogy
*List of interactive media
*List of unfinished projects
==External links and references==
*Mark of the Mole for the Atari VCS/2600 at Collector's Corner
*Mark of the Mole at Atari Protos 
Category:Interactive media
Category:Graveyard (unfinished projects)
Category:The Mole Trilogy
Category:Mark of the Mole