Deep within your Tecmo Super Bowl cartridge a jittery, undersized guard is twitching for a head start. Across from him, a mammoth Nose Tackle is trying to time the snap count. Only a few missing bytes of code prevent them from committing penalties.
What if intercepting a Grogan lob meant timing your jump to avoid pass interference? What if making too much popcorn with LT earned an unsportsmanlike conduct flag? Lorenzo White’s fumbleitis is bad enough, can you imagine if Ron Solt’s constant false starts kept the ball from QB Eagles? It almost happened. Much like injury and fumbles, Tecmo programmers intended to include penalties in TSB.
How do we know Tecmo programmers wanted to include penalties? Because screens for Offside and False Start exist in TSB‘s code. Although there’s no code to let the yellow hankies fly, entering Game Genie code PTXEPAAE1 will show a glimpse of what our jittery lineman’s false start would have looked like:
Likewise, Game Genie code ZTXEPAAE shows the screen for offside(s):
Compared to the Touchdown screen below, these unused penalty screens look downright primitive. Tecmo’s in-game cut scenes feature animated graphics and colorful backgrounds. The penalty screens, on the other hand, are just flashing text and a weird box thing. This strongly suggests the penalty screens are placeholders, axed from development before Tecmo’s art department finalized cut-scene graphics.
Even penalty screens’ primitive design give some clues as to how penalties were supposed to look in Tecmo Super Bowl. The strange blue and grey box near center looks like glitched graphics. However, if we compare that box to another TSB art asset, we can see it is no glitch.
Boom. TSB programmers wanted to flash the offending dummy’s mugshot on the penalty screens. Given all the blank space beside the would-be photo, it’s probably fair to say the player’s name would be displayed as well. Every time TSB‘s worst defensive lineman jumped early, Tecmo wanted this screen to burn your eyes:
These screens aren’t the only traces of penalties in TSB. Pressing Left+B at the start screen brings up the sound test screen2. Sound number 32 plays a sad-sounding loop unused anywhere else in TSB. Though it’s pure conjecture, it’s possible sound 32 was meant to accompany Ron Solt’s constant false starts. Adding Track 32 to TSB’s unused penalty screen gives an approximation of what Tecmo programmers initially intended:
We say, “initially intended,” because we know penalties were dropped before TSB’s art style was finalized. Other TSB graphics suggest, even if the penalties were scrapped early, programmers gave at least some thought to their final look.
It’s common practice for NES games to re-use graphics to save space. For example, bushes and clouds in Super Mario Brothers are the same. In TSB, after missed field goals and some incomplete passes, the ref appears to rub failure in your dumb face. His “no good,” signal includes a frame of hands on hips. Hands to hips, of course, is the signal for offsides. Considering programmers re-use graphics wherever possible, its a fair hypothesis to say the art department intentionally drew “no good” to be doubled for “offsides.”
If that is indeed the case, Tecmo may have eventually replaced the penalty placeholder screens with something like this:
However they were intended to look, the presence of penalty screens in Tecmo Super Bowl raises an interesting question. How, exactly, would a player jump offsides? How would an o-lineman false start? Would offsides and false start be random events3 like fumbles and injuries? The fact only offsides and false start exist suggests a much more radical hypothesis. What if Tecmo had intended to allow pre-snap player movement? The fact that the only existing penalties involve moving pre-snap suggests Tecmo programmers initially envisioned a more Madden-esque game.
Can you imagine? Timing your opponent’s snap count with LT and getting into the backfield at full speed? People would get flat-out killed. And then we’d definitely need that unnecessary roughness penalty.
NOTES:
1 The Game Genie operates by adjusting the NES’s running memory. Our codes change the value at address 0x08029, forcing the game to load penalty screens instead of the opening cinematic. Pressing start at any time will bring up the title screen, after which the game can be played as normal.
2 A popular feature in Tecmo games, similar sound tests can be found in the Ninja Gaiden series, Fire n’ Ice, and others.
3 This isn’t to say fumbles and injuries are random. Both are occur based on specific stats, ball control and physical condition, respectively. The stats then plug into a random number generator (think a dice roll) which determines when the fumble/torn MCL occur.
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