Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

How it was made

What the press said at the time

Cartridge & preservation record

Cartridge ROM capacity 32 megabit (4 MB), measured from the preserved cartridge image.

Catalogue part number J9101E

Cartridge data from the No-Intro preservation database (metadata only — names, sizes and checksums, no game data).

How the Atari Jaguar version differs

Imagitec Design's port shipped on 18 October 1995, nearly a year after the Genesis and Super NES originals. GamePro and Next Generation both found it essentially identical to those 16-bit versions.

GamePro rated it below the Sega CD version, which has layered sound effects and an orchestrated Redbook soundtrack the cartridge cannot carry — a pointed result given the Jaguar is the more powerful machine, and given most buyers had already played it elsewhere.

Also on other platforms

Genesis · Super NES · Microsoft Windows · Sega CD · 32X · Game Boy Advance

• Genesis. The lead version, released November 1994 in North America. It carries a critical bug: change the control scheme in the options menu and the player becomes stuck beside the cart on the Runaway Minecar stage, unable to continue. Re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2009 and delisted at the end of 2013.
• Sega CD. Shares the Genesis visual design but adds extra and expanded levels, an arranged Redbook CD audio soundtrack, and an introductory full-motion-video sequence.
• Super NES. Converted by Redline Games with help from Cygnus Software. Runs at a lower resolution than the Sega versions and alters some foregrounds and backgrounds, but has a higher colour palette and effects the Sega versions lack. Published in Japan by Pony Canyon.
• Windows. Published by Activision in August 1995 and notable well beyond this game: it was the first commercial software release for the newly launched Windows 95.

Worth knowing

• The 1982 original is hidden inside it. Every version, the Jaguar's included, contains the complete Atari 2600 Pitfall! as an unlockable — reached through a secret doorway in the fourth stage. A 1994 sequel carrying its 1982 parent inside it, on a console Atari built to bury the era that parent came from.
• Hand-animated by the FernGully studio, after two sibling revivals died. It began as Pitfall Harry: The Mayan Adventure on the Super NES, one of three Activision revivals of Atari 2600 properties shown at Summer CES 1993 alongside Kaboom! and River Raid. Both of those were cancelled. Activision brought in Kroyer Films — the animation studio behind FernGully: The Last Rainforest — to hand-draw the animation, and by Summer CES 1994 the lead platform had moved from the Super NES to the Genesis. Early previews promised underwater and flying sections that never shipped.