Cool Spot (Genesis)

Cool Spot
Also known as: Spot and the Quest for Cool (EU) Developers: Virgin Games, The Global Team Publishers: Virgin Games (EU/US/JP/AU), Samsung (KR), Tec Toy (BR) Platform: Genesis Released in JP: February 18, 1994 Released in US: April 16, 1993 Released in EU: June 15, 1993 Released in AU: 1993 Released in KR: 1993 This game has unused sounds. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences. This game has a Data Crystal page

Cool Spot is a charming little mascot platformer starring 7-Up's wayward punctuation.

Cheat Mode

Press A, A, B, B, C, C, C, C, B, B, A, A, A, A, B, B, C, C on the Options screen. Programmer David Perry will pop up to greet you, and the debug screen will appear.

Disregarding the font, this screen is almost identical to the one seen in Aladdin, Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2, which David Perry also worked on.

Partially Unused Music

This page or section needs more audio. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this. Specifically: Some of the game's music is programmed to use more sound channels than the Genesis actually has, because the music was made in GEMS. Get a list of songs that do this and get rips which showcase the unused channels.

"Twinklies", as it's known in the sound test screen, is a small jingle that plays when a Spot is released, i.e. when the level's goal is reached. This theme only plays for a couple of frames, as the celebratory stage ending screen quickly shows up. If the player has Freezeability enabled and freezes the game right after Spot's shot hits the cage, though, this theme can be heard in full. It can also be heard in the sound test menu, where its official name is given.

Regional Differences

Since PepsiCo owns the manufacturing rights to 7-Up outside of the USA where it was owned by Dr. Pepper instead, Spot wasn't the official 7-Up mascot in Europe (that honor instead going to Fido Dido, the mascot of Slice in the USA, who was interestingly enough also meant to have his own Genesis game). Thusly, all mentions of 7-Up were removed for the European version, for these two reasons, replaced with Virgin branding. However, the European credits screen still mentions that "All characters and related indicia are trademarks of 7-Up Corporation".

To do: Confirm if it's really the credits screen that mentions the 7-Up trademark. I just found this text at 7ACC5 and assumed it shows up in the credits.

The game's name on the copyright screen and the internal name also vary. The game was released as Spot and the Quest for Cool in Europe, but the title screen still uses Cool Spot.

Codename

Interestingly, the first few bytes of the ROMs that store info on the game's codename contain BOTH names in all versions. They were swapped around for the European release, alongside the obvious Genesis/Mega Drive difference.

US	Europe
SEGA GENESIS (C)VRGN 1993.MAY COOL SPOT SPOT AND THE QUEST FOR COOL	SEGA MEGADRIVE (C)VRGN 1993.MAY SPOT AND THE QUEST FOR COOL COOL SPOT

As such, emulators like Gens call the American version Spot and the Quest for Cool, and the European version Cool Spot.

Title Screen

US	Europe

The American version has Spot surf on top of a 7-Up bottle. This was changed to a generic plastic bottle with an SOS message inside in the European version.

Pickups

To do: The pickups are animated in-game, get images that show all of the frames for each one.

US	Europe

The 7-point and health pickups had their 7-Up logo removed for the European version, being replaced by the Virgin logo. Thanks again, Pepsi!

Other Stuff

• In the special stages, the player has to collect one of 6 letters. These letters form the word UNCOLA (7-Up's catchphrase at the time) in the American version, but VIRGIN in the European version.
• In the cheat mode menu, the telephone number is (714) 833 8710 in the American version and 0101 714 833 8710 in the European version.
• Michael Merren was credited as a second producer in the European version.