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It has been a long while since we had news on a never-released arcade game and its prototype, but over the years we have covered several. Those include: Dropzone Arcade<\/a><\/em>; Atari\u2019s Arrk Arrh<\/em><\/a>; and Kung Fu Master 2<\/a><\/em>, among many others. We even have a section dedicated to unreleased\/prototype games<\/a> as you might have seen. I have always found prototypes to be fascinating, although it sucks when what looked to be a good game got shelved for one reason or another.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s prototype news covers yet another game from one of the largest sources of unreleased games, Atari Games. Let\u2019s check out JAMMIN\u2019<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n Back in the mid-80s it was a tumultuous time for Atari, as the company had been split in 1984. However, many of the people who were a part of the company before the schism as a part of the coin-op department remained. Without the weight of the home divisions to wear them down, and seeing some new investments (and part ownership) come in from Namco, that meant that they were able to continue innovating. They launched their System I & II hardware platforms starting with Marble Madness<\/em> on System I in December 1984, and they were also busy working on some other neat ideas, including a full 3D polygon racing game called Air Race<\/em>,<\/a> which never saw the light of day.<\/p>\n Somewhere around that time, the company was looking into ways to create what would have been among the very first rhythm games. Perhaps the first concept to come along in this regard would have used motion sensors and laserdiscs in the Atari Dance Machine<\/em>.<\/a> Whether the people who made that were involved with JAMMIN\u2019<\/em> is unknown at this time, but JAMMIN\u2019<\/em> was in development in 1985, and involved one Robert Weatherby<\/a>. It also apparently made it as far as testing<\/a>, although presumably it failed the test and that\u2019s why it was never released.<\/p>\n From some early and poor quality prototype footage that the now defunct Atarigames.com had shared, we knew that the game had existed, and that it was headed in the direction of something like Simon Says. The band in the game would be doing a recording session, and after the drums would play certain sequences, the goal was for you to repeat the same sequence without a mistake. There were a total of nine buttons you would use as representative of the instruments in the game:<\/p>\nWhat Was JAMMIN\u2019?<\/h3>\n