How to try Pompeii online
- Walk around: arrow keys
- Show a test number: Space bar (the first joystick’s fire button)
- Raise the lava: A (the second joystick’s fire button)
What the prototype shows
The box art and the few descriptions that exist suggest an adventure about an archaeologist, in the spirit of Indiana Jones, searching the ruins of Pompeii for treasure. Pompeii was the Roman town buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
In the prototype you see a detailed background with a smoking volcano, and you can walk your explorer around the lower half of the screen. Brown columns stand in for enemies or ledges that were never finished. Walking over them, or pressing fire, shows a number in the corner, most likely a testing aid. The lava pool rises when you press the second fire button, but it cannot go back down, and it does not hurt you. There is no score, no goal and no way to lose. Names in the program code suggest that shooting and falling rocks were planned.
Why it was never released
Apollo was one of the first 2600 publishers to collapse during the crash of 1983, and Pompeii went down with it. A prototype, box included, was shown at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There is a rumour that a finished version existed and was about to be converted for the Atari 800 computer, but nobody has confirmed it.
