Aquaventure is a bit of a mystery in the prototype world. It was never mentioned in any Atari press releases nor does it show up on any internal part lists. Aquaventure seems to have popped out of the woodwork one day without any public fanfare nor any history behind its mysterious origins. In any case, Aquaventure seems to be complete and ready for release, we can only speculate as to why it was shelved. The game concept is simple; you must dive to the bottom of an undersea cavern and retrieve a fabulous treasure (which just happens to look like a small house of some sort). Along the way you must avoid fish, sea horses, and other underwater creatures attempting to block your path. Your diver came prepared however, for he is armed with a spear gun which he can use to temporarily kill one of the creatures. However, each enemy you kill is soon replaced by a faster and indestructible version of itself, so you need to carefully carve a path to the bottom only destroying the creatures that get in your way. After retrieving the treasure and returning it to the top of the cavern, a mermaid will appear. Touching the mermaid will take you to the next level, where you get to do it all over again. At the top of the screen there is a turtle, which shows how much air you have left. If the turtle reaches the Air sign at the far end of the screen before you complete the level you loose a life.
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I had an atari flashback growing up, and for some reason this game has elicited the most memories of playing it as a kid out of everything in Atari 50
I sometimes feel baffled by Atari and their many many collections still somehow being able to pull at least a few scraps of content they havent quite yet milked dry, be it obscure releases or prototype games seemingly fished out of nowhere to the point where its almost suspicious. Seriously you could create entire baseless youtube conspiracy videos on their practises at this point.
Anyway Aquaventure. Its ok. Basically its an endless loop of going up and down the water trenches, avoiding everything as a single touch from the smallest fish will kill you. I'd give this slightly higher marks as it is quite fun but the colour palette used isnt fun and often you'll be squinting hard to make your blue character out from the blue background with the blue fishes. Also the time limit in later levels becomes an absolute pig.
Still. Fun enough for a quick blast every so often and as such it perfectly fits the Evercade.