Squoosh

Name:	Squoosh
Company:	Apollo
Model #:	AP2012
Programmer:	Unknown
Year:	1983?
Released?	No
Notes:	Originally called Vat's Incredible!

Squoosh was known to exist for many years after being discovered by prototype collector John Earney back in the late 90's.  Unfortunately it was never dumped, and for years people could only speculate at what the game look liked or what the gameplay involved.  After John Earney decided to sell off most of his collection Squoosh finally made its way into the hands of another collector who had it dumped for the gaming community.

Much like Apollo's other famously unfinished game Pompeii, Squoosh is an unplayable demo showing what the game screen would have looked like.  You control a French guy (complete with berete) who can move left and right around the screen, and jump with the fire button.  In the middle of the screen is a giant press with a covered pit underneath it.  When you start the game a grape will come bouncing in from the right side of the screen, and proceed to roll back and forth along the floor.  The concept of this game was to have your guy kick or move grapes into the center of the screen where the press would come down and 'squoosh' them into wine (which would collect in the pit below).  

Unfortunately there is no gameplay implemented in this early prototype, so once you've run around the screen and watched the grape roll about, you've seen all there is to do in this game.  The press in the middle of the screen appears to be operational (moving by itself), but the only thing you can squoosh in this prototype is yourself.  If you stand underneath the press and press the jump button, you will be knocked down into the pit and be trapped until you reset the game (one of your little men in your life reserves counter will fall down indicating you have died).

While it may not look like much in this early prototype, Squoosh may have turned out to be one of the more original titles from Apollo.  It seems that Apollo was finally getting around to making interesting games around the time the market was crashing. Apollo was one of the first companies to throw in the towel, so many of their games never got past the early prototype stage.  Squoosh probably wouldn't have been the game that saved Apollo, but at least it was an original concept in an era of "Me Too" clones.  Had there been more original ideas like this the crash may not have happened, of course companies with poor games like Apollo are what caused the crash in the first place.

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