Baluba-Louk no Densetsu

Baluba-Louk no Densetsu
Developer: Able Corp Publisher: Able Corp Platform: Arcade (Senjyo hardware) Released in JP: 1986 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics.

"An adventurer-type gathers treasure and avoids monsters" - that description accurately describes both Baluba-Louk no Densetsu and the Platonic ideal of an 80s arcade platformer.

Developer Credits

This string is at 0x0670 in the sub-CPU:

Programming by Tsukasa TEHKAN LTD

This is from Tsukasa Masuko, who worked as a composer at Tehkan. This strongly suggests that Tehkan had some hand in developing the game, though the full extent of their involvement isn't currently known.

Multiple filler tiles from "Hide" (sometimes misspelled as "Heid") can be found in the game's many graphics ROMs. It's possible that this is Hideyuki Yokoyama, an artist and another employee of Tehkan, though since all there is to go on are these filler tiles with half of a name, the connection is tenuous at best.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Graphics

There's nothing worth 2000 points in the game, so these graphics aren't worth anything either.

This little fellow might be an alternate design of the player character, or a scrapped enemy design.

Two more enemy designs that were never animated past this point.

Two treasures that would appear outside of chests, something that never happens in the final game.

Early
Final

Early designs of the game's power-ups. The beta character is drawn in a different font, and the "arrow" and "chest" power-ups were changed to what looks like a mathematical Psi (𝚿) and a mathematical lambda (𝛬).

Some of these early item graphics show signs of corruption. This doesn't seem to be the result of a bad graphics ROM dump, though—this is just how they're stored.

(Source: Original TCRF research)