Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise

Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise
Developer: Humongous Entertainment Publisher: Atari, SA Platform: Windows Released in US: 2003 This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material.

To do: Document the many bugs present in this game

Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise is the seventh and final Putt-Putt game, and the last Junior Adventure ever made. It was made after the Atari takeover, and on a really low budget. It shows.

Unused Text

As with Pajama Sam: Life is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff!, text for all the dialogue exists in putt.xml in the scripts folder, but there are no subtitles to turn on.

Unused Dialogue

Introduction

File	Notes
	A set of lines for the opening cutscene, with Putt-Putt asking Pep if he would like to come with him to the Feed Supply Store, but Pep would rather stay at home, so Putt-Putt informs him that he would come back soon. Unfortunately, they aren't heard whatsoever.
	An unused combination of Putt-Putt's lines for the end of the opening cutscene that includes one of the actually unused pieces of spoken dialogue mentioned above.

Miscellaneous

File	Notes
	This line was meant to be used after a cat destroys the large ball of string when Putt-Putt attempts to correct Hank about it when he shockingly thanks him for taking it down, but it never plays.

Debug Rooms

Here is the room debug screen, which allows you to jump to any room. It can be accessed by finding a line in one of the XML files located in the rooms.he file labeled "<nextRoom value = (room name)/>" and changing it to

<nextRoom value = "map"/>

This will make the room exit you specified trigger the debug screen instead. Some things worth noting:

• The game is referred to by its working title, Putt VII, on this screen.
• Two removed screens are crossed out here. "Temp" seems to be a scrapped apple orchard minigame according to other data in the game, which would allow you to bring more apples to Mr. Baldini. The other crossed out screen, "Decorations", looks like another scrapped minigame, but it's unclear exactly what it would have been.

To reach the item/path debug, do the same as above, but replace (room name) with "inventoryCheat" instead. This screen will allow you to pick up any item you want and change the current state of the game paths. Two things worth noting:

• There is a party box here which is not used in the final game. It may have tied with the "Decorations" screen.
• The rubber bands are different colors here instead of all being brown like in the final game.

Removed Click Points

Three click points exist that did not make the final cut.

Fire Station

The first click point, located in scene_firestation.xml, was simply commented out of the final game altogether. It was originally meant to be put on the left light of the fire station, but its data no longer exists, so attempting to re-enable it crashes the game.

The reason for removal was given in the following comment:

<!-- Leah didn't like this animation, removed it. May fix it later. -->

This probably refers to Leah Verre, the lead artist of the game.

Shop View

This clickpoint is located in the shopping area on Mr. Baldini's store canopy, in scene_shopview.xml. In addition to the running egg which simply jumps off and the egg with fireworks strapped to its back, there is an unused animation of a hang-gliding egg. According to the xml file, it was removed for being weird.

Party Store

The final removed click point is located in the party store, in scene_intparty.xml. Its sound is missing, but the artwork still exists. It would have had Fatty Bear unzipping his head and revealing Pajama Sam, Spy Fox, Freddi Fish, or Pete Wheeler. This one does not have a comment giving the reason it was cut.