Tinhead (Genesis)

To do: A bunch of development material is available here, which should be documented in a development sub-page: https://archive.org/details/tinhead-dev-materials

An insane goblin named Grim Squidge has sucked all of the stars out of the galaxy and trapped them inside crystal orbs. Now Tinhead, Defender of the Edge of the Galaxy, has to get them all back. You can't make this stuff up.

Versions were also in development for the SNES, Amiga, and Atari Jaguar, but all three ports ended up getting cancelled. While the Amiga and Jaguar ports appear to be lost to time, the seemingly-completed SNES version eventually surfaced online and was given an official release by Piko Interactive in 2019.

Unused Title and Menu Screen#

At the very end of the ROM is programming for an early menu screen which has a different logo and font, and is missing the password option. A title screen with the same logo also exists.

Unused	Used

Unused	Used

Some interesting things to note about this early logo: It's clearly an early version of the logo used on the final game's title screen, and even includes a hole for Tinhead's face between the H and the E. However, the hole is too short to properly fit Tinhead's face as seen in the final logo. The screws on "HEAD" are also ovals instead of circles. This seems to suggest that this early logo was intended to be stretched vertically with horizontal interrupts, which would also explain why the early logo exclusively uses vertical-line dithering while the final logo uses checkerboard dithering. The trademark symbol is also absent.

To access it, use the following game enhancer codes:

The first code is a checksum bypass code and might not be required. Wait until the game finishes the first demo, and then it will jump to the early screens (instead of the High Score screen).

Hidden Text#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: "It's unknown if this is a limitation of the codes, or the palette entry was intentionally or accidentally set to black." Figure this out.

The unused title screen has text at the bottom which isn't visible by default. It's unknown if this is a limitation of the codes, or the palette entry was intentionally or accidentally set to black.

Default	Visible Text

To view it, add this code:

The white text palette is a best guess (assumes it uses the same palette as the Start Game/Options text on the title screen).

Options#

The early options menu is missing the difficulty select, music on/off toggle, and the controls setup uses a different name for the weapon mode.

Unused	Used

Additionally, the sound test isn't on a separate page, and the music and sound effects are contained in a single menu rather than being divided into a separate "music test" and "sound test".

Unused	Used

The names of the music tracks are different:

The Stop Music entry doesn't function.

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Double-check that "DECOY RELEASED" and "ENEMY MISSILE" aren't present in the used sound test, and check whether they're used anywhere in-game.

The sound effects test also has different names, and is very unfinished. Only a handful of sound effects are listed, some of which aren't in the final sound test and may be unused in normal gameplay:

Build Date#

• Offset 0DBDCC

VERSION 0.00
ASSEMBLED ON 20/04/94, AT 10:09