Deep Pockets - Super Pro Pool and Billiards
Platform: Intellivision
Region: USA
Media: Cartridge
Controller: INTV
Genre: Sports 
Gametype: Prototype
Release Year: 1990
Developer: Realtime
Publisher: None
Players: 1 or 2 VS
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Deep Pockets is a unique pool and billiards game - it is actually NINE games in one. You can learn many pocket billiard (pool) and carom billiard games in the privacy and comfort of your own home - and brush up on rules and strategy before venturing out to a billiard parlor.

Play against a friend, or practice "against yourself" -- in 1 player games, you control both players 1 and 2.


DEVELOPMENT HISTORY:
Programming pool was a challenge: with 16 balls on the table, the game requires more than the Intellivision's 8 moving objects. At Mattel Electronics, Marketing had rarely allowed programmers to multiplex objects because they objected to the resulting screen flicker (the one exception had been the fireballs in Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man, since it made sense for them to flicker). But for pool, it was the only practical solution.

Producer Dave Warhol tapped math-whiz Rick Koenig (Motocross) to work out the multiplexing and movement of the balls. Steve Ettinger (Hover Force) did the overall game design and program, becoming an expert in all the variations of pool and billiards in the process.

By the time the game was completed, however, INTV Corporation had fallen into financial difficulties and was unable to pay for it. Realtime Associates retained ownership of the game and it was never released. The last game for the Intellivision system completed, it carries a 1990 copyright date, making Intellivision the only cartridge-based game system to have software produced for it in three separate decades (the earliest games carry a 1978 copyright date).


FUN FACT:
The process of programming music for the Intellivision was a tedious, time-consuming job that Dave Warhol and Steve Ettinger, both musicians, had plenty of experience with. But for Deep Pockets, they tried an experiment: they programmed an interface that would convert a MIDI file into Intellivision sound chip code.

They then hired a professional Blues pianist to improvise a theme on the piano. They recorded him, then processed the tape through a MIDI synthesizer, through their interface, and wound up with Intellivision code that accurately duplicated the music. The result: the first "live" Intellivision music playing on the title screen. Unfortunately, neither Dave nor Steve can remember the name of the pianist.


EASTER EGG:
To display the credits, press 0 (zero) on either hand controller while the title screen is displayed.

http://www.intellivisiongames.com/bluesky/games/credits/intv4.html#pool