A few weeks ago we reported on the news that a Reddit user had stumbled across a previously unknown Dreamcast game - Deer Avenger 3 - while helping to clear out a basement for a fundraising sale. The story is brilliant and just shows that there are still surprises waiting to be discovered when it comes to the Dreamcast's library.
For the uninitiated, Deer Avenger 3 (also known as Deer Avenger 3D) was a PC game that parodied the popular Deer Hunter series and gave players the opportunity to take the fight to the hunters. Assuming the role of an anthropomorphic deer, players roam the wilderness looking for hunters to capture or kill. The game was released on PC in the early 2000s and was quite well received, but what nobody knew is that Westlake Interactive was apparently working on a Dreamcast port...and it's a pre-production GD of this very port that was found in a basement in New Jersey.
You couldn't make stuff like this up but as the recent discovery (and subsequent release) of Millennium Racer: Y2K Fighters shows, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Anyway, I thought it was about time that we gave you an update on the discovery and just when we'll all be able to experience Deer Avenger 3 on our Dreamcasts. And well...it doesn't look promising at this point.
In the previous article I mentioned that several members of the Dreamcast community who are well versed in extracting game files from GDs were working with the disc's owner, but it now appears that this is not the case. Instead, wunderbreadv2 has set up a Go Fund Me in order to raise the sum of $1000 in order to release the game. At the time of writing, the campaign has received plenty of Facebook shares...but a total of $0 in donations. Now, allow me to be brutally honest on this whole thing: This Go Fund Me will probably not be funded, and the reasons are multiple.
As if the discovery of Millennium Racer: Y2K Fighters wasn't enough, another previously unknown Dreamcast game has been unearthed. According to Reddit user wunderbreadv2, the pre-production GD-Rom of Deer Avenger 3 was found at a garage sale and represents yet another Dreamcast game that was never announced or even previewed by the gaming press.
Deer Avenger 3 was released on the PC however, and in it the player assumes the role of an anthropomorphic deer who turns the tables on the hunters and goes out into the wilderness to shoot humans. The game appears to have been fairly well received back when it was released in 2000 and the series as a whole comprises four other games, all of which are parodies of the Deer Hunter model. The GD in question has the title Deer Avenger 3 written on it in marker, along with the usual version number, date (16th August 2000) and the developer - Westlake Interactive. Westlake (now known as MacSoft) was quite a prolific developer and publisher back in the early to mid 2000s so it isn't hard to believe this is legit.
I reached out to wunderbreadv2 for more info on this incredible find, and how he came to own it:
"I actually found it [the Deer Avenger GD] in the basement of a women's club. They were hosting a garage sale to help out funding scholarships for high school seniors. As soon as I reached the shelves filled with VHS tapes I saw it unboxed - just the disk. The disk is a little bit scratched but I'm sure it will still run. The game was found in Bergen County, NJ."
- Reddit user wunderbreadv2
The last part is quite interesting as Westlake Interactive were based in Minnesota, yet the mysterious Deer Avenger 3 GD was discovered in New Jersey - a quick look at Google Maps will illustrate just how far apart those two states are. Quite how the disc came to be hidden away in the basement of a women's club adds further intrigue to the story.
Below is some footage of the PC version of Deer Avenger 3, to give an idea of how the Dreamcast version could potentially look:
At present, we don't know how complete the game on the disc is as the owner doesn't have access to a System Disc 2 - a type of boot disc that allows production Dreamcasts to run pre-production games. However, several members of The Dreamcast Junkyard's Facebook group have offered help and we are currently speaking to the owner of the disc with a view to investigating further and potentially getting the files dumped online. It's an exciting discovery and as we find out more about this mysterious and hitherto unannounced port, we'll be sure to keep you informed.
