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Deer Avenger 3: An Update

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.

I hope I'm proven wrong and somehow wunderbreadv2 gets the $1000 he's campaigning for, but the truth of the matter is that no matter how interesting the story is, the Dreamcast community is probably not going to stump up that kind of funding for an unknown quantity. Nobody knows what is on that disc - it could literally be a proof of concept demo or just a menu screen. Furthermore, this is Deer Avenger 3 we're discussing. It's not a Geist Force or some hitherto unknown port of Planet Harriers or Virtua Fighter 4. At best, it's likely to be a competent port of a PC game quite probably in an unfinished state.

For me though, the most annoying aspect to this whole saga is that multiple people in the community have offered their help for free. Their time and effort, with all of the required equipment, for no monetary compensation - people who know exactly how to extract the data on this GD and turn it into a bootable ISO in a mere matter of hours. All it would take is for wunderbreadv2 to send the disc to any one of the people who have offered help. At one point I thought the deal was done and people were communicating...but alas this isn't the case. If you read the Go Fund Me campaign, wunderbreadv2 is asking for money to acquire a System Disc 2 and an SD card reader, but what can't be bought with $1000 is the expertise required to put these ingredients together and come up with a bootable or playable ISO. It all seems a little muddled, even to someone like me who really isn't an expert when it comes to this type of thing. And then of course, the long shadow of the discovery and release (for free) of Millennium Racer still hangs over this topic.
I don't hold any ill will toward wunderbreadv2 for the decision to go with a Go Fund Me campaign, and I hope it receives the funding asked for. But honestly, I can't see it. It's hard enough trying to get people to just click on the links I post around the place to the articles I write here...getting people to donate their own money for an unknown game in an unknown state of completeness is possibly a step too far. Hell, even brand new Dreamcast exclusive Kickstarters have a hard enough time raising funding. As I said, I could be proven wrong but if not and the Go Fund Me remains unfunded, then I would like to assure wunderbreadv2 that the offer of assistance from the wider community is still very much on the table.

You can find the Dreamcast Deer Avenger 3 Go Fund Me here.

23 comments:

  1. I'm just coming into this at the 11th hour - but just from what I've read in the last couple of days (and your post kind of adds weight to it), it kind of sounds like he wants to make a bit of money from this.
    If it's that easy and free to get help from the community to get it published, then why wouldn't he do that, unless he wants some money from it?
    Now, that's totally up to him though. If he feels he can make money and wants to - that's his call - it's not much different than him just putting the disc up on eBay - which he's totally within his right to do.

    But I don't him or the full details around it - so I could very easily be wrong about his intentions. Just, from an outsiders perspective, it looks this way.

    I'd love to hear his thoughts or comments on the matter.

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    1. Yeah I tend to agree. I have spoken to him briefly through Facebook and hopefully he doesn't take this article as an attack or a negative view (he's actually a very decent guy) and there's no ill will. And yes, it is up to him what he does with the disc - he found it after all. I just don't think the scene is big enough to support this level of funding. That said, maybe this article will give the Go Fund Me a little more exposure and it'll get funded!

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  2. Typo (can't seem to edit): But I don't *know* him or the full details on it...

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  3. The premise of the game sounds fun. I would love to give it a spin on my Dreamcast. But I'm not giving any money to help him do something himself which skilled members of the community have offered to do for free.

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  4. Да в то время, как все Dreamcast фанаты покупают всякое гавно, наподобие игр от Орион софт, можно и занести за эту игру денег. Оно может и окажется говном, но по крайней мере это будет ценное гавно мамонта, а не какая-то лютая срань от не имеющих ни вкуса, ни желания делать качественно разработчиков.

    Такой мусор нам не нужен:
    Elansar
    Escape 2042: The Truth Defenders
    James & Watch - Arm
    James & watch - Tooth Cracker
    Philia - The Sequel to Elansar
    Zia & the Goddesses of Magic

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  5. Honestly, this whole thing has smelled fishy since I first heard of it. The timing especially after Millenium Racer was a big red flag...

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    1. Trust me as the owner of this disk none of this is fake

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    2. Trust me as the owner of this disk none of this is fake

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  6. Would it even be legal for him to sell this game like a retail release, or even a "backup" release?

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  7. He actually does not need the system disc for this, there are plenty of web sites showing how to rip a gdr. Good luck though.

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  8. Jj, yes he does. This is not a regular/retail GDR.

    It could be that he is just trying to dump the disc, since he may not feel comfortable by lending it to others. After dumped, he could always send the dump to the right people that could optimize the game and make a self-boot disc.

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  9. All this talk about dumps makes me want to take a dump...on their faces. These guys suck for holding out.

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  10. Hi I am wunderbreadv2 sorry for holding out on you all, but outer ally five minutes ago, I've contacted the seller of the system disc two needed and am trying to make a deal with him. For anyone suspicious this disk is not fake and I do not wish to make money off of it. If things go sour between me and this ebay seller I will gratuitously take help from this wonderful community. Why I hesitated is that giving this disk away to random people on the internet is quite worrying, but options for dumping this disk is running out so again if I cant acquire this system disk 2 from this ebay seller I'll notify and send the disk out to one of you guys to dump. Thank you

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  11. Thanks for the update wunderbreadv2 - just to let you know, japanese_cake, the buy who successfully recovered Millennium Racer has also offered to send a System Disc 2 to you if required.

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  12. Any updates on this?
    Is it not possible to just use DreamShells GD-Ripper application to dump the GD-ROM contents onto an SD card?
    If all else fails, I could provide a Dreamcast SD-Card reader for free in case anyone is interested in exploring this option....

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Just found out that the guy who found the disc sold it on eBay a few days ago for $500.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphW_vI2UBg

    There's hoping that the person who bough the game is willing and able to release it to the public.

    If all goes well we'll probably see a release in the next days/weeks...

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  15. Thanks for all the comments. We're aware of the sale of the disc and everything else. However, we won't be covering anything further on this game due to the way in which it all just got a little bit scummy.

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  16. Yea, it was probably for the best to not mention the sale here on the site, otherwise the price for the item would have risen even more.

    I'm just hoping the disc finds its way into a decent & competent guys hands.

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  17. wunderbreadv2 please contact me at uncle.eric88@gmail.com

    please upload the files to the internet. you need to do it through either the development kit or the console by aol, att. it's the only way the files can be read on the computer. than convert the files through mil cd image burner but it only works on Dreamcast made from July 1999- September 2000. after those dates October 2000 to march 2001 Dreamcast, it won't work. sega removed mil cd making burning dc games useless. I can pay you either us dollars or euros.

    the Dreamcast can read cd r self bootable games. contact my friend Gary Walton at

    Dreamcasting@btinternet.com he has a flickr page at

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamcast/14985101700

    he only accepts payment in gbp via paypal.

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  18. contact me at uncle.eric88@gmail.com

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  19. The current owner who paid $500.00US contacted Adam Koralik to record the game play. This is a beta of a demo, not a demo of the game. Look up Adam's video for details and game play with the large 3D world it lives in.

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  20. Apparently the disc is not even a demo but a beta of a demo. The current owner contacted Adam Koralik to play and record this beta demo. It is playable and has a large 3D open world. For details and to see the game play, you will have to find his video post on YouTube.

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