Developed by Equilibrium, a software company out of Sausalito in California, USA. The company was formed in 1989 and began developing video games in 1990. For the next 4 years the company would work on about 10 titles, publicly known at least, before deciding to leave the video game business sometime in 1994. Equilibrium went on to develop some software called Debabelizer and is still in business today. A small oddity on their website states that the company was founded in 2004 when their roots go back further than that. It’s a little complicated and to avoid going into rabbit hole about Equilibrium, the company has since 2004 been known as Automated Media Processing Solutions, but the company owns Equilibrium as a registered trademark.

So, with that out of the way, let’s get back into what this article actually is about. As mentioned, Equilibrium worked on some 10 video game titles that we have heard of through magazines or the fact that they were actually finished and released way back.

During the early days of video game development at Equilibrium, one game actually never saw the light of day, at least not outside of Equilibrium and maybe a handful of possible publishers. The game I am talking about is called “Defectors!” with the catchy subtitle “Multi-player addiction”.

As far as I know the title totally missed magazine headlines back in the day. Some 20+ years ago I was taking to Phil Mikkelson, of Color Dreams and later Amerivan Video Entertainment fame, about purchasing some old development carts he had lying around. One of these games was the infamous Defectors game, but sadly I don’t have any details about the origins of the cart other than it having been developed sometime in 1990, maybe the game was sent to American Video Entertainment for a possible publishing deal – or, maybe the game was actually contracted by American Video Entertainment and intended to be published by American Video Entertainment.

The Defectors game design was supposedly done by Erich Horn who also did the programming, and maybe someone else who remains unknown. The graphics were created by Curtis Norris. Erich Horn were, before Equilibrium, employed by Tengen and was credited on their NES version of Gauntlet for design and programming. Gauntlet was released by Tengen in July 1988, but besides that it’s not known at the time of writing if he worked on any other Tengen titles.

Curtis Norris is a bit of a mystery and I have not been able to find any history about his except for his time at Equilibrium where he is credited on the Gameboy version of Swamp Thing.

Anyway, back to Defectors and again not a whole lot is known about the game, like for how long it was in development, or if it was Equilibrium’s first attempt at making an NES game. Peter Pan and the Pirates for the NES was released in January 1991, by THQ – developed by Equilibrium, so Peter Pan could have been the first game as the EPROMs on my Defectors cart is dated November 11th, 1990 and states that the game is in the beta stage. The EPROM labels also states that the game is copyrighted by Equilibrium in 1991, and the prototype cart is also hinting that the game probably did not have a publisher yet in 1991, and was sent to American Video Entertainment in hopes for a deal.

Whether American Video Entertainment then actually did decide to fund development of the game is unknown, but according to some old correspondence I had with former Equilibrium employees in 2006, the recollection was that that game never was finished due to missed payment on a previous milestone in the development of the game. With that said though, this is not an official statement, but an attempt to recollect what happened to the game.

I was also told that the state of the game was no more than 10 levels, although I can confirm that a lot more levels are available, and that the graphics were very really poor. The recollection was that the game was running very poorly and was only really in the alpha stage – however the prototype cartridge states that the game is beta. What’s true and what’s not is a difficult thing to determine, especially when people are asked about things that happened more than a decade ago, when asked – heck, I can hardly remember what happed some 16 years ago myself.

Defectors, so what type of game is it? Well it is an arcade style game, everything happens on just one screen and well it plays a bit like a game called Bezerk. The game allows for up to 4 players, although I have only ever played it as a 1 player game where you then compete against 3 computer players. The objective is to shoot some grey “baddies” roaming the screen, they will then turn the color of your player and help you chase down the other players – but beware – when they shoot the baddies too, they again change color and start to chase you.

Finish off the other players and you have won the round – and the game goes on and on and on like this with some changes to the maze layout though.

All in all it’s a sweet little game, and while it can get a little tedious during single player, I am sure it could be a hilarious multiplayer game – and maybe have topped it off with an intro sequence about what’s going on in the game. The graphics is nothing crazy, I guess they fit the game though. However they remind me more of something out of the early 80's instead of something created in the early 90's. With that said though, they seem to fint the Bezerk style of the game just fine and I guess they could not be any different really.

Back when the the prototype was acquired back in the day, I did think about releasing a limited number of carts for people to enjoy the game, as reproductions were a new "thing" and hyped back then, but by not being the rightful owner of the game, the idea was quickly scrapped. That beings us to 2025, because while Defectors has been in hiatus for a few decades and might not even be known to many still, even though it was mentioned in an Equilibrium article of mine nearly 20 years ago, word spread a few months ago that Piko Interactive has secured the rights to the game and even supposedly managed to stamp up a prototype cartridge with Defectors on it.

So, I am sure you will all be able to enjoy Defectors sometime in the future and feel free to let me know your thoughts about the game. Until then, thanks for reading.