Unreleased 'Days Of Thunder' NES Game Reconstructed From Over Three Dozen Floppies

Retro gaming is a big deal with enthusiasts that want to relive the old games they grew up with. Tom Cruise fans may recall his NASCAR racing movie called "Days of Thunder". The Video Game History Foundation has discovered an unreleased version of a video game based on the film that was created by the late Chris Oberth (he died in 2012). He was the developer behind some popular retro games, including Anteater for the NES and Winter Games for the Commodore 64.

It's unclear why the video game was canceled, but Oberth had virtually finished the game before it was shelved. The game was discovered spread across 40 different floppy disks acquired from Oberth's family by the Video Game History Foundation earlier this year. Along with the disks obtained from the family were various materials including old computers.

One of the floppy disks was labeled "Nintendo Hot Rad Taxi Final." Within the materials acquired from the family was the "Days of Thunder" video game, and restoring it to playable status was quite the undertaking. It took weeks for the organization to digitize the data and assemble the game from the data they recovered. The complete source code for the game will be published on GitHub, with the permission of Oberth's family

Retro gamers who want a version of the game that is ready to play will be thrilled to hear the next bit. A group of retro gaming enthusiasts that are unaffiliated with the Video Game History Foundation will publish a small print run of "Days of Thunder" on a playable NES cartridge. All proceeds from the sale of the game will go to Oberth's wife, who still works full-time in a hospital at 65 years old. The website where fans can buy a copy on a cartridge is down as of writing but could come back up at any time.

In other retro gaming news, we talked about the Odroid-Go Advanced Black Edition Linux handheld meant for retro gaming last month.