A modern-day audience may marvel over artbooks featuring concept drawings for titles like The Last of Us or Marvel’s Spider-Man, but go back a few decades and the original behind-the-scenes sketches and plans for video games were rarely seen. Imagine seeing the original concept art for iconic titles like Super Mario Kart, Pac-Man, and Dig Dug!
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One legendary game is Pitfall!, released for the Atari 2600 in September 1982, then, just two months later, on Mattel Electronics’ Intellivision. This platformer predated Mario Bros. (1983) and so was a groundbreaking title in the genre. Anything associated with it is an important part of video gaming history. And that’s why my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I saw a very special Pitfall! collectible pop up on eBay.
This Concept Map For Pitfall! Is Four Decades Old
Now available on eBay is an original concept map for Pitfall!, consisting of multiple posters that chart the journey through the platform game. It’s an astonishing piece of video game memorabilia and probably deserves to be in the MADE museum in Oakland, California, or the Netherlands’ Nationaal Videogame Museum. Instead, it’s available to any collectors willing to hand over $1,912.50 (or best offer). It’s incredible, considering Pitfall! is over 44 years old.
Pitfall! featured Pitfall Harry, who had just 20 minutes to traverse a jungle and cave system in order to find treasure. The third-person view of the landscape is emblazoned on the original map in 8-bit graphics. Remarkably, these posters seem to be from before Pitfall! had its obstacles placed in-game, so each is represented by sticky notes which read, for example, “Spider”, “Scorpions”, “Rope”, “Spike”, and “Fireball”. Rather charmingly, “piranha” is repeatedly misspelled as “Pirahna”.
The maps seem to be in good condition, although they’ve clearly been rolled up in storage for a long time, so they do naturally curl up a bit and have creases. Nonetheless, they seem ideal for framing, as the seller notes, to make “an amazing display.” It’s an eye-catching bit of memorabilia from one of the most innovative platformers in history.
Where Does This Pitfall! Map Come From?
The seller says this item comes from the estate of Steve Bjork, “the famous video game programmer.” Indeed, Bjork was an innovator who worked on the Tandy Color Computer, known by enthusiasts and collectors today as CoCo (which led to work for Nintendo).
Interestingly, Bjork actually worked on Pitfall!’s sequels, Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1984), and Super Pitfall (1986), both also published by Activision.
Bjork’s passing was announced in December 2023, and though his programming genius wasn’t well publicized or celebrated back in the day, more recently, many dedicated fans of that era have come to really appreciate and honor his work. Since his passing, an estate sale means that rare items, important in the history of video games, have come up for auction semi-regularly. Nonetheless, in the world of CoCo, he was something of a legend. And while such a providence is hard to authenticate, if this is genuine (and we’ve no indications otherwise), then this Pitfall! concept map is a unique and stunning collectible.
Either way, it’s a real thing of beauty!
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