I don't know if Don Russell posted on Nintendo Age, but I believe he is responsible for some of the NES prototypes that have been released over the years. Don passed away recently, but before he did, he got these three SNES prototypes dumped. I posted articles for them on SNES Central.

• Spot Goes to Hollywood: This game came out on the Genesis, but there were also plans for a SNES version. This prototype is really early.
• Might and Magic II: This game came out in Europe, but this is a prototype of the US release. Has some evidence of an earlier, uncensored script.
• Turbo Toons: This game also came out in Europe. I think this was an evaluation copy sent to potential US publishers.

Don's illness left his family in debt, please donate to his Gofundme if you can.

Wow didn't know that about Don, he had a farther reach than I thought. Very sad what happened, extremely OG collector. I would sometimes want to tear out my hair trying to make deals with him, but always had good conversation with him bits and pieces over the few years I knew him. Some members on here have known Don (as a collector) for 15+ years, which is crazy considering how new this community is; comparative to others.

His family has reached out to friends of mine about selling his collection, but never got back to them. Just from knowing Don, I know he had many duplicates and very expensive items in his collection. I feel his family should consider moving some of his collection if they're in financial hardship with his passing. Although I remember something about someone else in Dons family being into older video games so idk. It's a touchy subject perhaps.



** Edit: Gave more context / info **

I know of Don from the whole folder of Saturn protos that were given to Steven Lin a couple years back, among which had a TGS demo of the lost Heart of Darkness port. I think that's also going to be released sooner or later. I'm surprised to learn this one guy had a hand in a lot of other prototype releases. I guess he didn't want his name out there so much. Goes to show you don't know just who a lot of private collectors may be. They're human as the rest of us and don't want to only hoard things. It's a shame what happened. I'm extremely grateful this stuff is getting out due to his having obtained and holding onto it. I'm not in the best spot myself at the moment, but I'll definitely pass a little his family's way.

Spot Goes to Hollywood has been on my mind for awhile now, and this was a surprise to see. I even did a two hour interview with Ed Magnin and touched on it for a bit with him. He said he had a copy of it (final or not, I don't know) in his garage but was donating it to some gaming museum in Texas. May unfortunately be lost in that regard. Museums are nice and all, but I've never heard of any sharing ROMs of the stuff they got so yeah... kind of a shame he went that route. For what it's worth, I've spoken to Radar several times and last we spoke some months back, he was fully intent on releasing his Spot copy as well as a hoard of other things. Unfortunately he went MIA and hasn't been seen since May. I hope he's doing OK.

Thanks for sharing Evan. If he shared these with you some time back and you've held onto them this whole time, my hat's off to you.

It sucks what happened but is his family really taking donations when they just inherited such a valuable collection? I must be missing some information here.

I doubt what’s left is all that valuable (he sold a lot off to pay for expenses, and he didn’t charge much at all) and his family is tens of thousands in debt, with his wife having serious health issues as well. Don also had very serious health issues and was deaf, so he did not have a chance to get out to the post office often or even to get up to his attic and search for stuff among the boxes.

 

I'm trying to be really careful even discussing this because it's ultimately not as important as the family's grief but I just feel like I would personally have a completely empty shelf before I ever took a donation from anyone. Taking a donation when there's still 1, 10 or 100 games sitting there just seems strange. Ultimately I hope it works out.

Maybe consider it as a donation for the release of 3 unreleased SNES games?

Don the deaf game collector. Hmm, was this guy also known as DojoSky? I seem to remember talking to him, and almost managed to acquire Doomsayer, an unreleased but complete and playable Gameboy RPG from him, but DreamTR beat me to it. We still don't know what game it is based on, since it was done by a Japanese company (Masaya I think). I never got pictures or footage of it in action. DreamTR might still have it. There is virtually nothing known about it.

Yes. That would be one in the same. Dojosky was his screename on multiple websites as well as his AOL screename. It was a play off his name (Don) his wife's (Jolie) and his son (Skylar)

Don was indeed a special individual. His deafness was actually something that I found out about the hard way! ( I embarrassed myself is a more accurate description) as I was unaware of it when we first met, and it's not something you usually go out of your way to tell other people. But I soon realized & understood that about him. He did indeed have an amazing ability to find rare & unique games; protos among them. He had a very good eye, and amazing luck too. The flea market was one of his favorites!

He was a key member of the gaming community. I will never forget him. And there's a big reason why, and I have more to tell on that, but I'll save that for another time as I'm not ready yet & still processing this myself.

I got you beat, I found out by making fun of his grammar on a forum in the early 2000s when I was still young and kind of a jerk on the internet. I'm so glad we became friends after that, and that he accepted my apology.