

1990 · Axlon · Action
Save Mary
Atari exclusive
Save Mary is an Atari 2600 action game that revolves around creating platforms to save Mary, the damsel in distress. The character is a humble construction worker who must pick up crates to use as platforms to get Mary to climb up, eventually leading to the top of the valley. The villain of the story is a mustachioed fiend who keeps Mary at the bottom of the valley for his own perverse pleasure.
- Released
- 1990
- Platforms
- Atari 2600
- Genres
- Action
- Developers
- Axlon
- Publishers
- Atari, Inc.
- Modes
- Single-player
- Themes
- Action
- Country
- United States
About
Save Mary is a prototype video game designed by Tod Frye and made for the Atari 2600. The game involves Mary who is trapped in a valley that is slowly filling with water. The player must operate a crane to move blocks to allow Mary to escape the rising water and eventually be carried to safety by the player.
Frye had years of experience working for various companies including Atari where he made the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man (1982). Following the video game crash of 1983, he continued to develop games for the system at companies like Epyx and in 1989 at Axlon where he began developing Save Mary. The game was never released as the company began focusing on making games for the Atari Lynx.
Keywords
- canceled games
Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
Barnaby Black has placed Mary at the bottom of a steep canyon which is slowly filling with water. The player controls a crane to pick up various blocks that must be fit together to allow Mary to climb them to escape the rising water levels. Mary panics and moves back and forth climbing platforms near her. To progress, the player must move the crane left and right along its rails and lower the crane's hook and pick up objects such as bricks for Mary to traverse on, items to assist the player, and to pick up and rescue Mary herself.
Items can be found that cause various effects for the player, ranging from controlling the water flow, moving the crane faster, stopping Mary from moving across the board and making her invulnerable to the bricks the player drops.
Development
Save Mary was made by Tod Frye. Frye had a long history with Atari, joining the company in 1979 where he made the 1982 port of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. Following the release of the high-selling but poorly received game, Frye earned over $1.3 million in royalties but found most of his money had been depleted by 1985.
Upon Jack Tramiel's acquisition of the Atari consumer division and launch of the Atari ST computer line, Tramiel began focusing on reviving the Atari 2600, hiring Michael Katz from Epyx in November 1985 to take on the role of the president of Atari's new Entertainment Electronics Division. Frye had been working for Epyx porting computer games such as Summer Games to the Atari 2600 and then found himself next working for Nolan Bushnell's firm Axlon in 1989. While at Axlon, Frye worked on games like Shooting Gallery and Save Mary. These titles went unreleased as development on games had then shifted to the new system, the Atari Lynx.
Reception
Since its official release, the game has received positive reviews from publications such as Video Game Collector, NintendoLife, and Destructoid. Matt Reichert of Video Game Collector magazine stated in 2008 that Save Mary was an interesting Tetris-variant and that "Atari had a real winner on its hands." Ollie Reynolds of NintendoLife commented on the game in the Atari 50 2023 update release, stating that the title was a slow, methodical game, but immensely fun. Zoey Handley of Destructoid stated that the game was a "pretty fantastic" Atari 2600 title.
Releases by platformdates and regions as published
Editions and related releases
- Included in
- Atari VaultAtari Flashback Classics Vol. 1Atari Flashback ClassicsAtari Flashback 2Atari Flashback XAtari Flashback 6Atari Flashback 2+Atari Flashback 3Atari Flashback 4Atari Flashback X DeluxeAtari Flashback Blast! Vol. 1Super Pocket: Atari EditionAtari Flashback 4: 40th Anniversary - Deluxe EditionAtari Flashback 8 Gold: Activision EditionAtari 50: The Anniversary Celebration
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Platform libraries
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Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.