Garfield: Caught Red-handed

Here's a bit of a backstory, since it's good to know how the hell this happened to me to begin with.

I'm a part of a group dedicated to video game preservation, and my specialty is satellite broadcast recovery (think stuff like satellaview or the sega channel)

Most of my work there is getting a hold of Satellaview cartridges and dumping them. However, there's one Sega Channel item i'd consider my holy grail.

You see, even before i joined this group i considered myself an unironic Garfield fan. I grew up reading the comics so it's very close to me, and i occasionally watch some Garfield & friends episodes when i'm by myself

For about as long as i've been in the group, I've been yearning for the "Lost Levels" build of Garfield: Caught in the Act for the Genesis. A lot of levels that were in other releases of the game weren't in the Genesis version due to time constraints, but after the game released they ported the levels from the PC version back to the Genesis, and released it on the Sega Channel.

While it was released on there however, Sega Channel didn't allow for saving of downloaded data to cartridges like Satellaview did, so everything you downloaded got immediately erased when the console turned off, meaning any software that was released there we had to get from the developers themselves and pray they had a backup.

Or so i thought.

Around late November of last year, one of the project founders (Tim) got an email from an old Hotmail domain. They said they were in possession of a build of Caught in the act that contained the levels, and were willing to part ways with the cartridge in hopes that it'd be releases as part of a New Years blog post.

I was on good terms with the founder in question, having helped them with the dumping of a 2600 prototype that had been gifted to them, so not long after they forwarded it to me since they knew i was a Garfield fan.

I was in disbelief at first, how the hell did someone manage to dump a Sega Channel download of all things?? Shortly after i read the email, a phone call was arranged where i would soon find my answer. The person who originally emailed me (we'll call them Adrian) was the owner of a garfield fansite that had been going since the mid-90s the website looked like it too), and happened to own a genesis and a Sega Channel cartridge when the Lost Levels was still on there.

How they dumped the download was nothing short of genius. They had built a device specifically to intercept the connection between the cartridge and the actual servers where the build was, and turned it on right before downloading the game onto to cartridge, so that all the data that was sent there was copied to the device's storage as well. I was genuinely taken aback when i heard about this. I had coded software to intercept streaming services to download movies over the internet before but doing that with satellites and hardware, no less in the 90s, is simply a level of proficiency i don't know how to describe.

The phone call marked another thing as well. A deal was set, Tim was to go to their house on the 14th of December and acquire the cartridge, and then mail it to me about 2 weeks after they dump it, sort of as a Christmas gift!

Not much happened between that and Christmas, as far as I know Tim went to Adrian's house and was gone within half an hour, he noted to me in a call after that Adrian was a bit skittish and didn't want to discuss the Garfield fansite at all, changing the subject more than once when it was brought up and especially looking nervous when Tim asked about the history of it.

But I didn't think much to question it, and by the 27th it had finally arrived at my doorstep.

cartridge

Holding it in my hands felt quite strange to say the least, it wasn't like a usual genesis cartridge, it was one of the Codemasters ones with the weird shape, and the label had been ripped off with what looked to be a concerning amount of force. The strangest part of all though, there was a sticky note where the label should be, cut in half so that it'd fit the dimensions. It read "To a former friend. Lewis." Weird.

Before I started playing however, I had the idea to record my first reactions to a full playthrough of the game, so i set up a tripod next to my chair pointed somewhere in-between me and the flat screen that I wish I could replace with a CRT. It was an interesting choice on my part to do that, and with what unfolded after i'm grateful i did.

The game started like usual, One of the first things that stuck out to me is that Adrian had modified the title screen to add a little blurb, which i have supplied a recreation of below

garfield

The actual game itself was unedited, i had a lot of fun going through the cut levels, and rewatching the record it's clear it was a big moment for me, so much that I had forgotten about Adrian himself and the fact that the cartridge was modified. I was about to get a stark reminder of that, however.

About an hour in and I had reached "Season Finale", the final boss of the game. I was used to what it looked like as some years earlier I had attempted speedruns of the game, and knew some strategies on how to kill Glitch decently quick. I was not prepared at all for what was about to come, though. I'm not sure how much of this was Adrian's doing, but something was 110% messed up, and it caused the game to totally freak out at this section.

Basically everything was glitching out in some way or another (quite fitting given the setting), tiles being shifted and flipped, colours changing left and right (Glitch ended up looking far creepier thanks to this), and what's strangest of all is that the game seemed to have spawned another Garfield in, but his graphics were corrupted to hell and back with his face being mostly static

whatthefuck
(This is similar to how it looked)

Even though I was horrified the entire fight from what was going on, I did managed to beat Glitch even under these insane conditions, which brought me to the credits.

"Coordinates?" I thought to myself. Adrian had edited the credits too.

RIGHT MY WRONGS, BRING A SHOVEL

The credits stopped rolling when that showed up. My heart was racing.

I took a picture, and went outside to make sure I didn't have a panic attack.

I came back in after about 15-20 minutes, and stared at the TV, with only one thing on my mind. Adrian.

He had obviously edited the credits of the build to add this, but for what reason? I was struggling to think of why he would have done this, until i stared at the sticky note on the cartridge and my mind went back to the conversation he had with with Tim while he was at his house. While Adrian was trying to nervously change the topic from the history of the fansite, Tim told me he said he started it with a friend he'd had since childhood.

Adrian was quick to close that story though, saying no more than that he wishes their friendship didn't end so suddenly. I realized very quickly that the "Lewis" the label was referring to was mostly likely that very friend. I thought to myself for a bit upon realizing this, pondering what could have happened between Adrian and Lewis.

Then I made a decision. Whatever it was, those coordinates had something to do with it, and It'd eat me alive until i went there and figure out whatever Adrian wanted me to know.

So i grabbed a bag, and packed my things. Obviously a shovel, i supposed i'd have to dig something up, but i decided to bring some money with me too to get food since it was about 2 hour's drive from me. On top of that i brought a gun too, as much as i wanted to solve this, i didn't want to be helpless in the event that Adrian was there too and and was luring me to kill me. And lastly, i brought the cartridge i had just been playing on.

And so i set off in my car; The drive there was more boring than i'd like to admit, so to make it feel a bit more like things were tied together, i decided to chuck on the Caught in the Act OST through my phone, and i'm happy to admit it made the journey a bit less dull.

About 2 and a half hours later, i arrived about 500 meters from the coordinates. Of course. it's a forest.

Thankfully i still had a small amount of reception, so i was able to keep track of how close i was to the coordinates on my phone. After around 10 minutes of stumbling around, i eventually spotted the area Adrian was telling me to go to, and thankfully nobody was in sight to kill me like i had worried would happen.

What struck me immediately was that the area was marked with an orange X on the spot, quite telling of where he wanted me to start digging.

And so i did. The first thing i dug up was a small Garfield plush with writing on the tag. "To Lewis, i'm sorry."

I continued digging. A skull.

*thud*

I had fainted. I didn't really process it but i know i was out for about an hour and a half, and what i hadn't quite processed either was what i'd just dug up. It was Lewis.

Oh my god.

I look back at the skull, in utter disbelief. "Do i keep digging?" I thought to myself. I figured I should, if i'm just going to dig up a plush and a skull then i feel I'd never know what truly happened.

A box, seemingly the one the Garfield plush had somehow fallen out of, with a note inside it, the paper was wet in specific spots assumed to be from tear drops.

"Lewis I'm sorry this had to happen . I never wanted for
Your end to be over a damn website . I wish i didn't take
out my anger on you . You were a great friend"

By now the pieces were starting to form in my mind, Adrian and Lewis were friends that ran the website together but after a falling out Adrian accidentally killed him out of frustration. Jesus christ. As i lay there with a box, a skull, and a Garfield plush, i start to wonder what i'm going to do.

I put the plush back in the box, and i re-bury it along with the rest of Lewis. I flip the sticky note on the cartridge, and write "Here lies Lewis." and stuck it in the ground as a faux gravestone. Then i pack my things and start to drive back to my house.

It was a long drive, my phone was on low battery so i drove mostly in silence with the occasional radio station being picked up, most of my time was spent thinking about Adrian. I don't know what to do about him, it's haunted him for so long but i hope me putting that tombstone there will bring some closure to it.

When i got home, I didn't talk to anyone for days, not even the preservation group that helped start this in the first place. New Years went and came, I didn't want to check if they'd put it up, surely they played until the end of the game, right? I got my answer soon enough though, Tim called me and said he was concerned for my mental health, understandable since i hadn't been online in an entire week.

I told him everything. Adrian, The game, The credits. Lewis. He was more understanding than i thought, which startled me but i was told some news after that eased me.

One of the other members of the group played the Lost Levels build soon after i'd disappeared, and found the tombstone i'd put down. They contacted Tim soon after, who then proceeded to call Adrian. It was a long call, about 2 hours i was told, but Adrian confessed to everything; Adrian seemed confused by the headstone though, obvious since he didn't place it there.

Perhaps he'll never know why it was there, i don't know what happened to Adrian after that. As i was told, the New Years celebration went by without the Garfield game as they had enough games to release without it.

It's been a while since all of this happened, wherever Lewis is after life, i hope he's found forgiveness.

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Pub: 19 Jan 2025 22:44 UTC

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