SimCity on the Super Nintendo was groundbreaking -- it managed to combine the joy of simulated city building that Mac and Amiga gamers enjoyed into a family-friendly console title that anyone could play. But did you know Maxis and Nintendo also had an NES version in the works, too?

Last year, two prototype cartridges of the NES SimCity appeared at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, and Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation snagged a digital copy. As a fitting Christmas gift to the gaming world, he published a deep dive into the history of the long lost game, which also covers the ways it differs from the SNES version we're all familiar with, as well as a NES ROM for emulators.