It went unreleased and was assumed lost until 2002, when collectors identified a mislabeled cartridge as the missing Planet of the Apes game.

Marvin completed enough of the work to bring the prototype game through initial playtesting, but he left Fox for a new job at Epyx before finishing the project.

They initially assumed the game was in fact Alligator People due to the labeling and the lack of solid information about either title.

Collector Matt Reichert's research established that the game was actually John Marvin's lost Planet of the Apes, which had apparently been stored in the wrong case.

[3] Earl Green of Allgame stated that "gameplay is a bit less than thrilling, but graphics are adequate," and noted that additional features would likely have been added had production continued on the prototype.