The Scorpion King is a prototype for a fighting game / beat ‘em up that was created by Osiris Studios, based on the 2002 film with the same name (featuring Dwayne Johnson). It seems that the studio tried to pitch this demo to publishers that had the Scorpion King license (probably VU Games in North [...]
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Crash Landed is a canceled 3d platformer that was being developed by Renegade Kid in 2008 or 2009 for publisher Activision. It featured Crash Bandicoot, a character originally created by Naughty Dog in the 90′s. Crash Landed was never officially announced, but thankfully in 2013 Nintendo World Report shared a video of the game on [...]
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Dinosaur Legend (Kyouryuu Densetsu) is a cancelled NES / Famicom game that was in development by HAL Laboratory, a famous developer that gave Nintendo popular series as Kirby and Super Smash Bros. They created many games for the Famicom/NES, but one of them was never release: Dinosaur Legend. It was going to be a curious [...]
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Wildlife: Forest Survival is a canceled game developed by Electronic Arts which it was supposed to be released in 2011 for XBLA/PSN. The object of Wildlife was to survive in one of the eight different arenas available by exploiting the unique characteristics of the four selectable animals (a hawk, a rabbit, a gator, a fox). [...]
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Catacombs is a cancelled FPS that was being developed by Cavia for Square-Enix in 2010. The game was never officially announced and the project was shelved in 2011, but in 2012 Siliconera leaked some screenshots and informations about it. Catacombs was basically an interesting crossover between a RPG with random-generated dungeons and a team-based shooter. [...]
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Wolfang is an action game / side scrolling shoot ‘em up that was in development by Seibu Kaihatsu (?) for the original Playstation and it would have been published by Bird (?). There are not many info about this, maybe the game was released under a different name and a by different publisher? (even if it’s [...]
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Dementium 2 is a FPS developed by Renegade Kid and released for DS in 2010. Below we can seen some screenshots and a video of a tech demo that was created before the actual development of the game started. Gregg Hargrove briefly talked about it in the Renegade Kid board: I wanted to comment on how [...]
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The Neverhood is an point and click adventure game made by Doug TenNapel and released for PC by DreamWorks Studios in 1996. Two years later a 2d platform game called Skullmonkey, which it was intended as a sequel of the first game, was created by the same developers for PSX. It was a commercial failure, [...]
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As we can read on Wikipedia, Dragon’s Crown is a 2D action game developed by Vanillaware with assistance from Atlus for the PSvita and PS3. Originally the game was planned for the Dreamcast in 1998, as stated by Vanillaware president George Kamitani, but sadly it was cancelled because he was unable to find a publisher [...]
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Atari Karts is a Mario Kart-style racing game for Atari Jaguar published by Atari Games and developed by Miracle Designs Ltd. The game music was composed in 1994 by Fabrice Gillet in Protracker on an Amiga. Both he and the people who created the in-game artwork are not listed in the game’s credits at the [...]
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Between 2006 and 2012, SCEE CAMBRIDGE (now known as Guerrilla Cambridge), the team behind popular Playstation games as MediEvil, Ghosthunter and Killzone: Mercenary, was working on many different concepts and prototypes to create new games for the Playstation 3 and in 2011 they tried to pitch an action game set in Science Fiction world that would have made use of the PS3 Move controller, as another of their released games, “TV Superstars“. This sci-fi game looked much better than TV Superstars, but it was cancelled for some unknown reasons, maybe because of quality issues or the end of the “motion controller” fad.
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Videos (@0:21):
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Earth No More is a cancelled FPS that was in development from 2007 to 2009 by Recoil Games (a studio based in Finland and founded by Remedy Entertainment co-founder Samuli Syvahuoko), using UE3 game engine, and it would have been published by 3D Realms / Radar Group for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. Earth No More would have been set in a small New England town quarantined due to a mysterious environmental apocalypse. Sadly the development had to be stopped because Recoil Games had some financial problems. After a while, they were able to create a new game, Rochard, that was released as a digital title for PC, Mac and PS3, but it’s currently unknown if Earth No More will ever be resurrected for current-gen consoles. You can find more about Earth No More on Wikipedia, IGN and Gamasutra.
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Monster Dunk is a cancelled arcade basketball game that was in development by Mindscape Inc for the Nintendo 64, as a part of Nintendo’s “dream team” of developers that were working on titles for their “Project Reality”. It seems that the game was announced at E3 1995 but the developers never shared any official screenshot, even if the project could have been at least in a concept / prototype form, maybe if we are lucky some images could resurface some day.
In the original press release we can read:
The game takes a unique and humorous twist on the basketball game genre, featuring famous monsters playing two-on-two basketball. “Monster Dunk” will take advantage of Nintendo Ultra 64′s unique capabilities, such as providing players with dozens of stunning special-effects moves (for example, one character becoming a cloud of smoke, morphing into a bat, flying above the basket and dropping the ball through), creating dozens of random court hazards (hands periodically reaching up from the floor and grabbing players’ legs), and including humorous game- and season-ending winning team sequences (the winning team throwing the losing team out of the stadium).
In 1996 Mindscape was in huge economic problems, with expected loss of 46 millions GBP following a loss of 6.9 millions GBP in 1995, and they decided to stop the development of Monster Dunk for the N64.
Thanks to Celine for the second scan!
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Monster Dunk announced for the nintendo 64 (scan from Nintendo Power 74, July 1995)
Monster Dunk by mindscape for the Nintendo 64
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Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko is a 3D platform game that was developed by Crystal Dynamics and Gratuitous Games for the original Playstation and Nintendo 64. Steve noticed a lot of beta differences from the various Gex 3 demos that were released before the final game.
First up, a video featuring the level “Clueless In Seattle” that is in volume 4 in a series of Eidos demo discs (it seems that this demo also appears in a greatest hits version of Tomb Raider II).
There are noticeable differences here compared to the level that is in the game’s retail release:
In the retail version, bears are enemies that can be found in the hedgemaze of this level. In this demo, the bears are absent there and only appear as these statues that can hurt you if you jump into them. These statues are also present in the retail version, but will not harm you if you jump into them. Also, there is an instance in the retail version where a small scene occurs in which the statue bears – for a lack of a better term – come to life as enemies. In this demo, this scene never occurs and the statue bears never come to life:
At some point, the statue bears had a plaque on them:
You can see this plaque in this beta trailer for Gex 3 Deep Cover Gecko. This plaque is NOT in the demo and the retail version.
In the retail version of this level, Gex looks through a magnifying glass while in first-person view. In this demo, gex simply goes into first person without the magnifying glass! Spooky!
Gex’s butler, Alfred, is completely absent in this room and the demo. The wooden wall here eventually became a glass window in the retail version.
Instead of a symbol on the floor , this demo used a spinning magnifying glass to teleport you to various mini-games.
Unlike what is shown here, you CANNOT play the level’s minigames while wearing the vampire outfit in the retail version.
I believe these remote controls are from Gex: Enter the Gecko – the second game in the Gex trilogy. The retail version of Gex 3 had completely different remote controls, so these may have simply been placeholders.
Here are some other differences Steve found within the demo:
That’s a lot of info, eh? It doesn’t end there though! Here’s more – this is from a trailer on Youtube that shows content NOT SEEN AT ALL IN THE RETAIL VERSION.
Here are the differences Steve spotted in the beta trailer:
Thanks to Steve for the contribution!
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Clockwork Aquario (Tokeijikake no Aquario in Japanese) is an arcade game developed by Escape / WestOne Bit Entertainment, the same guys behind the Wonderboy series, that was cancelled in 1994 after about two years of development.
In 2011 Johnny Undaunted, a lostlevels forum user, translated an interview with the game’s music composer
Sakamoto: It was going to be similar to Wonder Boy 3: Monster Lair. It was going to be a forced side-scrolling game, but with a bit of a cooperative multiplayer mode. It was originally going to be a 2-players game, but then we decided to add a third player as well. The three characters consisted of a boy (named Hack Rondo), a girl (Elle Moon), and a robot (Gash). The method of attack was by stomping on enemies and then grabbing them to throw them out. Oh, I think you could even catch enemies thrown by other players as well or something like that. You could even head butt thrown enemies thrown at you.
and some notes wrote by a japanese gamer who played Aquario in 1993 in a location testing
Aquario was a Super Mario Bros.-type side-scrolling action game. The controls originally consisted of three action buttons (“throw”, “jump” and “invincibility”).
Enemies are attacked first by jumping over them, rendering them unconscious. When the player moves towards an unconscious enemy, he automatically picks it up. At this point the player can throw the enemy by pressing the throw button. Enemies that are thrown flies off in a single horizontal line and are defeated by flying off-screen or being bashed to a wall. Thrown enemies can be used to knock other enemies unconscious as well. Moreover, by holding the joystick upwards, enemies can be thrown to the top of the screen as well.
Pressing the invincibility button makes the player invincible to enemies for a brief period. In the upper portion of the screen, there’s an invincibility gauge underneath the score display and when it reaches zero, the player’s invincibility will wear off. The gauge can be replenished by picking up items.
The key to the exit of each stage is kept by a sub-boss. By defeating the sub-boss, the player can obtain the key and use it to enter the boss’ lair. Each boss can be defeated by jumping over him repeatedly or by throwing his henchmen to him. The boss of the first stage in this version was a crab.
The game featured a 2-hit points per life system similar to Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Midnight Wanderers, in which getting hit once would make the player’s clothes look tattered, and then getting hit a second time would make him lose a life. The player’s clothes can be restored by picking up a health power-up.
* Impressions of the June 14 version.
This version was really difficult. I couldn’t defeat the crab boss after several plays. It was a pretty difficult experience for novice players, since enemies move quickly and a lot of fake-outs are used by them. The invincibility button was difficult to use as well. Because it was difficulty to predict what kind of dangers would face in these kinds of action games, getting through them was simply a matter of “pressing the button on time”. There were also unfair trap placement as well, such as the snapping trap in Stage 1. The game was still unfinished at the time, as there were bugs such as glitched text display during the playing instructions at the start of the game. However, the colorful graphics really caught my attention.*August 15, 1993
Another location test for Aquario was held, this time in the comic book shop near the Spo-Lan in Shinjuku Nishiguchi. The content of the game were greatly altered since the last location test, to the point that the game was almost completed.Impressions of the August 15 revision.
The number of action buttons was reduced to only two (punch and jump). This time, invincibility is only provided by a power-up item for a limited period (similar to the Starman in Super Mario Bros.). The invincibility gauge was replaced with a 1UP gauge that gives player an extra life when filled and it seems enemies are now defeated by knocking them unconscious with a punch, moving onto the unconscious enemy, and then throwing them. It was also possible to defeat enemies by simply punching an unconscious enemy further until he disappears . Since players were irritated that they were unable to defeat enemies quickly in the June 14 version, the resulting changes in this version made the game easier to play in longer periods. Perhaps because of this, the game was still deemed unsafe to release to the market yet.*August 29, 1993
Once again location testing was held in the Spo-Land store in Shinjuku Nishiguchi. I was wondering at this point why it wasn’t already released yet (how unfortunate).Changes made in the August 29 revision.
The differences are very minor this time. However, there seems to be a 2-Players competitive mode this time (there wasn’t one in the August 15 version). I have no idea how it worked because I never saw it in action. From what I remember, a few graphical details were changed, but I didn’t have much difficulty. Even though I wanted the game to come out already, I had a bad premonition at the time.
It was the last day I ever saw the game. I heard stories that another location test was conducted in the Spring of ’94, but I’m not sure what changes were done at that point. Because of this, I now associated location tests with the process of a game company coming up with the decision of having to cancel a game. I thought to myself I shouldn’t get too involved with location tests. However, I must consider myself fortunate to have the chance to had played this game due to my fascination with the company’s Monster World series.
Thanks to an hardcoregaming 101 interview with Ryuichi Nishizawa, director of Aquario and of almost all the Wonderboy games, we also know that the source code survived and the reasons behind the game’s cancellation:
“Aquario of the Clockwork” was the last arcade game developed by my company. I had been working and suffering for a long time to complete it, but the location test results were poor. It was an eccentric action game with three player simultaneous play. The graphics were quite excellent, but it was not released, unfortunately. The program is located in the archives of my company, so I do not have any screenshots.
The soundtrack of Aquario is available to buy here. For more informations check this hardcore gaming 101 blog post. Thanks to Youloute for the contribution!
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F1 Racing Championship 2 is a cancelled racing developed by Video System and supossed to be published by Ubisoft. In the background Players can recreate historical races whereby they must meet various racing targets in conditions and situations that actually occurred in the 2000 FIA Formula One World Championship season. New special effects include motion blur, camera vibrations and different contrast levels.
It was scheduled to be released in the four quarter of 2001 for Playstation 2 and PC, but it was cancelled for unknown reasons.
Information & Images are obtained of Neoseeker.com
Thanks to Jesus Enrique Sanches for the contribution!
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Do you miss the U64 Forum? We are trying to find the best way to create a new forum, but we need your feedback!
As the old U64 forums were on the same server as the main site, they used a lot of resources and to moderate them was time-consuming.. also, as the U64 forums had to be removed from the U64 server, they are not accessible anymore.
So we are thinking about to use a Facebook Group as the new U64 Forum: that will not take any resource from the main U64 server and even if U64 will go down again, at least Facebook will stay online and the “forum” will be accessible (almost) forever.. what do you think?
We will collect all your feedbacks and decide what to do! Leave your comment below and tell us what you think about to use a Facebook Group as the new U64 Forum :)
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Contra Spirits 64 is a cancelled shooter / action game in the contra series that was in development by Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka for the Nintendo 64. There are just a few info about this unreleased project as Konami never shown any official screenshot or concept art, but the title was in many list of games to be released for the N64 and the hopes went up for many Nintendo gamers that wanted a new and fun game for their 64bit console. Unfortunatly it seems that as the Nintendo 64 sold poorly in Japan, Konami decided to stop the development of the project and disbanded its team.
As we can read on IGN64:
Contra was planned, but the original team was disbanded and all team members now work on different projects,” said a company spokesperson. [Contra] has pretty much been shelved. [...] There is concern over the poor N64 console sales in Japan [...]
Contra 64 would have been a sidescrolling 3D game, with some sessions in which the camera would have switched angles or move behind the characters, possible for boss battles. There are some rumors that say that the Contra Spirits 64 concept was resurrected and became Contra: Shattered Soldier for PS2, but as Contra N64 was in development in 1998 and Contra PS2 was announced and released in 2002, it’s hard to say if the 2 project have anything in common.
Below you can see some scans from old magazines that wrote about Contra Spirits 64 (if you have Next Generation Issue 29, Volume 3 May 1997 and can make a bigger scan of their N64 article, please let us know!).
Thanks to Celine and Contrapedia for the contributions!
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Pinkie is a 2D platform game developed by Data Design Systems and published for Amiga in 1995. It seems that a port of this game was in development for the Super Nintendo but never completed for various reasons. Thanks to an anonymous contributor a playable version of Pinkie SNES was leaked and can be preserved, you can download it from here.
This is a developer build and has various debugging features turned on, such as the controller Select button will allow you teleport the character anywhere in a level and the map screen automatically unlocks the next level without you needing to complete the previous level. There’s lots of other bits in there as well – along with various parts that are completely broken such as the level exit effect which will cause the game to lose frames and never properly recover.
It works on the current batch of SNES emulators if you want to take a look.
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Video:
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Space Jelly, also known as Moon Jelly (and originally called “A Fist Full of Credits”), is a cancelled game that was in development for the Nintendo 64 by Software Creations. The game’s world and settings were created by the Pickford Brothers as an original game concept, with concept arts by Steve Hanson. Initially Space Jelly / Moon Jelly wasn’t really a platform-specific game, it was more about designing a main character, their world, backstory and art style, with the intention of creating a franchise which would lead to a series of games. Ste and John Pickford put together a reference book of characters, art, locations, while Richard Kay (Software Creations managing director) was trying to sell the concept to various publishers, before any actual game development began.
In 1995/1996 the Pickford Brothers left Software Creations and were no longer involved in Space Jelly, but Software Creations continued to work on the game, with Steve Hanson taking over as game designer. With only some concept arts and a design doc, it seems that Software Creations was not able to find a publisher for Space Jelly yet. In 1995 Nintendo of America announced that Software Creations entered in their “Dream Team” and as SC’s knowledge of the N64 hardware became more and more deep (SC also created the sound tools for the N64), they started to work on a Nintendo 64 prototype using the Space Jelly concept, with 3D models done by Deborah Graham. In the gallery below you can see one Space Jelly character, Johnny Forbidden, modeled by Francis O’Brien in his spare time inbetween other Software Creations projects.
Space Jelly became a self-funded Nintendo 64 project, a 3D platformer / action game, with ingame graphics tailored to the strengths / weaknesses of the N64 hardware. As we can read from the comments by journalists that saw a video of Space Jelly when Software Creations was showing it at gaming expos, the graphics were great, like a colorful Tim Burton game, with animations done by ex Cosgrove Hall staff.
Sadly Space Jelly was later cancelled, along with many others Software Creations projects for the N64, as Forever Dragonz, Dead Ahead, Blade & Barrel and Creator. Even with various teams full of talented people, probably Software Creations at that time had too many original prototypes in development and they had to cut some of them to switch resources to those project that had more chances to be profitable. In the end, the only games developed by Software Creations that were released on the Nintendo 64 were Carmageddon, FIFA 99, Hexen, World Cup 98 and a couple of Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey: all their more interesting and original games were never released.
Thanks to Francis O’Brien and Ste Pickford for their contributions! Thanks to Celine for some of the scans!
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