Space ace was an arcade laser game released originally in 1984. However,this Nes version was going to be a platform in the same vein as the conversion of Dragon’s Lair produced for the same 8-bit console. It is likely that the project was dropped because the Nintendo Entertainment System was at the end of its life. Space Ace was later ported to the Snes, but it was a completely different game.
Thanks to ArnoldRimmer83 for the pics!
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Gamepopper101 has found some beta-differences in an early trailer for this game: “Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (SBCG4AP) Episode 1 – Homestar Ruiner (Yeah I know, long title), it’s a wiiware (and PC) game from TellTale Games. Differences from final game include:
If you mix LocoRoco, Kirby’s Canvas Course and Lost Wind, the result is one of the most clever games that you can play on your DS: Soul Bubbles. I have recently finished and enjoyed this little gem (PAL version) and was so pleased by its style that I have decided to took my time to make some research around the project. If you are one of the lucky geeks that had a chance to play Soul Bubbles, you’ll be interested to take a look below.
Made by a small french team that is know as Mekensleep, Soul Bubbles had a long development cycle, that started in 2004 and was finished in 2008: that means 4 years of work, with some interesting changes. We can wonder if the project could have started as a GBA game, as the DS was released only at the end of 2004. In the game you need to move a group of souls while keeping them in a bubble and try to take them till the end of the levels. Starting with a simple concept, the game put you in such an interesting series of situations and puzzles that use physic, matter, natural elements and the creation, division or destruction of bubbles, that it’s really a pleasure to resolve and clear the various task.
But you know what’s the best thing in the game? When you finish it, you can unlock a bonus gallery, full of images from all the various prototypes of the game: from the first alpha in 2004 till the latest build before the final version. Why aren’t there more developers sharing these kind of bonus material? We’ll never know. Huge props to Mekensleep!
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Thanks to these screens, we are able to analyze the development of the game, to see how the concept evolved through 4 years of work.
It seems that the game started with a clear target in mind: to create and to move bubbles around the screen. The first 2004 protos shows already a group of bubbles, but the graphic was still just a placeholder, with simple visuals: it seems that it was already possible to create and somehow blow around the bubbles. In these 2 alpha screens we cannot see any souls inside the bubbles, so it’s possible that concept of saving souls was not created yet.
In the screens from the 2005 proto the area looks a bit more like the ones in the final version: there are passages and cavers and it seems that the bubbles are full of gas: maybe in this build, the players had to resolve puzzles with the help of different kind of gasses. There is still no souls around, so probably the bubbles where used just as a way to move around the gas. From the beta-videos (that you can see at the end of this article) we can notice that the green gas had some strange peculiarities and physics: it seems lighter than the air, it flies slowly to the top of the cavern but it fall down when a bubble touches it, like if it was more dense than normal gas.
In the 2006 screens, the graphic looks much more complete: inside the bubbles there are little stars, that are probably an early version of the souls. It seems that the concept for puzzles with fire, water and explosions was already in there, as we can see different colored stars, a bubble full of water and an explosion..
In this set of screen we can notice different designs of the masks that are not in the final version. While some of the beta-masks looks cooler than the final ones, it’s clear that Mekensleep did made lots of different designs to choose the ones that were more inclined to the mood of the game: we can see at least 4 mask-designs that are not used in the final version of Soul Bubbles and probably there were many more than these. Looking at all the different characters designs (below) we can really feel the long work that Mekensleep had to do to arrive at the best style for what they had in mind with the game.
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In this image we can see a comparison between the beta (from 2006) and the final version (2008) of the top screen: while the beta looked better imho, from the info and the icons on there we can say that the abilities of the young shaman were already the same as the ones that we can use in the final game. It seems that the masks were not yet related to the various powers (drawn, pump, cut, map) as they are not shown near the D-Pad icons. Mekensleep decided to change it because there was not enough space for all the text or the number of calabash / souls and the icons were not really readable on the small DS screen. The “breath gauge” was probably removed because in the final game we can see when the blow-power level from the color of the shaman in bottom screen (when it has consumed too much air, his face became red). It’s just easier to check it in the same screen as the one where we are moving around our bubbles.
This screen is really interesting, because those weird hands-with-an-eye things are not used in the final game and I did not have any idea about what they could have been. Maybe some removed enemies? Only Mekensleep does know… and so we have asked it to them: thanks to their reply we have learned that these things were meant to be an attempt to have the player looking on the top screen for information. They changed it by making the text scroll down in the bottom screen with the old guy talking (also you can hurt him in the game if you tap him).
These two screens show different graphic styles for the game, more drawing-alike than the final version. It’s interesting to notice that a playable level of the japan-drawn-style area that we can see in the first image, was added as a bonus that is unlocked after finishing the game on the DS, but the souls do not have that design, probably because they looked too much like Loco Roco characters.
This is almost everything that I have found about the various changes in the development of Soul Bubbles, at least for now. I would really like to thanks Omar from Mekensleep that took his time to reply to my email and send us some nice infos and screens about the beta of their game. More developers should do this and share their story and media with all the differences and the cuts from their early projects. Now, if you haven’t already, go to buy Soul Bubbles: I want to have fun with another Mekensleep game, but this needs to sell well to have a chance to see another project from the same team.
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Cubivore10 has sent to us lots of informations and screens about Monster Party, an old game for the NES. In these beta screens we can see some unused sprites of a monkey, a key, 1-up, a race-car thing and a different version of one of the bosses. Some of the screens are a remake of the original beta scans with home-made tiles, to have a better version of the scenes. In the title screen, there was blood on the menù, while in the final version it was just a green slime, the text and the icon were changed and the spider-thing has a different head. The hero of the game was pink and white in the beta version, instead of the green / black colors of the complete game. Even the HUD is different.
In the screen with the “eggplant monster” we can see the first boss of Monster Party, with a different design that seems a citation from the movie “The Little Shop of Horrors”, hence the karaoke machine and the microphone (the film was a musical). The karaoke and the microphone are not seen in the final version, but they are still in there: they blacked out the graphic in the boss room, so they blend in with the background. You can even stand on the karaoke, if you go around the monster and jump.
Also, in January 2010, Cubivore10 found some more unused sprites in the game’s code:
You’ll see in the row of graphics I numbered as 1. you will see some odd faces and unused items. The faces where most likely background tiles, but they where found near a boss, so this COULD be leftover from a removed boss, but probably not. The unused items are very interesting also. There is some weird…diamond thing which I could only assume was a beta version of the dragon capsule or more commonly referred to as the “pill” that transforms the main hero Mark into his Dragon-like friend.
There also appears to be some object which sort of reminds me of a piece of candy. My only guess is that its another design for the pill. I’m not sure what the ball object is, your guess is as good as mine. The shield shaped thing that says “up” is probably a 1-up of some sort, which would make sense that they took it out since the game doesn’t have lives, just an unlimited amount of continues. Last of the supposed items is a key.
Now after defeated the necessary amount of bosses per stage you are awarded a key that grants you access to the next stage. Now you are also given a “?” item after defeating each boss which appears in the middle of the room. It could be that a key would appear instead after beating the last boss of that stage instead of you getting the “?” and the key.
Now for row 2…A monkey. I could only assume that this is an enemy, I tried to assemble the graphics a little bit. He’s with the first level enemies if I remember right and seems to be near two sprites of a bone. I’d bet that the monkey threw the bones at you.
Row 3 is are the monkey graphics as I found them so if you wanna try to put them together.
Row 4 is pretty neat. I’m nor POSITIVE that these are unused but they probably are.( I should know, I just beat the game a couple days ago!) They are found with the enemies of the last stage, and is clearly a chicken…really. They might have scrapped this enemy in favor of the flying sticks of TNT, the graphics are right next to each other. Next in that row is the race car-driving-werewolf. He is found in the first level’s graphics too. Last is a silhouette of a fish. This MIGHT be used, I don’t know for sure though, it matches with the big-finned fish of stage 5, this could have (or might still be) used for when it goes into the water.
On to row 5…I’m…really not sure here. These are kept near the boss of stage 5 that throws javelins, but they don’t look like anything I remember seeing in the game. Most likely tiles.
Row 6. Some projectile I think. This is kept by Chameleon Man, the only boss of stage 6. The boss is hidden amongst a mess of graphics that look like him as well as three other look-alikes. He doesn’t throws things at you and the real one is the only on that will damage you if you touch him. He might have shot these at you at some point.
The last row is row 7. Not much but kinds neat. This was found neat the first boss of the game, the man-eating eggplant. Now he actually appears in a beta shot of the game, but wasn’t an eggplant. His (Her?) head was more like a flytrap and was seen with an amp and microphone and over-head lights (which are still in the final version) This was clearly a parody of the Audrey II, the man-eating singing plant from the movie Little Shop of Horrors (GREAT movie BTW)
That said this kinds musical note thingy may have been its original projectile instead of the bubbles is uses now.
It looks like some unused enemies, who look like they’d fit in with level one. Also I noticed that the musical note graphic I found seems to be the SAME graphic that the punk rocker boss uses so I was either wrong about the plant spitting them at one point or they would have used the same graphics. Speaking of the punk rocker boss while looking around his graphics I saw yet another unused projectile: Another musical note (the double one) So he probably shot out both at some point in the game’s life.
Thanks a lot to Cubivore10 for the contribution & Silenceofthehills for the comparison video (keep in mind that the screens from the MP sequel were just a mistake, later corrected in the comments)!
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Battletoads is a video game by Rare Ltd. created to rival the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. The first game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991 and was followed up with sequels released over the ensuing years for GameBoy, SNES, Megadrive / Genesis and Arcade. [Info from Wikipedia] A proto for a cancelled GBA version of Battletoads was discovered in the collection of cancelled RARE games that transparentjinjo has uploaded on his Youtube Channel.
The game was in development only for a few weeks, and everything from character animations and enemy AI to sound effects is a placeholder.
The character design was the result of merging the sometimes conflicting ideas of the original Battletoads artists, who were now in director or lead positions on other teams.
Even the main game design was not fixed at that point. Team instructions ranged from “make a shiny clone of the NES version” to “do whatever you think is best” to “everything cool will have to wait for an Xbox version”.
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