Cave story (Doukutsu Monogatari in Japan) is a freeware platform / adventure indie-game released in 2004 for PC and a WiiWare port by Nicalis in 2010. It was designed and programmed over 5 years by Daisuke Amaya, art-name Pixel, in his free time. A classic by almost every sense of the word. I say almost, because despite it’s pixelated graphics, Cave Story is actualy a modern game, with a deliberate old school feel. However, as with most good games, trial and error are required, and in the end, some things are left out. Cave Story is no different. At one point, the main character, Quote, was Curly Brace. That name later moved to a girl. Sue didn’t always look like she does, several areas just didn’t make the cut, and some tiles just weren’t used in the final game. There’s plenty to see in the images below.
Alien Intelligence [PC – Cancelled]
Alien Intelligence is a cancelled turn based strategy game that was in development by Flatline Studios and it would have been published by Interplay in 1997. Thanks to derboo we were able to preserve some screenshots from this lost game, found in Power Play 4/98 magazine. As we can read in this old preview, the game promised space conquests in a huge universe full of planets, space ships and evil aliens in the style of Master Of Orion with state-of-the-art realtime chic.
The speciality of Alien Intelligence were the simultaneous space- and ground fights, colonizing and managing, fending off pirates and the trade and science in the well known manner. The research tree alone had a whole 150 pages in 8 categories and there were overall more than 10.000 possible ship designs. A myriad of possible catasprophes from storms and asteroids swarms to wandering black holes enriched the action.
Also the characterization of the races promises fun: The Arkanians are thievish insects with excellent technical skills. Huge warriors without any humor are the Munzoids, who in lack of any other talents try to solve everything with violence. The Drache, of lizard like statue, are honorable until death and gifted industrials. The Metalloids are actually a robot race with a special hand for all electronics. the Strixthes have an insect-like state form and reprodudction rate, but are otherwise rather unpleasant contemporaries. The Psionids are, of course, arrogant geniuses who strife for control over everthing and everyone through their mental strength (and a little war).
In the end Interplay decided to kill the game for unknown reasons.
Thanks to derboo for the contribution!
Images:
The great superbad, found a video of AI:
I have found a video add of AI on a cd and liked it.
The 1st thing was to look on ebay wich no real result.
Than came google, witch gave a lot of link’s.
This is one of them.
Origin/Source: disc 1 othe the game comlilation ‘Ultimate Strategy Archives’, folder DEMOS.
Download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YKFXPCZJ
Videos:
Darkest of Days [PC X360 – Beta]
Darkest of Days is a FPS developed by 8monkey Labs and published by Phantom EFX / Valcon Games in September 2009 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. DCodes7 found some beta differences in the promo screen shots for the game:
The character “mother” is only seen in the game as a pair of eyes on screen. In the beta, mothers eyes are green; In the final her eyes are a grey type color. In the same screenshot the panel in front of the character – witch access mission briefings – is black in the beta but a silver-grey in the final.
Rollcage (Team 17) [PSX SAT 3DO – Cancelled]
Rollcage is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Team 17 for the original Playstation, Saturn and 3DO. Even if the title is the same, this game is not the same Rollcage (a futuristic racer) developed by Attention To Detail and published by Psygnosis in 1999. Team 17’s Rollcage was a more traditional racing game, with “realistic” cars and tracks from the real world. There are no more info available on this project, but Celine was able to find some screenshots in CD Consoles magazine issue #7. Rollcage was never released on any platform, for unknown reasons.
Unclejun found a video from ECTS ’95 on a cover disc from Génération 4 issue #78 showcasing the game, it was supposed to be the first Daytona USA-like racing game on the PC, featuring a mix of stuntcar and stockcar gameplay and capable of 60fps on a Pentium.
Images:
Videos:
Metro 2033 [X360 PC – Beta]
Metro 2033 is FPS / survival horror based on the novel with the same name, written by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game was developed since 2005 by 4A Games in the Ukraine, but it was released only in March 2010 for Xbox 360 and PC, after more than 5 years. In all this time Metro 2033 changed a lot: the graphic engine shown in the screenshots from 2006 had to be updated with a more powerful one, more details and characters were added to the explorable areas.
Thanks to Megalol and Anonymous for the contributions!
Images:
Here’s a video from the final 2010 version:
More Beta / Tech Demo videos: