Madstix is a cancelled “cinematic racing puzzle game” that was conceived by director Koichi Yotsui & producer Takehiro Ando, possibly in development at Sol, the studio behind PS1 cult puzzle game “Suzuki Bakuhatsu”. They wanted to create original games for the recently released Playstation 2, and Madstix was one of their favorite pitches.
Their concept was to develop a racing game with no steering wheel, accelerator or brake. The more you turn the right analog stick, the more fast and dangerous the car action becomes on the screen. Instead if you turn the left analog stick it would make driving safer. According to Ando Madstix was meant to be played like a cinematic ”Chicken Race” to show off driving skills and high-speed action, turning the left and right sticks appropriately while changing course at the last moment to avoid accidents.
The advantage of this mechanic is that the camera was free to be changed by players in many different ways. In a standard racing game the camera must be placed in the driver’s seat or behind the vehicle to drive. However, in Madstix the car would follow its predetermined path and players could choose the best cinematic angle to watch their actions.
While the game was never officially announced, it was revealed during a presentation at BitSummit 2017 in Japan. As always we can only imagine how many interesting and weird cancelled games by Japanese studios still remain unknown by the public.
Grafan is a cancelled RPG supposed to be the first big project of 2003 freshly founded company EMOGENCE (Emotion-intelligence), consisting of ex Microsoft staff Herb Marselas and Chas (Charles) Boyd. Both coming from a technical background, Marselas started working for Microprose in the 90ies and made his name for blockbusters like “Age Of Mythology”, “Halo 2” and many more. Boyd on the other hand originally came from the Aeronautics Industry and later worked with different Hardware and video game companies as a mentor to help improve engine-performance.
“We were talking about the kinds of graphics and gameplay we`d like to see in games and whether we could start a studio that provides a gameplay experience that stood out from the crowd.“
Their ambitious plan was to create a PC first person action role playing game “…that delivers great gameplay and graphically surpasses any interactive entertainment experience to date“, optimistically setting a deadline to the end of the same year (2004).
Apparently the key of saving so much time was to automate the generation of content – including world building and scripting, which would be done manually by any other developer. They though graphics would evolve so quickly, they felt like they didn’t want to lose time and deliver a game that was technically high-end and brand new as soon as possible. Unfortunately we know the game was never released and only a few interviews and a handful of screenshots remain today.
There was never any talk about why or when the game was cancelled or what happened to the studio. We can only reconstruct the game`s planned content, by closely reading statements and interviews done by IGN in 2004:
“Grafan gives the player a huge amount of character customization through class selection, skill point spending, and by equipping many of the thousands of items found in the world. There is a single player campaign as well as a random dungeon quest mode. The underlying engine is a highly sophisticated 3D random dungeon generator that utilizes a lot of advanced graphics technology, including real-time high dynamic range lighting, multiple real-time shadows, normal maps, glare, and pixel shading.“
Talking about graphics EMOGENCE were obviously visual enthusiasts, who developed an engine that was able to create “…environments on the fly and showcased high-resolution texturing“. Nvidia stated:
“The Grafan game engine’s use of high dynamic-range lighting, multiple real-time shadows, and multipass rendering techniques requires a high-performance graphics card. We’re currently working with the GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU and using pixel shader 3.0; all we can say is ‘wow’.”
It is also worth mentioning that they planned to showcase the game at the E3 2004, but by checking the list of exhibitors retrospectively, EMOGENCE never shown up.
To date Herb Marselas is working at AMD, a popular computer processor company. Chas Boyd was last seen on Max Payne and Alan Wake credits, but after that we kinda lost track of him. By browsing different gaming-databases we can assume that he may have not been active in the gaming scene since.
Thanks to our friends at Côté Gamers our book “Video Games You Will Never Play” will be translated in French and physically published in a new, professional volume!
In fact, the french translation of “Video Games You Will Never Play” will also be printed along with another book, dedicated to Metal Slug :)
Here are more details directly from their Ulule page:
Côté Gamers est fier de vous présenter sa nouvelle collection :Replay. Cette collection a pour but de vous présenter en long et en large une série de jeux ou un genre, voire même un thème. Notre objectif : faire en sorte que vous sachiez tout ce qu’il faut savoir sur le sujet en question, étendre votre connaissance du sujet et éventuellement vous faire revivre vos meilleures heures de jeu. Replay est une collection faite à la fois autant pour votre connaissance du jeu vidéo que pour votre nostalgie !
Les livres édités par Côté Gamers sont toujours très détaillés et n’hésitent pas à vous plonger dans les plus petits détails des sujets qu’ils abordent. La collection Replay veut permettre à tout le monde de découvrir ou de retrouver des jeux cultes, sans pour autant conduire à devenir un expert du moindre sprite, du moindre bonus ou du moindre goodie.
Vous vous en doutez forcément, il existe de nombreux jeux qui furent annulés et auxquels nous n’avons jamais eu accès. Qu’ils aient été annulés pour des raisons financières, parce qu’il étaient trop ambitieux pour leur époque ou parce que des personnes en charge de leur développement se sont opposées, nous vous racontons leur histoire avec cette nouvelle traduction made in Côté Gamers !
L’ouvrage original fut édité par le désormais célèbre site Unseen 64, dont la vocation est de sauvegarder tout ce qui est en rapport avec les jeux annulés et les concepts de jeux jamais exploités commercialement. Ce livre fut salué par la communauté pour son sujet d’importance et les informations contenues.
Le sujet est original, mais il mérite d’être abordé ! Pouvez-vous imaginer que ce sont des milliers de jeux qui ont été annulés au cours de l’histoire ? Saviez-vous que toutes les maisons d’éditions et même tous les constructeurs de consoles avaient dans leur catalogue des jeux abandonnés en plein développement ? Qu’il s’agisse de Nintendo, de Sega, de Sony, de Virgin, d’Electronic Arts ou de n’importe quelle autre compagnie, vous retrouverez dans “Les jeux auxquels vous ne jouerez jamais” des retours sur tous ces titres aujourd’hui perdus, oubliés ou volontairement tenus secrets.
Liquid Development are a rather obscure gaming studio which usually do contract work for many different publishers. They helped during development of such popular titles as Fable 2, Swat 4, Dragon age 2, Fallout 3, The Sims 2, Halo 4, Borderlands 2 and many more. Around 2003 – 2004 they were working on Armored Titans, a cancelled tank combat game planned to be published by Landing Party Software for PC.
This is quite the obscure and forgotten game, as it was never officially announced and today’s almost impossible to find any evidence of the existence of Landing Party Software. The only proof of its development are a few 3D models made for the game and some old resumes of people who worked on the project. By looking at these tanks models it looks like the game would have been set in a sci-fi future.
Nothing more is know at the moment about Armored Titans. We can assume Landing Party closed down and Liquid Development were not able to complete the project. Around the same time the team also worked on assets for Warhawk (PS3), so it’s possible that some of their experience and models were useful for Incognito Entertainment’s project. Many years later Liquid Development did release a couple of tank-battle games, as they helped with Armored Warfare and World of Tanks.
We are happy to announce 3 eBooks taken from our “Video Games You Will Never Play” physical book are featured in the latest eBook bundle by Story Bundle! Our “PS2 & Xbox Video Games You Will Never Play”, “GameCube Video Games You Will Never Play” and “Dreamcast Video Games You Will Never Play” can be found in this bundle in their exclusive ePub and Mobi versions (our full book is available in physical form on Amazon and in PDF on Patreon), so you can easily read them in your eBook reader.
In the same bundle you can also find many interesting eBooks about less known video games and their history, such as Game Boy Works by Jeremy Parish, The Guide to Retro Indie Games by Kurt Kalata, GameDev Stories by David L. Craddock, Katamari Damacy by L. E. Hall!
Funds raised with this eBook bundle will support Unseen64, the other books authors and you can also choose to donate 10% to The Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit foundation founded by Frank Cifaldi, which primary aim is the archival, preservation, and dissemination of historical media related to video games.
The weather outside may be frightful, but StoryBundle’s Spring Fired-Up Bundle offers 13 books – our biggest collection yet! – about gaming culture and development to melt your winter doldrums, available for a limited time on www.storybundle.com.
David L. Craddock delves even deeper into randomly generated dungeons in Dungeon Hacks: Expanded Edition, which provides an extensive look at the making of early roguelike RPGs as well as a new interview with Rogue’s co-creators and three extra books on games influenced by the genre. In GameDev Stories; Volume 2, Craddock curates 13 interviews from the hundreds of hours of conversations he’s had with developers of games spanning InFamous and Prototype to Diablo and Hack.
Journalist and prolific Nintendo historian Jeremy Parish maps out two years of classic Game Boy games with Game Boy Works Volume 1 and Game Boy Works Volume 2, covering beloved and more obscure titles such as Alleyway, Pipe Dream, and Boomer’s Adventure in ASMIK World.
Alongside those four DRM-free eBooks, John Harris collects write-ups of arcade games curated from his Extended Play indie mag, Boss Fight Books author Laura E. Hall rolls through the history of Katamari Damacy, journalist Wes Locher explores the community around enduring MMO classic Ultima Online, Hardcore Gaming101’s Kurt Kalata blasts a path through Contra and other shoot-em-ups, and more.
StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want platform for independent authors to share their works with readers (and gamers) like you. Paying at least $5 will get you four books from the Spring Fired-Up Game Bundle, while paying $15 or more will get you six bonus books. – David L. Craddock
For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.
Game Boy Works Vol. I by Jeremy Parish
You and Your Friends Are Dead by Joel Couture
HG101 Presents: The Guide to Retro Indie Games Vol. 1 by Kurt Kalata
PS2 and Xbox Video Games You Will Never Play by Unseen64
If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus NINE more!
GameDev Stories: Volume 2 by David L. Craddock
Dungeon Hacks: Expanded Edition by David L. Craddock
Game Boy Works Vol. 2 by Jeremy Parish
Memories of Arcadia by John Harris
Boss Fight Books: Katamari Damacy by L. E. Hall
HG101 Presents: Contra and Other Konami Classics by Kurt Kalata
GameCube Video Games You Will Never Play by Unseen64
Braving Britannia by Wes Locher
Dreamcast Video Games You Will Never Play by Unseen64
This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) for all books!
It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.
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