News on Cancelled Video Games & Lost Media

The last couple of years were really hard for Unseen64: we had to keep updating our site to add more unseen games, while at the same time working on our book dedicated to games we will never play, that was finally published in September 2016. As most of you known, we work on Unseen64 in our own free time, after a long day of our day-jobs, taking away this extra time from our sleep, friends and family just to read Unseen64 related emails, reply to messages on social networks, resolve technical issues on the site, search info on lost games, save media, contact developers and write articles.

It could be difficult to understand when you only see a few articles or videos published every month, but to keep the site alive as it is, it takes dozens and dozens of hours of work every week. To also working on a book along with the site, it meant to take even more hours away from our daily lives, and the last few months before the book was published were really crazy.

Unseen64 is not our main job and sometimes all the effort and time needed to keep it alive is really overwhelming, but we always do the best we can. One of the reasons why we keep doing this, is the support of our awesome readers: your kind words and your donations on Patreon mean a lot for us, and you prompt us to keep up doing this, even during the hardest times.

Thanks to your support we were able to remain an independent website, to rise enough donations from Patreon to fully pay the Unseen64 server, to do multiple backups of files so we don’t lose screens, info or video, and to create a Preservation Fund to be able to save enough money for future needs.

Having more than 3.000 unseen games in our online archive and by covering games till the 7th generation of consoles (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360), it means that the most interesting titles are already covered, there are already good articles in here or in other websites to remember them. While there are still some previously unknown, interesting lost games we will cover in the following months on Unseen64, most of future site updates will probably be about obscure cancelled games that not many will care about.

When everyone already know about such unseen games as Zelda URA, Resident Evil 1.5, Fallout: Van Buren, Bio Force Ape, Tengai Makyou III, Akira 16bit, Mario Takes America, Sonic Mars, Sonic X-Treme, Lufia 3, Conker 64, Agharta, B.C., Game Zero, Maximo 3, Elder Scrolls Travels, Kid Icarus Wii, Final Fantasy Fortress or Kameo 2, there’s not much left to discover: only less popular / important lost games (that still deserve to be remembered) or previously unknown and intriguing projects that can only be covered by luck or months of time-consuming researches.

You can easily see how it became harder and harder to surprise and satisfy readers with interesting lost games they would have loved to play. You can also easily see how unsatisfied readers could drop their support on Patreon, leaving us with less funds to cover Unseen64 needs.

How to keep up our mission to remember unseen games till the 7th generation of consoles, while still engaging readers and secure steady support on Patreon for Unseen64?

We discussed about this with our patrons during the last year, and thanks to their feedback we organized a possible plan for 2017:
Continue covering lost games on Unseen64, even the less impressive ones: every single cancelled game deserve to not be forgotten, because each one could have been a favorite game for someone. Some of these less-impressive unseen games still have an historical importance, an interesting connection with developers that later created a different masterpiece and even if some of these canned projects could have became bad games if only released, we still care to remember them for curiosity and historical preservation.
Expanding old articles for some of the more interesting unseen games that are not already covered somewhere else: even when an unseen game is widely known, there could still be many details that are missing about its development, plot, gameplay mechanics and other random memories about its conception. We’d like to dedicate some time to deeply research more info about some of our favorite games we’ll never play, those lost games that also have a wide appeal and could be interesting for all kind of readers.
More video articles: as we wrote many times before, we know that today most people don’t read gaming reviews on websites anymore and just rely on video reviews from Youtube. For “historical” websites like Unseen64 is just the same: there are many more people that would watch a 10 minutes video about a cancelled game, rather than to fully read a 1.000 words article on the same topic, as proven by the Unseen64 video series created by Tamaki and hosted on Did You Know Gaming. Just like in the past gaming magazines have been replaced by gaming websites, now youtubers are taking the mass-market lead for videogames reviews, news and historical researches. While it would require more time to create more video articles (especially as the main Unseen64 is italian and Tamaki is already full of work with his videos), this kind of coverage would reach many more users than 3 or 4 written articles and it would help to keep patrons to donate for Unseen64. As we have seen, people are more incline to donate for video content than for website articles.
A new Unseen64 English Podcast: if everything will go as planned, in a few weeks we’ll upload a new episode of our Podcast dedicated to our patrons, thanks to some friends and collaborators that are currently organizing and recording the episode. If this new podcast will be appreciated by patrons, we’ll keep doing them in the following months as a “thank you!” for their donations.
All of these activities will require a lot of time, efforts and collaboration between people who help the Unseen64 collective, but we really want to keep Unseen64 alive for as much as possible. We will also update our Patreon’s goals to align them with our 2017 plan and to secure funds to cover the time needed to implement it.

As always big gaming networks such as IGN or Kotaku have the resources to own powerful servers and to pay a team to work full-time on their websites, keeping them online and publishing daily updates. We don’t have their resources, but we think we have something better: we have you, a community of gamers that know why it’s important to remember beta and cancelled games.

There are many ways to help Unseen64 and thanks to all the other websites, gamers and youtubers that also use their time to remember beta, unreleased and unused gaming documents, together we can save as many unseen games as possible.

Remember: Unseen64 is still online thanks to all the awesome people who made one-off donations and pledges on Patreon: together, we can do it!

We’d like to thank all of you (in random order) who are helping U64 with your donations and support:

Daan Koopman, Sentinator of Team Haruhi, joef0x, Liam Robertson, Mark J. Lang, Thomas Whitehead, David Galindo, Tiago Pereira dos Santos silva From Porto, Portugal, Mason “SoberDwarf” M., Ryan Jessee, Peter Lomax, Frans Aymes, Emiliano Rosales, Paul Benson, Faisal AlKubaisi, Julian Lord, Shane Gill, Conrad A Fursa, Lukas Steinman, Vitor Takayanagi de Oliveira, Red , Nick Fancher, allan paxton, Pete Imbesi, Robert Dyson, tydaze , Justin Moor, Kristian Binder, Chris Chapman, Anders Moberg, Gabe Canada, Tim Lawrence, Tommy Wimmer, Michael Benkovich, Amy , Oliver Rennie, Hugo Guerra, Thomas.nunn, That Black Guy, Mauro Labate, Olivier Cahagne, Corentin, Andrew Eleneski, Alex MacIntyre, Henry Branch, Matthew , Anders “Captain N” Iversen, Coldi , Dan Berends, Joe Brookes, Austin Murphy, James Jackson, netsabes , Aaron Sharratt, James Champane, Jonathan Pena, Jacob Walker, Jonathan Cooper, Paul Stedman, Viraj , Jrg McJrg, Brice Onken, Alex Stutzman, Guilherme Killingsworth, Pablo Bueno Navarro, Paul , Levi Wyatt, Josh Mann, Brice Dirden, Dan Thomas, Adrian , Ben Cowling, Alex Wawro, Niels Thomassen, Lou , Matthew Gyure, PtoPOnline , Jesus Tovar, Jacob , Brandon , Lisa , Akspa , Martin , Irvin , James Steel, Tony, DJ Gillard, Christopher Cornwell, Goffredo, and everyone else! (did we forget someone?)

We <3 you

Nintendo, Nintendo DS

Rewind (Two Tribes) [DS – Cancelled]

monokoma

28-12-2016

No Comments

Rewind is a cancelled on-rails shoot ‘em up in the vein of StarFox that was in development in 2008 by Two Tribes for Nintendo DS. After their work on Worms: Open Warfare 2 DS for THQ in 2007, Two Tribes started to plan their next game and wanted to create an original Sci-Fi shumup for the same console. IGN reported the announcement of Rewind DS in July 2008, but even they did not have much info on the project:

“[…] ReWind, described as an on-rails shooter with a twist. What this twist is hasn’t been revealed yet, but Two Tribes says it is taking full advantage of the DS’ abilities. ReWind is set in a “carefully scripted game world” where players have one objective: blast everything.[…] It will use the DS microphone and feature a CD-quality soundtrack.”

By looking at the title, we can speculate that Rewind’s “twist” could have been a way to rewind time during the game or to go backwards during its on-rails levels. Unfortunately not much more was ever revealed about Rewind and it soon vanished among many other lost DS games: it’s possible that Two Tribes never found a publisher interested to support them for this project.

After releasing such a clever hidden gem as Toki Tori 2 in January 2014 Two Tribes had to close down for bankruptcy because of low sales of the game. Their parent company Two Tribes Publishing B.V. formed another small team to develop their last game, under the working title “RE:Wind”, later published in September 2016 as Rive for PC, Wii U, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Rive is a side-scrolling shooter and not an on-rails shooter as Rewind DS was planned to be, but we can still speculate that the released game is an evolution of their original, unreleased concept for the portable console.

Update: thanks to Maik we found an interview on N4G featuring Martijn Reuvers (co-founder of Two Tribes) that confirm some of these details:

Martijn: When we started with RIVE, it was about 2005, so a long time ago. Its original name was “Rewind” and it was meant to be a small game reusing the level designs and artwork that we had. You would shoot a couple of enemies, rewind back in time, and then go to a point slightly before where you started. This way we can just reuse assets and every time you rewind, you’re replaying the same content, but it’s become a little more difficult. So, that was the original inspiration for RIVE. We actually started with the concept, but when we were play-testing it, we found out that it really sucked, so we dropped it. The energy orbs that drop in RIVE were meant to allow you to travel back in time with Rewind, but we don’t know what to do with them anymore, because the whole rewinding system is out of there. We still have a warp system in there, but it has nothing to do with time travel. It’s a very iterative process. We start with something, decide it doesn’t work, and move on from there.
In addition to RIVE being built from the remnants of Rewind, we played a lot of Gradius and Metal Slug back in the 90s, especially in arcades. Collin and I played a lot of those, and we always wanted to make a game like Gradius. So, when the company went bankrupt two years ago (2013), we had been making a lot of puzzle games and we wanted to make something with shooting and explosions. We said to ourselves, “Why not go back to that original design from 2005 and do something with that?” The real inspiration for this game is our passion for those types of games.

Images:

Unseen Features, Unseen Interviews, Unseen News

Unseen Interview: Domenico Barba (Naps Team)

U64 Staff & Contributors

20-12-2016

2 Comments

While working on our book about lost video games, we were able to interview many developers who worked on cancelled projects, but we had to cut some of these interviews from the book because of the 480 pages limit. As promised, we are going to publish all the missing articles directly in our website, and the following interview is one of these! During his career Domenico Barba has worked at the Italian gaming studio NAPS Team on such lost games as Green Beret / Rush’n Attack (GBC), Dark Night and many lost chapters in the Gekido series.

Unseen64: To start this interview, we would like to ask you to introduce yourself to our readers: we’d love to know more about your career in the gaming industry and what you are working on today.

Domenico: Is it possible to tell 20 years of history in less than 20 lines? :) The passion for the world of video games has brought Naps Team together. We did not know each other before, I was looking for a graphic designer for a fighting game (a horrible thing made on Amiga) and different people suggested me someone called Fabio Capone who had fun doing animations and characters with Deluxe Paint. :) Well we were able to meet, under a newsstand, exchanging two diskettes, without cops in hot pursuit. :) Today we are still here and we have the same passion of that time, even after almost 45 games made and many more to make. At the moment we are finishing working on Iron Wings, a huge project for an arcade flight game set in the second World War.

Unseen64:What are some of your favorite video games? Have you been playing anything lately?

Domenico: In the last year, unfortunately no, I’m fully focused on the development of Iron Wings, but I always keep my eyes on many new games and I’m very impressed, both by AAA masterpieces and clever indie productions.

Unseen64: Did you know Unseen64 before this interview? What do you think of our “mission” to create an online archive to remember those video games we’ll never play?

Domenico: To tell the truth yes, but without being able to follow your updates, the mission is praiseworthy and it is great that there can be a memory of unexpressed creativity, with really beautiful games that sometimes fail to see the light of day for the most different reasons. I’d love to sabotage your mission and release Gekido: The Dark Angel one day :)

Unseen64: Which difficulties did an Italian game development studio find in a market lead by English, American and Japanese studios? Are there more opportunities today thanks to digital distribution on PC and Smartphone?

Domenico: There are huge difficulties, but they are mainly related to the Italian territory and absurd management difficulties, instead digital distribution is undeniably a great opportunity.

Unseen64: Gekido is one of your most popular series, of which the first episode was released in 2000 for Playstation: do you remember how development started, how long did it take to complete, and if the final game is what you originally had in mind or if you had to cut something?

Domenico: Gekido had a somewhat troubled genesis, it was born from the skeleton of a 2D fighting game for PC, then turned into a 2.5D one and finally became fully 3D. A lot was cut, but also a lot was added, such as the “arena mode”, and different gameplay modes were conceived in the wake of enthusiasm that the game was receiving in the internal circuit of testers, publishers, etc.

Unseen64: How did you manage to involve important names like Fatboy Slim for the music and Marvel comic artist Joe Mad for the character design in the development of the first Gekido?

Domenico: Everything was thanks to Travis Ryan of Gremlin and Daniel Matray of Infogrames (Atari), they were able to find the best artistic talents that could have been greatly related to Gekido.

Unseen64: Besides the cancelled Gekido: The Dark Angel for PSP (of which there will be a dedicated article in this book) two other episodes of Gekido were in development but never released: Gekido for GameBoy Color and Gekido for N-Gage. What happened to these games and how much was done before the cancellation?

Domenico: More or less the same unfortunate “misalignment of planets” that happened with Dark Angel, it is not uncommon to come across sudden changes in the market or in adverse and catastrophic predictions of analysts that suggest to not continue working on a game, and you are the best witnesses and guardians of these unrealized projects, right? :)

Unseen64: Over the years there have been many different rumors about a new episode of Gekido in development, is there any chance to see this series again in the future?

Domenico: Absolutely yes! :)

Unseen64: Shadow Fighter is another of your most beloved games, Italian and foreign magazines published great reviews for it, CU Amiga gave it 93%, Amiga Computing 91% and so on: how did you feel at the time to receive all these positive comments on one of your first games and did the reviews help to bring a good number of sales?

Domenico: Shadow Fighter was a huge success in sales, luckily for our publisher Gremlin. It was a success beyond every expectations, we were just enthusiasts who certainly did not have a professional approach to the gaming industry at the time.

Unseen64: Another interesting lost game once in development at Naps Team was Dark Night for GBA. Graphically it was truly spectacular considering the console: do you remember how the gameplay was meant to be and why you had to stop working on the project?

Domenico: When Dark Night was canned it was still in beta, and it’s gameplay was similar to Zelda. :) The reasons why it was cancelled is the same unfortunate “misalignment of planets” that i told before, we propose to change our spaceship the next year. :)

Unseen64: Have you worked on other games that have never been published, of which you can speak?

Domenico: Not that I remember, although after several years and difficulties, we always managed to revive ideas that we thought were good, those for which we can still enjoy ourselves as players, and we will continue to do so.

Unseen64: Have you ever worked on some games for Atari Jaguar / Lynx / Panther or the legendary Konix Multisystem?

Domenico: No.

Unseen64: As most of the Unseen64 Staff is also italian, we just LOVE to eat good food. :) What is your favorite food ever? Any secret recipe that you would like to share with us?

Domenico: Unusual question, but tasty. :) Well, being a Sicilian I do not really know where to start, for sure I’m more a good food lover than a good cook, in a ratio of 100 to 1. I would say I love everything that contains eggplant in the recipe, from “pasta alla norma”, eggplant “parmigiana” … i’ll stop here, following on Dark Knight, where there was a huge purple boss named “Milinchan”. :)

Unseen64: Well, that was the last question, thanks again for your time Domenico!

GameCube, Nintendo

Diddy Kong Racing Adventure [GameCube – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

20-12-2016

No Comments

Diddy Kong Racing Adventure is a planned but ultimately canceled GameCube game developed by Climax Studios. Thanks to a video research made by PtoPOnline we know that the game was pitched to Nintendo sometime after April 2004 although no official date could be found. The story had to do with Wizpig coming back for a rematch with Diddy Kong and friends. If Wizpig wins, the forest will be paved over. To defeat him, you have to go through several villages (16 to be exact, 3 courses each + mirror mode). These villages were themed after a good character from the Donkey Kong Country franchise (excluding Wizpig’s lair). Each item was under a baddie’s control and to free it, you would have to first beat the baddie in a one-on-one race than show your worthiness by finding an item or something similar. You could control quads, plans, buggies, jet skis and hover scooters, these vehicles were fully customizable.

Upgrading and customizing your vehicle could help you find hidden areas. You were also able to change potion on the vehicle to maneuver across paths and get max speed. You could also jump onto other vehicles mid-race. Many characters from the original Diddy Kong Racing were in this installment although this might have not been this case if this game had actually released due to the rights to some characters staying with Rare who was recently bought by Microsoft. This game would be like many other kart racer games except each character had their own special attack. Characters from other games like Banjo Kazooie and (surprising) Conker’s Bad Fur Day were also considered although since Rare was bought by Microsoft as mentioned before, this was unlikely. There were some unique game modes too like knockout mode, a demolition derby type mode, and even a Simon says type mode. Huge props to Andrew Borman for sharing this interesting prototype!

Article by Joe H

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Videos:

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Aegis: The Awakening (Sennari Interactive) [GBA – cancelled]

Lesur

15-12-2016

No Comments

Aegis: The Awakening was a fantasy action adventure for the GameBoy Advance and was announced early in 2002 by its developer Sennari Interactive, the same company that was responsible for GBA ports of games like Powerpuff Girls and Driver 2. Aegis: The Awakening was mentioned on Sennari’s website under GBA titles and was marked as “concept developed”; only a brief description for the game was given:

“The city of Aldara is besieged by an unknown enemy with powerful allies who hope to gain the secrets of magic that certain residents of the city hold. The player must take the role of guardian of the city, one who has unfathomable powers that have lain dormant over the centuries. Seek out the individuals that the enemy wants in order to gain powers and abilities that these people can awaken within you. Seek them out to defend the city and learn your heritage, to learn that you are a member of the legendary protectors of the earth, the Aegis.”

The concept development status of the game stayed unchanged until the end of 2003; I could retrieve no valid reasons why Aegis was cancelled besides their change of focus towards the cell phone market. There is little to none information on the game to be found besides the old Sennari announcement made in 2002 and an article on Gamespot in which the game is mentioned (see part of the article below). Date of cancellation? My guess is late 2003.

Sennari 2002 line-up – Gamespot – February 2002: