New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Others, PC / MAC

Dragon Hoard [PC – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
15-05-2011
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Dragon Hoard was a kind of a “dragon simulator” by Blue Fang Games, slated to be released in Q2 2000. The user would start as a young dragon in a fantasy land, which was claimed to be a fully simulated world where he should build his relations with humanoid races (humans, elves and “the Vrak”), terrorizing or helping them in exchange for knowledge, prestige or gold (there’s also a “vanity” stat mentioned). Fighting rival dragons would also be a necessity. Between missions, or “stages”, the dragon would enter a long sleep (not played in real time, of course), during which the creature would grow bigger and stronger, and can be upgraded, learning new spells and attacks. The outside world would change, too.

It’s interesting to know that in 2011 a game called Hoard by Big Sandwich Games was released, impementing many ideas of Dragon Hoard on a smaller scale. There was also an earlier attempt by Primal Software called The I of the Dragon.

More info: archived version of a preview on GA-Source.

Article by Chentzilla

Images:

Probably how the Vrak should have looked:

Some more concept art:

Microsoft, Xbox

The Big Comfy Couch [XBOX – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
15-05-2011
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Today’s article will be very short, as it is about an unreleased game for the Xbox that, for whatever reason, doesn’t appear to have been documented at all. Considering its subject, this isn’t entirely surprising. Maybe the developers decided it was better that no traces of this game were ever made public!

The game is called The Big Comfy Couch, and was based on the Canadian childrens’ TV show of the same name. The show, featuring Loonette the Clown and her doll, Molly, is all about teaching ethical, and educational, lessons. The two characters solve a different everyday issue in each episode, on their Big Comfy Couch.

Although almost no information can be found on this game (even other main games journalism sites don’t have it listed), we can assume that it would have followed a similar plot to the TV show, tasking children with the solving of various dilemmas. Here at Unseen 64, we have been lucky enough to have three pre-release screenshots of the game shared with us by one of the developers of the game, and these provide some insight into the game’s interface and style. They show that it was a 3D platformer game, with a vibrant game environment and a few different meters visible to the player. One of these was, presumably, health, as one of the screenshots shows a fight between Loonette and several over-sized dustbunnies (perhaps trying to intimidate the key demographic into cleaning up after themselves?).

The picture of the original title screen shows that multiple systems could be linked up, perhaps allowing co-operative or competitive multiplayer modes. With goals like “Pop all the balloons and pinatas!” (visible in one of the screenshots), one can imagine what a blast that could have been.

It is unknown how close this game was to completion, although “not very” is the assumption, due to the lack of information on the game.

Check The Lost Media Wiki’s research topic for more details!

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Playstation, Sony

Monstrous City [PSX – Cancelled]

monokoma
13-05-2011
3 Comments

Monstrous City is a cancelled action game that was in development by Northstar Studios for the Playstation. Players would have took the role of various monsters to destroy cities and kill humans, so we can assume that the game would have been similar to Rampage, but in 3D. Many kind of B-Movie monsters were designed for Monstrous City, including a Dracula-style occult monster, a giant robot with scads of energy beams, a bizarre mutant and a good old-fashioned Godzilla alike-dinosaur. Sadly the project was never finished, maybe because they were not able to find a publisher. A short preview of the game was published in NextGeneration magazine issue 13.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

Steambot Chronicles 2 (Bumpy Trot 2) [PS3 – Cancelled]

monokoma
09-05-2011
2 Comments

Steambot Chronicles 2 (AKA Poncotsu Roman Daikatsugeki: Bumpy Trot 2 in Japan) is a cancelled steampunk sandbox / action mech game that was in development for the Playstation 3 by Irem, originally announced on September 2006, at the Tokyo Game Show. Steambot Chronicles 2 was officially canceled along with several other Irem games following the Japanese tsunami / earthquake in march 2011. It’s possible that Irem had already some problems with the development of Steambot Chronicles 2 and the natural disaster in Japan was just the nail in the coffin for this interesting project.

As wrote by Tollmaster on Mecha Damacy:

it seems that the original Steambot Chronicles is doomed to remain a one-off work of genius, an inexplicably deep and mold-breaking PlayStation 2 game where players finally got to see the civilian side of mecha. There was a living, breathing world outside the game’s mechanical boss battles and pitched tournaments; loading up lumber on your clunky steam-powered robot’s flatbed to help construct a bridge in-between playing the harmonica in a touring band and helping root out vast conspiracies seeking to control the world’s oil supply immersed you into something deeper than any other game has ever hoped to.

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Microsoft, Xbox 360

Kinect Trainer [Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
07-05-2011
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In 2009, British software studio Rare Ltd. started to work on fitness software for Microsoft’s Kinect accessory in co-operation with Nike. The title was allegedly cancelled in mid-2010 because of various fitness titles from third party publishers for the very same platform. As with every game from Rare Ltd, the software had different design directions throughout its development, including a style with rather realistic characters and Avatar-styled ‘protagonists’.

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