Announced in 1998, around the time of the Game Boy Color unveiling this cancelled conversion of San Francisco Rush looks quite excellent from the only image in our possession. Sadly this racing game was never released and the port for the little handheld of the following episode, San Francisco Rush 2049, looked totally different and with a more conventional top-down perspective.
Image from Consolemania issue 78.
Images:
Curlys Adventure is a cancelled point and click adventure that was in development by Sylum, under the supervision of Epic MegaGames (now called Epic Games) in 1995. Sadly in 1997, Sylum parted with Epic and the project was canned. Only a couple of screenshots remain in the gallery below, to remember the project.
Thanks to Megalol for the contribution!
Check out Epic Mega Games’ website of Curly’s Adventure for more info and screen shots Here
Images:
Aqua Prophecy is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by ASCII for the Playstation. The project was shown at E3 1997, but sadly it was never finished for some reasons. More info about this game can be found on IGN in an old interview / chat with Rob Fleischer from Ascii:
Adam@PSXPower: Tell us about Aqua Prophecy.
Rob@ASCII: Aqua Prophecy is an underwater adventure where you are out to save the world. You must save the world from the prophecy of Nostradamus and you travel to various different underwater locals.
Dinosaur: “Like Tomb Raider, only all under water?”
Rob@ASCII: Kind of, Dino.
Spelunx: “Is it like Ecco for Genesis?”
Rob@ASCII: There is a lot of puzzle solving and not a lot of killing. You explore sunken pyramids, ships, planes.
Bizarro: “Have you been researching the Nostradamus prophecies for the game?”
Rob@ASCII: Yes, it is true to form.
As with another cancelled aquatic game, Aqua by Scavenger, Aqua Prophecy’s gameplay could have been similar to Everblue (PS2) / Endless Ocean (Wii) by Arika or the Aquanaut’s Holiday series by Artdink.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Scan from GameFan magazine #5-8 and EGM ’97 Show Guide To E3
Images:
Video (E3 1997):
How I Spent My Summer Vacation is a cancelled “horror” action game that was in development by Santa Cruz Games for the Nintendo DS and PC. As we can read on Gamasutra, players would have took the role of a little girl named Joanne, armed with a chainsaw to take down zombies that invaded her summer place.
It’s like a survival horror game for kids,” said Neuse. “This is the one we usually show when we’re pitching new game ideas. I think it’s every developer’s dream to eventually be doing our own ideas. […]”
Sadly only a playable demo was created before “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” was canned, maybe because they did not find any publisher interested in the project. Some screens are archived in the gallery below, to preserve the existence of this lost game.
Thanks to Gerro for the contribution!
Images:
Good & Evil is a cancelled Action RPG / RTS that was in development by Cavedog Entertainment / Humongous Entertainment by a team leaded by Ron Gilbert, a game designer, programmer, and producer, best known for his work on several classic LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. The project was cancelled when Cavedog’s main company, GT Interactive, fell into debt.
As Good & Evil was still in early development, GT saw Cavedog’s game as another economic risk and decided to stop the project in fall of 1999. GT Interactive was then purchased by Infogrames and the Cavedog label was discarded by Humongous Entertainment in 2000. Cavedog officially declared bankruptcy in 2000.
Using Ron Gilbert’s own style and humor, Good & Evil was meant to be a funny take on the classic RPG formula, as we can read in an old Gamespot article:
The warrior arrives in town, trips over a drainage ditch, impales himself on his own sword, and dies. Now they need a new hero. […]
As you’d expect from the Monkey Island creator, Good and Evil is going to use lots of humor; – much of it directed at role-playing conventions. Characters will talk amongst themselves about “leveling up,” for example, while the plentiful dialogue and ridiculous characters, like an evil crow, will retain Gilbert’s absurdist bent. […]
Largely inspired by Legend of Zelda, Gilbert is designing a large, fully 3D world to be played in a third-person perspective; it will be open enough for gamers to explore on their own, in a nonlinear fashion, while simultaneously keeping things story based. […]
Even if Good & Evil was never finished, it seems that after 10 years it’s main concept was reused in DeathSpank, an action RPG designed by the same Ron Gilbert and developed by Hothead Games, released in 2010 for Steam, Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. As we can read in a couple of interviews with RPG Codex and 1UP:
RPG Codex: Given your and Clayton Kauzlaric’s connection to Total Annihilation, was there any consideration of going with an RTS? Any other genres you’d like to give a try? Any genre you’d never try?
Ron Gilbert: Funny you should mention that. Back when I was running Cavedog Entertainment, I was designing a game called “Good & Evil” that was a melding of adventure and RTS. DeathSpank shares a lot in common with that game. As far as other genres I’d like to try? Just about anything except FPS. I’m not a huge fan of them and I’d probably make a really bad one.
1UP: Before DeathSpank, you were working on a game called Good & Evil [which got cancelled partway through development]. Have any of those ideas directly influenced what you’re working on now?
RG: Actually, quite a bit. Good & Evil was back when I was at Cavedog [Entertainment — the hardcore-leaning division of Gilbert’s company Humongous Entertainment]. That was a little bit of a blending of an adventure game and a real-time strategy game. I think the thing about adventure that really interests me a lot now isn’t so much the weird, complex puzzles, but it’s just the way adventure games tell stories, and the way that they tell them through those puzzles, and, for me at least, the humor that adventure games have. That’s one of those things that was a little bit lost when the classic adventures went away. It’s like this whole thing was lost and I really wanted to bring that back. But there’s actually quite a bit from Good & Evil and it just made its way into DeathSpank — the weird, bizarre feel that I had for that world is definitely something that is in DeathSpank.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution!
Images:
