Screwballs Superleague is a cancelled brawler / action game that was in development in 1990 by Rare. The game had two modes of play, battle mode and cooperative play: players would each start a level in their own “spin engine”, which would spin-up the character from their normal state into a spinning top. Players could exit the “spin engine” at any time, but it took time to spin the character up to full speed: the faster they were spinning, the more energy they had to throw either another player out of the battle arena (in battle mode) or an enemy monster (in coop mode).
As they player bashed into things, and over time, their spin energy would decrease making them more vulnerable to attack, so they would need to periodically head back into their own spin engine to spin-up to full power again.
Sadly Screwballs Superleague was canceled when the lead programmer left Rare. The game was pretty fun, but was months away from being completed and at the time they did not have a publisher for it yet.
Thanks a lot to Simon for his help in preserving some info on this lost project!
NATIVE originally started as a “homebrew” shoot ’em up project on the Atari Jaguar platform by German developers Duranik. The project was eventually cancelled after the developers had issues working on the Jaguar platform and they were also concerned about the game being too similar as R-Type. This did not stop them from showing interest in taking the game over to the NUON and they created some mock-up videos of what the game would have looked like running on the platform. Unfortunately VM Labs, the developer behind the NUON technology was short-sighted and was not interested in the game, effectively killing it forever.
Note that while the videos below say that they are from the Atari Jaguar version, these are actually the NUON demos Duranik had made.
Catalyst is a project pitch for a new action game for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, developed by Next Level Games, famed for Punch-Out and Mario Strikers on Wii. Details are unknown as the project was never officially announced. Next Level Games may still try to find a publisher for this title though.
As we can read from Wikipedia, Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is a run and gun side-scrolling action game developed by Semnat Studios and released in 2009 for the Wii’s WiiWare digital distribution service. As noticed by Jaimen, originally the project was called “Eduardo the magical toaster” and instead of firing pastries you used a long stick to fight. A beta video found byTheSuperSonic111 shown this early beta (there’s also a removed ninja powerup).
In an interview by Gamasutra, the developement team talks about the early development of Eduardo:
What inspired Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, and why did you decide to make it?
DeMaria: After my freshman year of college I finished work on a really terrible turn-based strategy game. After a little time went by I felt like making another game. The intention was to learn how to make a larger game than the few that we had worked on before and to see if we could make a really excellent game. I asked Daniel if he had any ideas and he jokingly suggested that we work on a platformer where you play as a toaster that fights magical fairies. After a minute we both realized that his idea actually sounded pretty fun and we began development.
A little less than a year went by and we had made a game that was not very good, but we saw the potential in the concept. We started over from scratch and Daniel rethought the character design. It was at this time that Eduardo became a samurai with a sweatband. […]
How long did development take?
DeMaria: We spent roughly one year making the first version of the game before Eduardo was a samurai. We then started over from scratch and spent about a year on that version. This is when Daniel re-worked the character design. After that, we switched to the Torque Game Builder from an engine I made. It’s been a little less than a year since we switched engines. So we’ve been working on Eduardo for about three years.
Also, in the blog of Ian Bowie (from Semnat Studios) there are some more info:
First I should give a quick recap of the history of Eduardo. There have been three versions prior to this WiiWare game. In 2004 we started work on Eduardo the Magical Toaster, and started over again sometime early 2005, I believe, with Eduardo the Samurai Toaster. And pardon me if I get my dates wrong(the past five years of development have turned into a big blur) but I believe it was in 2006 when we started on yet another version of the game, this time using the Torque 2D engine.
Sky Gods is a cancelled shooter based on HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) Special Forces operations. The project was in development at BlackFoot Studios in 2008 for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. As we can read in the official press release, in a typical HALO exercise, the parachutist will jump from the aircraft, free-fall for a period of time at terminal velocity, and open his parachute at a low altitude. The combination of high speed downwards and minimal metal and forward air-speed serves to defeat radar, enabling a stealthy insertion.
In Sky Gods players would have been in full control of their character during HALO freefall as well as while under canopy and were required to properly steer to a landing zone and land without injury or fatality. Once on the ground, players would have been tasked with various missions based on real life SOF experiences, observing and engaging targets through various terrain environments.
The game was planned to have 8 Coop missions playable with 1-8 people, customizable weapons and kit, a training scenarios playable solo or Coop and mod capabilities out of the box.
Sky God was officially cancelled when BlackFoot Studios went through some internal restructuring. As we can read in their official website:
BFS has been operating as a virtual company for some time now and we have had some good people move on to other ventures as well as those still with the projects finding themselves in need of other income sources and/or other outside influences effecting their involvement.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience, by continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to the use of cookies. Find out more about cookies.Hide
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
