Tower of Goo Unlimited is the original prototype, made some years ago, of World of Goo, a famous indie game for Pc and Wiiware. Even if you can create only a tower in this concept, the basic gameplay and the graphic style are essentially the same as the released version. There is a level called “Tower of Goo” in the final game, but it is much more technically refined.
2dboy has a prototype section about the development of World of Goo.
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It seems that this project, a beat ’em up by Jailed Games, was going to be released on the PS2 and PSP, but it was later post-poned, development started again on the Xbox 360, and finally it was cancelled in 2006.
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As we can read on Wikipedia STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, previously known as Stalker: Oblivion Lost, is a PC FPS by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, published in 2007. The game was first announced in November 2001 and had its release date, originally in 2003, pushed back several times. Due to the delays some considered Stalker to be vaporware.
While the game was really released in the end, the final version was somewhat different from the original Oblivion Lost prototype: in late December 2003, a pre-alpha build (vr 1096) of STALKER was already leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, and fans of the game were then able to compare it to the final build and find some of those differences.
Last week another Alpha (vr 1935) of STAKER was made available to download and this time, it came from its own developers: on the 25 February, GSC Game World released the STALKER “‘xrCore’ build 1935, Oct 18 2004″ on their official forum! You can find links and mirros for the download in that topic.
Gamers are now able to try this early version of the game and all the changes that were made on the final project can be found and preserved. Huge props to GSC! More studios should follow their example and share interesting informations from their gaming development. It’s sad when important pieces of gaming history like these are lost forever because no one cares to preserve them somehow.
As we can read on Rock Paper Shotgun: “S:OL was also a dramatically larger game than S:SOC. While plenty of locations are familiar, there’s a distinct lack of those cocking indestructible barbed wire fences that so hobbled free-form adventuring in S:SOC. To make this huge world navigable, build 1935 includes driveable vehicles”
Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!
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Red Steel 2 is the presumed sequel for the famous FPS that was released for the Wii in 2006, a project that was in development at Ubisoft Paris / Montreuil (this studio was also responsible for Red Steel 1) in 2007. It seems that these screens and documents were taken from an early, different concept of the project, some of which are from a set of “fantasy themed levels” (maybe for bonus missions or multiplayer modes).
Development of this Red Steel 2 prototype was stopped in October 2007 when Ubisoft raised concerns about the game’s quality. Since then, Ubisoft Paris started from scratch and a “new” Red Steel 2 is planned for a release in 2009. Ubisoft Montreuil went on with making Rayman Raving Rabbits 2 and TV Party.
Thanks to Hey Hey & SG for their contributions!
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Black Sun was a concept for a new third person shooter / action game set in the space, that was in development by The Collective Studios in 2003. When in 2005 The Collective merged with Backbone Entertainment, BlackSun vanished without traces. The game was cancelled for unknow reasons, but probably they did not find a publisher interested in the project.
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