New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Game Boy Music [GBA – Cancelled]

gameboymusiclogo.jpg

GB Music was a music game for the Game Boy Advance, shown to the public at the Tokyo Game Show in 2001. By using the A and B buttons in combination with the D-pad players could push some serious tunage out of the GBA system. The game was to come packaged with a battery-powered Pocket Speaker and cable. To create the ultimate music, players were to be given access to as many as fifty sampled instruments. The title was eventually tabled and later brought back as Jam with the Band/Band Brothers for the Nintendo DS. – [Info from www.ign.com]

In the Iwata Ask interview, we can read more about Game Boy Music development, and they revealed that the project originally started on the Game Boy Color!

Iwata: You joined this company at the same time, didn’t you, Kyuma-san and Kitahara-san? Kitahara-san touched on a fraction of this game’s history in his previous comment, but planning for Band Brothers actually started during the Game Boy Color era. How long have you been involved with Band Brothers, Kitamura-san?

Kitamura: I started about 10 years ago, back when I was young and sprightly. (laughs) […]

Kitamura: That’s right, so I thought: “If no-one else will use her in a game, we might as well make a game ourselves”. Around that time, a new sound chip that could replicate natural instrument sounds really well had been developed, and we were asked if we would be able to make some software that utilised the chip…

Iwata: The music in the Game Boy Color era was all plinky-plonk electronic music, wasn’t it? So that was when you started developing Band Brothers’s predecessor, Game Boy Music.

Kitamura: But while we were making slow progress with that, the Game Boy Advance was developed, and we realised that it would offer us better sound quality.

Iwata: You could now produce natural sounds without having to borrow a special sound chip. However, the development of Game Boy Music had to be abandoned just before its completion.

Kitamura: We had various problems, but the main issue was the fact that for Jam Sessions (to play together in a group), every user had to buy their own copy of the software. […]

Iwata: And you weren’t the only one who felt that way. At the beginning of 2004, the year the Nintendo DS was released, I had the opportunity to meet Nintendo developers individually. I could feel how strongly all those who had worked on Game Boy Music shared the desire to release the software. Another incident that had occurred before development was cancelled also left a deep impression on me. I remember watching a video of staff members playing the game during its development. After they’d finished playing a song, they would all celebrate by high-fiving each other.

Kitahara: People don’t normally high-five each other after playing a game, do they?

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Mario’s Wacky Worlds [CDI – Cancelled]

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Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds was a cancelled video game planned for the Phillips CD-i, and was in development by NovaLogic. The game attempted to duplicate the gameplay of Super Mario World for the SNES. Due to the limitations of the CD-i, several features could not be included in the game, such as large numbers of sprites on the screen, Mode 7, and many visual effects. Though the game sprites are based on Super Mario World, the level design is based on Earth locations rather than the Mushroom Kingdom or Mushroom World. – [Info from wikipedia]

Thanks to Remy Van Vugt we can see the whole Mario Wacky Worlds levels in the gallery below:

[…] here are all cd-i mario wacky worlds levels in .png format. This list shows which level files are referenced in the binary cdi file:

  • GREEK1.JBR
  • GREEK2.JBR
  • ATLANTIS.JBR
  • EGYPT1.JBR
  • EGYPT2.JBR
  • EGYPT3.JBR
  • AZTEC1.JBR
  • AZTEC2.JBR
  • CASTLE1.JBR
  • CASTLE2.JBR
  • SHIP1.JBR
  • SHIP2.JBR
  • SHIP3.JBR
  • HOUSE.JBR
  • CAVE1.JBR
  • CAVE2.JBR
  • CAVE3.JBR
  • SWAMP1.JBR
  • SWAMP2.JBR
  • SWAMP3.JBR
  • SWAMP4.JBR
  • SWAMP5.JBR
  • SWAMP6.JBR
  • VILLAGE.JBR
  • HUT1.JBR
  • HUT2.JBR
  • HUT3.JBR
  • HUT4.JBR
  • HUT5.JBR
  • ICEBERG1.JBR
  • ICEBERG2.JBR
  • IGLOO.JBR
  • ICEMTN.JBR
  • NEONCITY.JBR
  • GEOMETRO.JBR
  • PLAID.JBR
  • PIPEWRKS.JBR
  • SEWER.JBR
  • CHEMLAB.JBR
  • MENU.JBR
  • TITLE.JBR

they probably wanted to make all those levels but the actual prototype did only include 30 files. those 30 files i have converted to viewable .png files. Background ‘animation’ is done by cycling pallette colors. this is not included in the exported png files. but it’s interesting to see all the levels

Images:

Videos:

Power Crystal [M2 – Tech Demo / Proto / Cancelled]

ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :)

ITA: Questa pagina dell’archivio non ha ancora una descrizione. Se vuoi aggiungere delle informazioni riguardo le differenze della beta o la descrizione di un gioco cancellato, lasciaci un commento o mandaci una email! Inseriremo le tue informazioni nella pagina ed il tuo nome nella lista dei collaboratori. Grazie per il tuo aiuto! :)

Images:

Ironblood / Racing [M2 – Tech Demos / Protos]

ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :)

ITA: Questa pagina dell’archivio non ha ancora una descrizione. Se vuoi aggiungere delle informazioni riguardo le differenze della beta o la descrizione di un gioco cancellato, lasciaci un commento o mandaci una email! Inseriremo le tue informazioni nella pagina ed il tuo nome nella lista dei collaboratori. Grazie per il tuo aiuto! :)

Images:

Clayfighter 3 [M2 – Cancelled]

ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :)

ITA: Questa pagina dell’archivio non ha ancora una descrizione. Se vuoi aggiungere delle informazioni riguardo le differenze della beta o la descrizione di un gioco cancellato, lasciaci un commento o mandaci una email! Inseriremo le tue informazioni nella pagina ed il tuo nome nella lista dei collaboratori. Grazie per il tuo aiuto! :)

Images: