Rocket Boy is a cancelled platform game that was in development by Rocket Science Games for the Sega Saturn in 1994 / 1995. Players were able to explore a full 3D world set in a weird / fantasy galaxy, with the goal of finding a way to return home before the parents of the main character were back for dinner. As written in an article in Wired 2.11 (page 108), Rocket Science decided to cancel this project because it was too similar to other platform games of its time:
The trend toward more literate games means that some projects well along the Rocket Science pipeline have had to be scrapped. “We saw some things at the Consumer Electronics Show very similar to our Rocket Boy and DarkRide, so we’ve put those on hold,” says Caldwell. “But we still have Wing Nuts, a World War I dogfight game, in the works.”
In 1997 Rocket Science had to close down due to financial problems and Rocket Boy vanished forever with them. Celine found a pic of the game in Cd Consoles magazine issue #5 and Rod_Wod found one more in another magazine! These images are likely concept artwork and not in-game.
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
UPDATE:
On Mega Force issue 36 there is an article about Rocket Boy. The project initially was planned for Sega Mega CD (and 32X combo) and featured pre-rendered graphics which were very popular at that time. The game was an action/platform with an isometric view similar to SegaSonic the Hedgehog. Added “real screen shots” images in the gallery with the scanned article.
Images:
U64 is an archive with articles, screens and videos for cancelled, beta & unseen videogames. Every change & cut creates a different gaming experience: we would like to save some documents about this evolution for curiosity, historic and artistic preservation.
4 Responses to Rocket Boy [32X/Mega CD Saturn - Cancelled]
Yakumo
April 21st, 2010 at 11:25 am
Nice find. I’d never heard of that game before. Just a shame that there are no real screen shots.
Celine
April 21st, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Wait. Was it initially planned for the Mega CD ?
Also Dark Ride was later shifted to Saturn as you can read in
“Darkside – SAT – CdConsoles4″.
Celine
July 18th, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Updated.
monokoma
July 23rd, 2012 at 1:37 pm
We love you Celine! :D