Ultimate Brain Games is a cancelled collection of board games (as chess) that was in development by CrazyAce for the Jaguar. It seems that the project was canned in early development and only an alpha video was shared by viMasterJag on his Youtube Channel. As we can read from the video description:
I would have to call this an Alpha release. I don’t know exactly what the developer would classify it as, but that’s my take on the situation. This is Ultimate Brain Games, an unreleased product for the Atari Jaguar. It was never produced commercially, nor was it ever finished, I don’t think. We’re lucky to have its developer, CrazyAce, provide us with a playable version, though.
Thanks to Adam for the contribution!
Videos:
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(4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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I’d previousily read claims this was finished, just never released, yet no-one could seem to name a source of where said claims had come from :-)
Did’nt Telegame Peter Mortimer release a statement or answer an email asking about status of various unfinished Jaguar games they were sat on, way back in early 2000 or something?.
He basically stated they’d stopped all further coding/finishing off of near finished Jaguar games as sales of those they had finished and released sold way below what they had hoped…
Mind you at what they were charging you really were aiming at the collectors market (ie niche area).
And that’s the thing, If even the early work on things like the 3D texture-mapping demo’s or FMV conversions for say Creature shock or Demolition Man popped up for sale today, i’m sure they’d go for silly prices, same for claimed ‘complete’ games like Tinhead (Microprose) supposedly just ported to Jaguars 68000 and whilst they are ‘fine’ if your a collector looking for the ‘full set’ as it were, as a gamer you could simply pick up a version of the game on the system/s it was released on and the system itself for far less.
We know source code to the Jaguar exclusives like Conan have been sadly lost and as an ex-Jaguar owner i’d rather that had been saved and preserved rather than another Chess game, but such is the way of the world and we should count ourselves lucky things like Ult.B.Games code was saved.
Just harsh the really good stuff on Jag gone forever :-(
update:found the ‘official’ reason for game being canned.
Terry L Grantham, CEO Telegames Inc, talking in an interview back in 1998 (i think) said development of Ult.Brain Games and World Class Cricket were suspended when it became obvious Atari was going to exit the market.
In same interview, he also claimed they had’nt recovered the investment made in getting both Breakout 2000 and Towers II on Jaguar to the market, so again that confirms pretty much why they never finished off other Lost jaguar games they were sat on.
You’ve the fax from Pete Mortimer to Bill Rehbock, dated July 9 1995..
Pete explains Teque have stopped work on the Cartridge version as per Atari instructions, but we’re now asking Atari if they still wanted the XD version as they planned to do a PC CD version once Jaguar version was finished.
Bill Rehbock was the person from Atari who told Pete Mortimer of Telegames how..very dissapointed he was to hear they planned to put the game on cart as he thought using this storage medium made it a weak product.
Telegames proposed Atari complete the product, working with Teque.
Believe it or not guys, i actually got the chance to speak with Colin “CrazyAce” Hughes about UBG and he told me something that i honestly was not expecting…:
“Ultimate brain games may have a more recent build… And the were a lot more animations for the chess pieces.”
According to him, a man named Greg worked on this game.
BTW, the early prototype of UBG was dumped years ago ;-)
http://hiddenpalace.org/Ultimate_Brain_Games_(Aug_3,_1995_prototype)
Kids, don’t waste your Christmas money on something else, this Cat is the
new king of the video game jungle.” — Terry Grantham, president of Telegames
Inc. (Telegames will release “Ultimate Brain Games” and “European Soccer
Challenge” for Jaguar in the spring and summer of 1994.
Kind of ironic in years to come when Peter wanted a minimum of 6000 fully paid up pre orders to finish various unfinished Jaguar games Telegames were sat on.
Even admitted there wasn’t a fraction of that number out there,in terms of potential customers.
Thanks to Jaguar Explorer Online for this:
JEO] What became of Ultimate Brain Games and World Class Cricket?
[TLG] Development was suspended when it became obvious that Atari was going
to exit the market. The next question would be if they could be completed
now. The answer to that question is the same that must be given regarding
all future releases: it must be financially feasible for us to bring
additional products to market. The sales results of the six announced
products will determine if additional products are brought forth.
[JEO] Why has Telegames been so secretive about the titles they purchased
from Atari?
[TLG] Simply because we make it a practice to do what we say, thus we must
only say what we have committed to do. Any releases beyond the six
announced games are dependent on sales results as discussed above. What
good does it do to talk about future things that might not happen?
Besides, the Internet has become a rumor-mongers dream, and we answer too
much phantasy e-mail now.
[JEO] Can you at least confirm or deny that Telegames is in possession of
additional 100% complete Jaguar titles?
[TLG] Let’s simply say that more titles are available for the Jag if the
market conditions support the financial commitment for additional releases.
[JEO] Of the games you own the rights to that aren’t complete, any chance
of Telegames funding their completion?
[TLG] Please see above.
Developers of Slam Racer on Jaguar were interested in seeing this finished and released it seems,this comment from them back in early 1996:
“I had a meeting last week with Telegames in the UK. Basically, if we
finish the game, they will publish it.
At the moment, Network code has not been included. We are still finishing
off the main game code before integrating the network code. We have gone
back to working part-time on ‘Slam Racer’ as I cannot support the
development without any income. I had financed the game over 10 months,
hoping that Atari would pick up the title towards the end of last year.
This obviously did not happen.
We are also hoping to be able to do two other games which Telegames were
previously working on. We are currently looking at World Class Cricket,
and I am still chasing Ultimate Brain Games.
More news when I have it,
Thanks for listening.”
Found a few more statements from Telegames, given when customers enquired which other titles, if any Telegames planned to finish and release.
Telegames made clear there were no plans to revive James Pond III or U.B.G..
And that sadly many customers who’d signed an online petition saying they would buy unfinished Jaguar games if Telegames released them, had failed to commit to said promises.
So sales of Zero 5..Towers 2 etc must of been below expecrations.