Kinect Sports (codenamed Natal Sports) was Rare Ltd. first Kinect title. Development started in late 2008 and fully started in early 2009 when the studio was restructured to fully focus on Kinect Software. It was Rare’s second try to produce a sports title on Xbox 360, their first attempt used an unreleased motion controller, similar to the Wii Remote, which remained unpublished.
Thanks to Moren for the contribution!
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SpongeBob Gravjet Blast (codenamed Prodigy) was a racing game for Xbox Live Arcade planned for release in 2009. The game used popular characters in the Nicktoons lineup, both past and present, such as Ren and Stimpy. The gameplay was inspired by the Wipeout series and featured fast paced hover racing with weapon combat. The direction of gravity changed with the winding of the track, so that the ships would race sideways, upside down, or even around cylinders. There were shortcuts in each track as well as panels on the track surface that would cause the ships to slow down or slide when driven over. Each character had a unique ship and track that used elements of their respective art styles, but gave them a futuristic twist. The game ended development in it’s beta stage due to financial issues.
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Crash Bandicoot: Landed 2010 is a cancelled game in the Crash Bandicoot series, which wasn’t even officially announced but some info leaked from the people who worked it. These info were soon removed from their websites: Crash 2010 was meant to be a 3d Adventure / Action game in developement by Radical Entertainment. It was cancelled due to layoffs by Activision in February 2010.
Many information were leaked after the cancellation but left unnoticed until August 2010, when they were found by some users in the Crash Mania Forums. There is a short gameplay / cgi footage and also some concept art. Crash Mania members made a petition to make activision continue working on the game but it was unsuccessful, partially due to abuse of the petition (ie. obvious sockpuppetry). A new petition has been started, and has so far not suffered these problems.
Recently, an fx demo was leaked by someone as a demo reel video. The owner of the reel video said that game would not be continued because of Activision. When the fans added the video to Youtube, Activision started removing them but many of these are still available.
Console Game!
Crash Bandicoot 2010 (Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii)
Design and implementation of character locomotion and weapon/combat using proprietary software
Open World Mission Design
Game Systems Design Documentation
Weapons/Tools
Interface
Game Economy
Boss design
Another video with items was found, in which we can see some interesting stuff about the canceled game!
Post by MotweraCity
Videos:
DS Footage (Developed by Renegade Kid):
Pictures video for similar visually done game (CTR 2010):
Also Effects Video in this link: http://landinkent.blogspot.com/p/game-fx.html
Savannah was one of various prototypes in development at Rare Ltd. during 2006/2007. As the project remained in prototype stage and was not greenlit, only few elements were set in stone, but it could have been some sort of nature simulator, more than a realistic Viva Pinata. Sadly we don’t know exactly for which kind of gameplay these models could have been planned to, and sadly we’ll probably never know, as the project was lost forever in one of many Rare’s internal restructures. Only few images and animations remains to preserve the existence of this project.
In an interview with a former Rare employee by Emily Rogers on Not Enough Shaders we can read some more info on Savannah:
“Savannah” was the brain child of Phil Dunne. Phil’s concept was to create a realistic savannah environment where you raised a lion cub from birth to its adult life, teaching it survival and social skills to survive the harsh life in the wild. We knew of the Kinect coming out but we had no real info on how good it was, but the plan was to try and use that technology in “Savannah”.
It was an interesting concept and it was fun to work on, we really tried to push the technology of the 360 to get the most out of the graphics. The lions and Hyenas were using a custom shell system for the fur, and with the help of a great programmer called Cliff Ramshaw, I think we got some of the nicest looking in-game fur I’ve seen.
It was only ever a prototype, and it never got a green light.
Thanks to Otrant for the contribution!
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Limbo is a puzzle/platform game created by Playdead and released for Xbox Live Arcade in 2010. In a interview at IGN, Arnt Jansen, the designer of the game, makes some interesting observations about the development of Limbo:
“I think we ditched seventy percent of our ideas,” Jensen said. “Mainly because it looked too much like something else, was too big a cliché.
One thing I noticed in playing through the game is the shift from heavily scripted events in the beginning (e.g. the constant presence of other children, the emergence of the spider, the dashes over collapsing terrain) to a more lonely and puzzle-centric second half of the game. “Maybe I’m picking at a wound,” I told Jensen when I asked if this shift was intentional.
“It’s a big wound,” he said, looking into his lap and smiling to himself. This wasn’t, in fact, the plan.
“I think I was a lot more involved in the first half of it,” Jensen said. “It was before [puzzle designer] Jebbe started doing more of those hardcore puzzles. I think it was much more about feelings and doing small stories. You were supposed to meet the spider in the gravity puzzles. It was just really hard to pull off and we were too small a team to make it. I had some crazy ideas, some big ideas.”
Also,in the screenshots and in the video below we can see the 2006 concept version.
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