Nintendo

ToeJam & Earl 4 [DS – Cancelled]

A new game in the ToeJam & Earl series was planned for the Nintendo DS, but later cancelled for the lack of interest from publishers. The original ToeJam & Earl is a crazy action game developed by Johnson Voorsanger Productions and published by Sega for the Mega Drive / Genesis in 1991. The story centers on the titular ToeJam and Earl, alien rappers who have crash-landed on Earth.

Greg Johnson still have the rights to the TJ&E property and as we can read on Joystiq:

As far as another entry in the series goes, Johnson told us he worked on a pitch for “TJ&E4” as recently as two years ago. Based on the pitch document and images, TJ&E4 was to be a DS remake of the first ToeJam & Earl, albeit with some new additions. “After the Xbox game released in 2002, I tried really hard to get a new TJ&E game off the ground – right up until about two years ago. I was really hoping to do a multiplayer DS version – but didn’t have any luck getting interest from any publisher – I approached pretty much all of them. Right now my studio is pretty busy with other stuff, but I plan to get back to seeing if I can’t make TJ&E games in the future.”

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Christopher Columbus [SNES – Cancelled]

Christopher Columbus (aka Xpoferens Columbus) is a cancelled shoot ’em up that was in development by Misawa Entertainment for the Super Famicom / SNES in 1992 / 1993. The game was loosely based on the famous italian explorer, but with a fantasy twist: his ship was able to fly and to shoot energy bullets, to take down huge mammoths, weird sea creatures and ancient dragoons. It seems that Christopher Columbus was almost complete, it was even promoted in a catalog with other Misawa Entertainment’s titles from 1992 / 1993, but in the end the game was never released for unknown reasons.

Thanks to GhostSeed and MatthewCallis that posted the scans on the Assembler Forum! Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Dark Empire [GBA – Cancelled]

Dark Empire is an unreleased RPG that was in development by Marvelous Entertainment for the GameBoy Advance. This project was previusly unknown, untill an auction for its prototype was posted by Sample_Seller on Ebay in June 2009. As we can read from the item description:

DARK EMPIRE for the Gameboy Advance !!

RARE ORIGINAL SAMPLE/PROMO VERSION !!

FIRST ONE EVER FOUND !!

Will run on any US Gameboy Adance system. Original promo/sample game was never released or completed, game is playable but only around 30% complete. Very good graphics for Gameboy Advance, you have a world map, a castle you can go to and a village. Ingame text is Japanese, developer most probably Marvelous Entertainment.

It’s fun to notice how the developers used some real photos (as one of Mel Gibson from the Braveheart film) as placeholders for the characters avatars in the game, before the final ones were finished. The gameplay would have probably been like a traditional RPG / SRPG, and looking at one of the photos added in the auction it seems that there were some 3D scenes too (maybe for the combats?).

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Son of the Dragon [Wii – Cancelled]

Son of the Dragon is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by Renegade Kid and that would have been published by Gamecock for the Nintendo Wii. Sadly when Gamecock had to close down for economic issues, Renegade Kid was not able to find another publisher and the project had to be canned. Only few concept arts were released and it seems that Son of the Dragon was still in early development when it was cancelled. As we can read from an interview with Renegade Kid co-founder Jools Watsham on 1UP:

JW: Son of the Dragon was a third-person action adventure title set in a heavily stylized 15th century. You were Dracula. Something happened to you, which striped you of your ability to use your awesome powers. A quick description of it is a “good” 3D Castlevania where you are Dracula, with a focus on responsive combat, solid gameplay camera, light RPG elements, and a rich world of wickedly diverse landscapes, enemies, player weapons, and abilities. […]

JW: We spent many months developing the idea with a team of very experienced and dedicated individuals. The art team created loads of superb concept images for the player character, enemies, bosses, and environment locations. The design group created a game design document that quickly grew to over 100 pages, and detailed player abilities, damage types, enemy AI, items, accessories, level designs, currency, and many other details. It was truly inspired and exciting. We were considering licensing an engine for development, and the same day we had assets loaded into the engine, the hammer came down and the project was canceled. It was a bittersweet day.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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D-Jump! [N64 Dreamcast PS2 PC – Cancelled]

D-Jump is a cancelled platform / action game that was in development in 1997 / 1998 by Ubisoft Paris, planned to be released for the “next gen consoles” Dreamcast and Playstation 2, and also PC. It seems that the project was canned after 1 year and half of development, but there are just few info available. Derboo was able to find an article about D-Jump! in PowerPlay magazine issue 8/1998, in which we can see a couple of target renders. As we can read at IGN:

Starring a nimble “Rastafarian” lead character, D-Jump! blends action and platforming elements with a storyline based on time travel. Players must traverse several time periods to unlock the mystery of why their character is slowly turning into wood. Originally scheduled for release as a launch title for the PlayStation 2, D-Jump was later cancelled for unknown reasons.

For more information read this Gamespot article.

Thanks to derboo, Jorge and Isatis_Angel for the scans and to Nattie for her help in preserving more screens from their lost game!

One of the below scan is from Games Republic issue3.

UPDATE:

Seems that while the main development version was for PC, initially the game could have been also planned for N64.
A preview with more real-time screenshots are in fact found in GamePlay 64 issue 9.
I’ve added to the gallery a couple real-time screenshots that show the game in a much late state of development with the bright and cartoony style (and some other renders/concept arts).
Additionally I’ve added a brief trailer below.

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