Shadow Striker is a a text adventure developed by Siika Software, an indie team from Finland. The project was originally known as Dark Souls, and it was meant to have a 3D scenario to explore, but because of various development issues, it was later decided to use only text to tell the story. Below you can see some images from the early prototype and a video from the beta version. For more info about the final game, check Siika Software’s blog!
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Brains in Planes is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Millennium Interactive, planned to be released for PC and the original Playstation. Only a single image taken from the Alias environment was found by pcloadletter and Celine in Edge magazine 35, from August 1996. Brain in Planes was probably going to play similar to Mario Kart, but with futuristic cartoon craft and the speed of Wipeout, promising more freedom to explore the tracks.
When Sony bought Millennium Interactive in 1997, they became SCE Studios Cambridge and the project vanished forever, maybe because they decided to shift development time and resource to Medievil and Creatures. Its interesting to notice that Brains in Planes was to ship first but only the other two games made it.
Thanks to pcloadletter and Celine for the contributions!
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Leisure Suit Larry: Pocket Party is a cancelled point and click adventure that was in development in 2004 by TKO Software and it would have been published by Vivendi Universal for the ill-fated N-gage. The game was going to be the first original mobile title in the Leisure Suit Larry series, but it was never finished, probably because of the failure of the Nokia console / phone.
As we can read in Wikipedia, in Leisure Suit Larry: Pocket Party, players would have been able to explore a college campus, while solving puzzles and engaging in risque activities. As they search for the ultimate good time (having sex), gamers bump into Rosie Palmer, the head cheerleader at Larry’s college and he is determined to do anything to be with her.
In addition to single-player gameplay, there were four different turn-based multiplayer mini-games. The game was supposed to be a big title for the N-Gage due to its raunchy language and humor, and also for the cell-shaded graphic, a brand new feature for the N-Gage.
It seems that Leisure Suit Larry N-Gage was developed twice: there are two completely full versions of the game. One that was deemed too raunchy and another that was redesigned by TKO-Dallas from the ground up. So to recap….there are TWO full, complete working versions of Pocket Party in Alpha form.
Thanks to ForWhomTheBellTolls for the contribution!
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Mudkicker is a cancelled off-road racing game that was in development in 1995 / 1996 by Scavenger for Playstation and PC (with a rumored Sega Saturn conversion, but it was denied by a former developer). The project was meant to be published by GT Interactive, along with Amok, Scorcher and Into the Shadows, but only the first 2 titles were finished. In January 1997, before Scavenger could complete and deliver the remaining two titles, GT sent Scavenger a letter setting forth notice of “material breaches of the Agreement by Scavenger” and purporting to terminate the development of those games. Because of these problems with their publisher and lack of money, Scavenger had to close down. Mudkicker was never finished and vanished forever with the closure of the studio.
Thanks to Rod_Wod and Celine for the magazine scans!
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Bloodlust (aka International Karate 3) is a cancelled 2D fighting game that was in development in 1995 / 1996 by Atari for the Arcades and Playstation. The original International Karate was a 1985 title released for the ZX Spectrum, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and Atari 8-bit family of computers, with a sequel called International Karate + released a year later. It seems that a Bloodlust prototype is in the hands of some collectors, but only few screenshots are preserved in the gallery below.
The arcade version was based on 64MB PC hardware (Cyrix Media GX PC), while the PSX conversion was going to have some graphical limitations. 16 playable characters were planned, that were inspired by RARE’s Killer Instinct.
Thanks to Celine and Ross Sillifant for the contribution! Scans from EDGE magazine #55
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