Beta + Cancelled Others Video Games - Page 53 of 171

Maddrax is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by German team Soft Enterprises / i3D Software around 2002, planned to be released on PC and other possible platforms:

“PC: Our engine is capable of using the power of high-end PCs as well as running on slower machines.
Xbox: Thanks to our good relationship with nVidia and the current state of our engine a conversion can easily be done.
PS2: Although our engine isn’t supporting PS2 yet Renderware could be integrated as render layer. Thus a PS2 version could be delivered in reasonable time.
Gamecube: Possible, but regarding the target audience not a preferred platform.
PC and Xbox are preferred development platforms.”

The game was based on a popular (in Germany) novel / comic book series, a science fiction and horror crossover combining the fascination and thrill of both genres. As we can read from the official fact-sheet:

“In the year 2012 earth is threatened by the imminent impact of the gigantic comet “Christopher-Floyd”. A squadron of fighter jets led by the pilot Matthrew Drax is sent out to observe the effects of earth’s last hope – a barrage of long range nuclear missiles launched from an interstellar space station. The attempt fails and the comet hits earth. The resulting impact hurls Matthew Drax and his squadron 500 years into the future leaving them stranded in a reality radically changed as a result from the comet hitting earth.
It is the 25th century. The pilots witness the remainders of huge glaciers – the end of an ice age. Matthew Drax crashes and is rescued out of his crashed jet by the barbarian woman Aruula. Aruula – a skilled sword fighter and psychic talent – accompanies the pilot. Together with his female companion Matt experiences amazing adventures while trying to make sense of a world where most human societies have degenerated and many creatures have mutated to furious monsters.”

They also shared a short description of its gameplay:

“Maddrax The Game will be a 3D action adventure featuring adventure as well as action parts. Depending on the chapter of the game the player will control either Matthew Drax or Aruula. Matthew Drax will be played from a first person view allowing the player to use modern weapons and machinery. Aruula will be played from a third person view making the best use of her swords fighting skills and psychic talents.
In multiplayer game mode two players control one of the characters in a cooperative mode making this game unique. According to their special strengths and weaknesses the individual characters will not be able to use some of the objects found in the game. The players therefore need to work together in order to complete the given puzzles and levels.”

The Maddrax video game was in development for a short time before the team eventually abandoned the project and closing down in 2003. Soft Enterprises were also working on a multiplayer FPS called “Deathmatch Arena” but that fell through when their publisher Phenomedia collapsed.

A playable prototype used by the team to pitch Maddrax to publishers was found and preserved online thanks to Björn Heussner. You can get it from this page (180 MB). If you are able to record some gameplay footage from this prototype, please let us know!

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It Came for Zog [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

10-03-2020

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It Came for Zog is a cancelled point & click adventure that was in development around 1999 – 2000 by Pixeleers Entertainment, a now-forgotten Danish team with not much information online. Luckily we were able to find an old preview for the game on the Web Archive, written in June 2000 by Bob Mandel for The Adrenaline Vault:

“Scheduled to be published by TopWare Interactive, this product shows every sign of bringing the laughter back into personal computer gameplay. The story is that Zog is a prehistoric character who unexpectedly finds himself in the midst of an alien civilization, having been kidnapped by purple creatures from outer space. Zog’s father was the greatest warrior of all time, but now he is old, weak and is facing death. His trusted club, Whammi, is to be inherited by Zog, and it is the most powerful weapon around, capable of even knocking out huge aliens and steel doors. Meanwhile, in the other end of the universe on the Anabolic Asteroid, a bright young scientist named Barfly had created a leader named The General for his people, the Boinks. The General became a feared dictator, and had gotten out of control in training and took to arming the Boinks for war. From this point on, you can perhaps guess what is going to happen as Zog enters the picture.”

“In the words of writer/developer Kristian List when describing the overall tone of It Came For Zog, Zog just cannot help being funny “everywhere, all the time.” When asking Zog to do a simple thing, such as turning the lights on or opening a door, you can be assured that he will find an awkward Neanderthal way to do it. Zog is not the only weird one, as the rest of the bizarre cast promises to be zany and silly as well.
The development team has always considered the adventure genre to be one of their personal favorites. The team wanted to tell a truly unique story, and found that the basic fish-out-of-water conflict with a Neanderthal in an alien outer space setting was the perfect choice. The original rough script was written way back in 1997, but surprisingly there are precious few changes compared to the present work in production. Nonetheless, the developers have been quite happy with the flexibility of their design process: from the beginning they had in mind to make room in the schedule for adjustments as they went along.”

“To guide Zog through his adventures, you must apply the proper Stone Age logic, often yielding surprising results. A little good old-fashioned violence goes a long way in achieving your objectives. List claims the very best element of It Came For Zog “has to be the political incorrectness” — Zog does all the things a main character should not.
It Came For Zog contains an interesting mix of 2D perspectives and 3D settings, combining real-time scenes for indoor environments and pre-rendered scenes for outdoor environments. The developers planned this pattern to make the game run smoothly even on ordinary computers. Because the title’s universe is built as one physical entity, you move absolutely seamlessly between indoor and outdoor areas, not realizing the differences between them in their mode of graphics construction.
As List points out, the basic guideline of the gameplay in It Came For Zog from the beginning has been, “We don’t want the player to get seriously stuck at any point.” The developers desire the gaming experience to be fun and laid back, not frustrating or exhausting. If they had to compare the gameplay contained in this title to that in other releases, they perceive that the style of It Came For Zog has certain similarities with games like Grim Fandango and Full Throttle. The designers do not hide at all that LucasArts has been inspirational to them, having had a large impact on their adventure upbringing.”

After a while the game just vanished without any trace. It seems Pixeleers also worked on another cancelled game, “Aeropa: Fall of the Covenant”, but at the moment we did not find any remaining image from it. We can speculate Pixeleers just close down when their projects became too ambitious to be kept alive.

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Project Advena [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

07-03-2020

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Project Advena is a cancelled sci-fi, survival adventure game that was in development by IllFonic Ltd and Psyop Games around 2015 – 2016. The game was officially announced by the team and a short description was available on their old website:

“Alone, and marooned on an alien world, a humble space freighter pilot must face dwindling resources, a hostile environment, and his own internal demons to make his way toward his only hope for rescue, a flickering beacon forgotten on a precipitous mountainside. Each step on his journey threatens to bring him face to face with his imminent mortality, dwindling supplies, strange creatures, and the deepening shade of his own solitude.”

Venture Beat also published an interview with Illfonic in late 2015:

“After THQ shut down, we started doing work for hire putting our CryEngine knowledge to good use, and we worked on Star Citizen, Evolve, Armored Warfare, Sonic Boom … the Team Challenges … a tech demo with AMD, Crysis 3, and some other really cool unannounced projects.
Currently, besides Friday the 13th: The Game, we are working on Moving Hazard and Project Advena — a working title — with Psyop Games, along with relaunching Nexuiz real soon. In addition, we are continuing working on our MMO Revival, which is build in stages and has a pretty cool update coming to Phase 1 real soon.”

Nothing more is known about Advena’s gameplay. Only a few promotional images are preserved below, to remember its existence. After a while the game quietly vanished, while Illfonic switched their resources on different projects. We can speculate Advena was not proceeding as planned and the team decided to focus their efforts on more secure and profitable projects.

Thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

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The Ravaging (Pukka Games) [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

26-02-2020

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The Ravaging is a cancelled action game that was in development by Pukka Games around 1998 – 1999, to be published by Telstar on PC. The team was co-founded in 1998 by Clive Townsend, Anatole and Damon Branch, but unfortunately never found much success and is mostly known for a couple of Thunderbirds tie-ins for Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. Most of their projects never saw the lights of day, titles such as Tracers, Life Force, Chaos and Chariot Racer.

The Ravaging would have been their first game, but Telstar closed down during development. As we can read from their old website:

“The ravaging is a tactical/action 3D game set on the planes of Hades, an enormous hierarchical structure ruled over by the Angel of the Abyss, Satan. The planes are divided into sections, called Sub-Planes, containing a horrendous assortment of demons, puzzles and traps, all of which stand in your way. As a newly qualified Demon Lord, your natural desire is to slash, burn, maim and deceive your way to the top, where on, completion of the game, you take Satan’s place on the ice-cold ebony altar of pain which is his throne.
To progress through the game you make challenges on the rulers of Sub-planes. If you are successful your Status will rise and you will gain in ‘experience’ which may be ‘spent’ on improving your abilities or that of your horde. You will also earn the right to demand demons from the loser to add to your own horde. Magic skills can be improved through learning, discovering or stealing artifacts. In this way as you progress through The Ravaging your magic powers and legion will grow ever stronger.
However, thousands of Pithounds and the ability to summon Demogorgon, the Lord of Chaos, do not a successful challenger make. All of The Ravaging’s characters are endowed with enough intelligence to make life very difficult indeed. Sneaky, tactically devious and incapable of mercy, the inhabitants of Hades have more than one way to fry an upstart baron. It is up to you to find their weaknesses, the one chink in their leathery hides that renders them vulnerable. (If a 110 foot, psychopathic lava-god could ever be considered vulnerable.)”

Today the project is mostly forgotten, but former Pukka Games developers talked about it in a few interviews. Clive Townsend was interviewed for Jogos 80:

“J80: Did you think at the time about releasing a third installment? There are mentions of a third game on World of Spectrum that hasn’t been released.
CT: I’ve wanted to make a Saboteur 3 for many years, but never had the financial backing to make it happen. In 1998 I teamed up with some colleagues to form Pukka Games, and the plan was to complete The Ravaging then use the game engine to make Saboteur 3. Despite having an amazingly advanced 3D engine, the publisher (Telstar) closed down so the deal fell through and we had to resort to making Game Boy games to pay the bills”

On Retro Gamer (Issue 011-015) we can read another interview with Clive:

“After getting permission from Robert White, I set up Bacchus Software Projects and started work. The 3D revolution had hit but 3D hardware was still a rarity, so I started creating a software 3D engine. After working alone for 18 months I finally had everything working; all my maps, models, bitmaps, textures, sound effects… At this point I joined up with two friends – Anatole and Damon Branch – to form Pukka Games. Saboteur 3 was put on hold while we created The Ravaging for Telstar.”

In September 2017 user 10ahu posted a playable The Ravaging prototype on the Assembler Games forum:

“The ravaging was a pc game developed by Pukka games back in 99 early 2000. It was a action game. You play an angel from hell…and…I don’t remember the story at all :D Based in Wells Uk Pukka games was a very tiny studios but full of great people. I ve worked here few months before joining bits studios. They mostly know for GB and GBA games. Sadly The company closed door in 2002.
I ve found this demo on one of my old rotting cd from back in the day (18 year old cheap cd don t age well). they was more assets on the disk. some video…but the files got corrupted. Fortunately the part of the disk with the demo was still working!! Don t expect a full game, this is a really early build…really rough…
From what i ve could figure out you play with the mouse and the arrows… the demo seem to only have one level. but on the cd i ve got the data s for a few more, so they maybe more I haven’t try all the menu…I remember 4 arms gorilla enemy that I haven’t seeing so far in the demo.
The Team was small but very dedicated to the game and it was still being worked on when I ve left the company so they maybe other demo with more gameplay.”

You can download The Ravaging proto from here (100 MB). We tried to run the game but without much luck. If you are able to play this and record some footage, please let us know!

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Winterheart’s Guild (Sonata Arctica Video Game) [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

21-02-2020

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Winterheart’s Guild is a cancelled post-apocalyptic action-RPG that was in development by Zelian Games Studio around 2007. The project was mostly known for being a collaborative project between Zelian Games and the power metal band Sonata Arctica, as much as the game’s title was taken from the band’s 2003 album of the same name.

As we can read from their old website:

“Winterheart’s Guild is a post-apocalyptic action-RPG. The setting is a harsh, brutal Earth, after the destruction of civilization at its technological peak. In this world, resources are scarce, and the environment is as dangerous as the enemies that the player must face. The world is mostly covered in snow and ice. It’s not only the health of your character that matters, but also warmth and energy. Valuable items are hard to come by. In this world, you truly feel the value of finding a good weapon and a reasonable stash of ammunition.
The game draws from various genres. The gameplay is action based, with RPG elements that give the game depth. In terms of actual gameplay, we have several corner-stones that come together in the final experience: Combat (action), Travel (exploration), Trade (loot, buy/sell, trade), Conversation (info, receive items, other game state effects) and Character Management. All these things take place in a very physical world – we are using Ageia PhysX (with hardware support) to bring the world physically to life. Don’t have the key to open the wooden door? Just bash it in if you have the right weapon and enough strength.
The band members feature as the main characters in this alternate futuristic world. There is no connection between the in-game characters and the real-world band, other than looks and voice. We are also trying to bring across distinct characteristics for each main character that may or may not match their real-world personalities.
Sonata Arctica is also providing the instrumental music (in-game and other) for Winterheart’s Guild, as well as one or more bonus tracks (full songs). Furthermore, many of the story, character and other elements of the game subtly draw from Sonata Arctica song lyrics, including albums other than Winterheart’s Guild. Sonata Arctica also has some input in terms of gameplay ideas and features.”

In 2008 the game was officially put on-hold due to lack of interest and funding from publishers. Zelian Games tried switching their resources to a Bejewelled clone titled “xOrbic”, which saw a public alpha release but in the end it was also canned and the team vanished.

Thanks to AeonicButterfly and António for the contribution!

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