Sega

Galleon [Beta / Cancelled]

Galleon is a video game developed by Toby Gard and Confounding Factor. Famously announced in Edge magazine in 1997 for the original Playstation, as the original designer of Lara Croft, Toby Gard left Core design shortly after the first Tomb Raider game was released. Galleon was to be his first independent title following the original Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, Galleon was delayed and eventually ported from the original Sony Playstation to the Sega Dreamcast and later to GameCube, PS2 and XBOX. In the end only the XBOX version was released, while all the other versions were cancelled. While still innovative in both design and control, Galleon’s graphics appear fairly dated on the Xbox hardware. Toby has since returned to Eidos as a design consultant for the Tomb Raider franchise. [Info from Wikipedia]

italian_flag.jpg Italian Description

La storia di Galleon è una delle più assurde nel mondo dei videogiochi, per il suo sviluppo, per il concept originario e per la storia del team di produzione. Nel 1996 la Core Design pubblicò il primo mitico Tomb Raider; il successo fu mondiale. Poco dopo l’ uscita del gioco, uno dei suoi originali designers, Toby Gard, decise di lasciare la compagnia e fondare insieme ad altri ex-membri della Core Design la Confounding Factor. Il loro primo gioco fu annunciato nel 1997, dalla famosa rivista britannica Edge, si trattava appunto di Galleon!

Il titolo prometteva davvero bene, un action-adventure 3d in cui il giocatore avrebbe dovuto prendere il controllo del capitano Rhama. Il gioco, stando a quanto affermato dagli sviluppatori, doveva essere davvero interessante; il giocatore avrebbe trovato di fronte uno scenario enorme, completamente esplorabile senza alcun impedimento. Il sistema di controllo, sarebbe stato funzionale ed interessante da usare. Oltre alle fasi di esplorazione, Galleon avrebbe offerto scontri contro nemici e boss vari, sezioni platform, puzzle, zone subacquee e villaggi da analizzare.

L’ambientazione, come intuibile dal titolo stesso, riguardava l’ universo dei pirati, quindi galeoni, mari, isole e tesori da scoprire. Galleon avrebbe seguito una trama molto complessa; diverse scene di intermezzo molto curate e recitare, senza però rallentare il ritmo del gioco. In poche parole, Galleon = Tomb Raider + pirati.

Fu annunciato originariamente per l’indimenticato Dreamcast, ma cancellato in seguito per lo scarso successo della console. Lo sviluppo passò così su PC (fu la Interplay ad assicurarsi i diritti sulla pubblicazione) e in seguito sulle console dell’allora nuova generazione, cioè PS2, Xbox e GameCube.

In particolare per questa ultima, si parlò di un’uscita al lancio stesso della macchina. Gli anni però passarono e del gioco nessuna traccia. Cos’ era successo a Galleon? Il team di produzione, Confounding Factor, incontrò diversi problemi con lo sviluppo. Il sistema di controllo fu cambiato più volte, la grafica venne aggiornata e migliorata in più riprese, senza però riuscire a sfruttare al meglio le potenzialità della console.

Nel 2003, la Interplay cancellò Galleon a causa dei suoi problemi finanziari. Disperati, i ragazzi della Confounding Factor, riuscirono per loro fortuna a trovare un altro publisher in tempo, la SCi. Questa volle pubblicare soltanto la versione per console Microsoft, così Galleon divenne una esclusiva per Xbox.

Il gioco venne finalmente pubblicato a fine 2004, dimostrando che spesso, i lunghi tempi di sviluppo, non decretano il successo. Galleon si rivelò infatti un gioco d’azione privo di spina dorsale, senza un motivo per essere ricordato.

L’attesa e le premesse per un grande gioco, non furono assolutamente rispettate. La grafica, più volte aggiornata, si rivelò davvero datata, soprattutto su XBOX, la più potente console a 128-bit. A causa dello scarso successo, la Confounding Factor si sciolse e Galleon rimase l’unico loro gioco mai creato. Per quanto riguarda Toby Gard, è ritornato alla Core Design, per continuare a lavorare sulla serie Tomb Raider.

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1080° Avalance / White Storm [GC – Beta]

Sometime in 1999, it was confirmed that a sequel to 1080° Snowboarding was coming to the Nintendo 64. Rather than Nintendo handling development of the game, they passed development on to second-party studio Left Field. When the game failed to materialise, it was confirmed that the game was no longer being produced for the N64, but for the Nintendo GameCube. Not long after this announcement, it was also confirmed that Left Field was revoking its status as a second-party studio so it could develop multi-format titles.

Development of the game was handed to Nintendo’s American development studio, Nintendo Software Technology Corporation (NST). They originally planned to call this game 1080°: White Storm, before finally renaming this game 1080°: Avalanche. It is assumed that the game was completely rewritten by NST, but it’s possible that some elements of Left Field’s work remains. – [info from wikipedia]

The early screens and video show at least 2 different beta of the game, in which the character design and the graphic were different from the final version.

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Saffire Young Olympians [GC – Tech Demo / Proto]

Originally announced as an adventure game, “Young Olympians” (also known as Saffire, from the name of the developers) was one of the first games shown for the “Project Dolphin” console, today known as the Nintendo GameCube.  After the original announcement the game disappeared,  it was postponed several times and then it was back in the form of a fighting game with RPG elements, but then it vanished again for months until it was finally changed into Barbarian, an hack ‘n’ slash released for GameCube, PS2 and XBOX. This is approximately the troubled development of Young Holympians. The Saffire team had some fame because of their tech demos for the Dolphin, with impressive graphics for their time, but once released, as it happened with Young Olympians, the gameplay proved to be somewhat disappointing and even the graphic was not that good. Of course this tech demo remains one of the most interesting piece of the GameCube development history.

italian_flag.jpg [spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Annunciato sotto forma di adventure game, questo Young Olympians (conosciuto anche come Saffire, nome del gruppo di sviluppatori) fu uno dei primi giochi esibiti per il “Project Dolphin”, ormai noto come GameCube. In seguito scomparse per qualche tempo, tornò alla luce in forma di Fighting Game con elementi RPG, poi di nuovo disperso per mesi, fino a quando si trasformò in Barbarian, uscito finalmente per GameCube, PS2 e XBOX. Questa all’incirca la travagliata storia dello sviluppo del gioco. Il team Saffire, fece parlare molto di sé nell’ambito Nintendo, a causa di queste loro tech demo, dalla grafica impressionante per il periodo, che fecero fantasticare alle potenzialità del successore dell’N64. Ma una volta usciti, come questo Young Olympians, si rivelarono piuttosto deludenti. Di “Saffire” non rimane altro che l’interesse come vera e propria beta leggendaria.[/spoiler]

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Picassio [Cancelled – PS2, GameCube, Dreamcast]

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Picassio was a stealth / thief game that was in development at Promethean Designs, in which the player would have had to steal artworks  to “win” a bet with another thief. The project had a long development cycle: it started as a Dreamcast game, then it was postponed and passed through PS2 and GameCube. In all that time the only playable build that was made was a very basic one, and is the one  that you can see in the video below: basically the character creeping about and some very basic AI. Most of the gameplay ideas did not get implemented at all. It seems that they started the game with a man protagonist in mind, but in later screens we can see a woman as the main character, so it could have been changed to appeal more to the young public.

The project got radically changed halfway through development when the company boss saw the then newly released Shenmue and basically decided to copy it. Picassio then turned into a half adventure, half stealth type game but didn’t get any further than some character/level designs before getting canned. The company fell into severe financial difficulty and employees weren’t being paid for months. Subsequently they all left to work elsewhere and Promethean Designs went bust.

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Picassio Beta Trailer

 

Virtua Hamster [Sega 32X – Cancelled]

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Virtua Hamster is an unreleased racing game that was in development for Sega’s 32x, designed and produced by Eric Quakenbush. The player would have controlled a series of rodents on wheels, to race in 3D mazes, trying to avoid an huge Mechanical Snake. The project was cancelled when Sega discontinued the 32X before production could be completed. Some playable prototypes of the game still exist and they were sold in various auctions on ebay. An early alpha of Virtua Hamster was finally released in August 2009 by SEGASaturno.

The game was  later ported to Saturn but cancelled again when the game was almost complete. Sega still owed payments to the developer of Virtua Hamster, David A. Palmer Productions. David A. Palmer revealed to Unseen64 that “the entire intellectual property of this game and code” was signed over to his company as part of a legal settlement.

As we can read from the original pre-production design document:

High Concept: A maze game in which the player assumes the role of a rocket-powered hamster test pilot who must navigate a gigantic habitrail from hell in order to thwart the plans of an evil scientist and regain his rodent freedom.

Hook: The look and fast paced action of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter combined with an amusing puzzle strategy game and an unlikely group of heroes and enemies.

Setting: The majority of the game takes place in a mad scientists lab facility. The scientist has assembled a truly humongus habitrail-type maze in order to test his rocket powered rodent experiments.

Characters: Player One is a test pilot hamster from a rival lab and was stolen by the mad scientist. Player One’s goal is to retrieve all of the stolen blue-print pieces and escape from the lab. The hamster pilot has to navigate the complicated maze as well as fend off evil rocket riding rodents, a mechanical snake, and the scientists voracious cat.

Thanks to Ryan Jacques and David A. Palmer for the contribution!

You can read more info on Virtual Hamster at Sega 16.

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Scan from SEGA Visions - May 1995

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