Stavo spulciando il forum di ASSEMblergames.com quando mi balza all’occhio il titolo di un topic: N64 40 Winks dumped and released
Un flashback, in un non meglio precisato episodio del nostro Podcast 64 Ness e Yota (o era Bakka, ehi non ho una memoria perfetta!) discutono se 40 Winks era uscito o no per N64, affermando di averlo visto recensito o in qualche negozio. Fine flashback.
Il mistero si infittisce, in quanto leggendo alcuni post sul topic di ASSEMblergames.com vengono presentate diversi ipotesi quali la vendità in piccole quantità a causa del fallimento del publisher (GT Interactive) o il rilascio solo in determinati paesi. Secondo Wikipedia il gioco è stato cancellato, anche se quasi del tutto sviluppato (punto in cui concordano tutti).
Ma d’altronde, cosa ce ne importa della storia di questo gioco quando possiamo giocarcelo adesso? Usando questo link di Rapidshare potete godervi il gioco, che a quanto pare sembra fare le bizze sul famoso emulatore N64 per PC Project64, no problem anche in questo caso dato che sembra funzionare appieno con l’emulatore 1964 .
Ovviamente non è il giocone per N64 che tutti aspettavano, basta guardare la nostra lista di Unseen per N64 per rendersi conto che ci sono titoli di ben altra caratura, ma si può solo ringraziare colui che ha messo a disposizione questo gioco.
Tiny Toon Adventures: DotL is the name of Tiny Toon Adventures video game that seems to have been cancelled. Originally developed by Treasure Video Games, it was originally slated for the PlayStation 2 and possibly the Nintendo GameCube. It was originally slated for release in May of 2001, but thanks to many delays, the game no longer has a foreseeable future.Other possible titles for the game included Tiny Toon Adventures: Defenders of the Loony-verse, Tiny Toon Adventures: Defenders of the Universe, and Tiny Toon Adventures: ACME Invasions. None of them were confirmed, however.
The game’s original official website, www.dotu.net, no longer exists. Tetsuhiko Kikuchi (aka Han), the apparent director of the game, his hinted on his homepage(Japanese) that the game has indeed been cancelled. An article on IGN written back in 2004 suggested that the game has always been intended for release. The article says at the end “Still officially slated to come out sometime (not necessarily in 2004)”, but 2005 has even come and gone with nothing new about this game released. The main page at IGN now has cancelled for the US release date. Defenders of the Looniverse was of the most interest to Treasure fans because it was based of the gameplay that was originally in Rakugaki Showtime. The gameplay had been greatly expanded over Rakugaki and the most obvious additions included large, interactive levels and a new scenario mode that allowed for 4 player co-operative play and giant bosses.” [wikipedia]
In february 2009, a beta of Tiny Toon Adventure was leaked online, thanks to linlhutz from the Lost Levels Forum, and it can now be played and preserved! Huge props to him! You can read the original topic at the LLForum and download the leaked Tiny Toon Adventures beta in here or here (Thanks to X-Cult for the mirror). If you are not able to play this one, you can look at a series of videos (with some framerate issues because of the emu) thanks to ChibiTeinko, check his Youtube Channel.
Crank the Weasel is a mature cancelled platform / adventure game that was in development by Midway Games in 2002, for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. The goal of Crank was to create chaos in the game’s world, with lies, cheats and stealing loot from the other characters, to be able to get enough Big-Ticket-Items to fly to Pleasure Island. The game’s look and feel were inspired by 1920’s cartoon art style and authentic big band swing music, but with a humorous / mature twist, similar to Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
In the website of Brian Silva, Co-creator and Lead Designer of Crank the Weasel, we can read many interesting info about the concepts behind the Crank project:
At the beginning of a game, each NPC possesses a preliminary set of “ideal” characteristics, meaning that they will go about their business, acting and functioning in an initially “composed” manner appropriate for their personality type. However, depending upon Weasel’s player-controlled actions (as well as the independent actions of the NPCs), these “ideal” characteristics will soon begin to alter as they are manipulated in a vast variety of ways that can either benefit or work against the player, and often provide surprising results. NPCs, while going about their business, will even change their own behavior to suit their immediate needs even if Weasel does not interact with them, resulting in amusing and varied gameplay. Basically, each playfield would naturally evolve on it’s own, Weasel just happens to throw a huge wrench into the equation.
An example of the weird scenarios that the player would have been able to explore in the game, is the Hell level:
While floating along the River Styx, Weasel can hear the merry tune of Jingle Bells echoing throughout the fiery pits of hell, snow is drifting, trees are decorated, lights are hung, and all the little devils want to wish Weasel a “Merry Christmas!” Gnarled and twisting tree roots wrap and wind from above and all throughout this town of torment. Little demons drive their little demon cars, walk their demon dogs, and mow their demon lawns in front of their little demon houses. Elevators transport a nonstop supply of unrighteous heathens to the hoary underworld to suffer an abundance of dreadful eternities. Weasel will be glad to know that there are hundreds of take out restaurants in hell… unfortunately they’re all Chinese take out, and the only available places of business are either the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Internal Revenue Service, Hellth Food stores, Social Security Departments, jury duty registration, or fabric stores. But on the bright side, there’s plenty of flashy advertising for products and places that these sinners will never have a chance to enjoy.
Sadly Crank the Weasel was officially cancelled in 2003, as we can read at IGN Xbox:
“That game will never come out,” said our source from the innards at Midway. “It just never seemed to take off and all I can tell you is that you’re not going to see it again.”
A few months prior to Chrono Trigger‘s market release, a beta version was given to magazine reviewers and game stores. An unfinished build of the game, it contains numerous differences from the final version, such as unused music tracks and a location called “Singing Mountain”. Curious fans later explored the ROM image through various methods, discovering two unused world map character sprites and presumed additional sprites for certain non-player characters. This has led some to rumor that an eighth playable character exists or was intended for play, but there is no evidence to this claim. [Info from Wikipedia]
Soon enough, it became the time in which the Super Famicom was completed and released. During that time, we were still seeking a higher capacity media for our games, and upon getting word from Nintendo that they were developing a CD-ROM adapter for the Super Famicom, we decided to start a project in a different direction from Final Fantasy IV, which at the time was in the middle of development and was touted as a next-generation RPG fitting the large storage capacity the new cartridges had. The development codename for the new project was Maru Island, and we were making it as a collaboration work with Akira Toriyama-sensei after we established contact through Shueisha. I frequently ran back to the office just to receive and look at the screen mock-ups that Toriyama-sensei did in the initial stages of the project.
Despite that, the CD-ROM adapter was never completed. Once everyone learned that the CD-ROM adapter was never going to see a release, they decided to abandon everything that had been planned for development since the very start, including Toriyama-sensei’s contributions, and decided to revise the project in order to make it release into a ROM cassette. We said that we would wait for the CD-ROM to make a collaboration project with Toriyama-sensei, but when it was revised, it actually became an entirely different project with an entirely different direction. That was what later on was completed into the game we know as Chrono Trigger.
Dorque & Imp is a cancelled platform that was in development by Norse (a swedish gaming studio) for the Super Nintendo. Akumu from the Lost Levels Forum translated a swedish preview in which we can read some more info on the project:
2 of the worlds are completed. When Power Player catches up with the team of programmers, they are already hard at work to finish up the demo that will be shown in England. Peter shows us how far they are come. He has 100 000 command lines which helps him to quickly change the enviroment on the screen. He is programming in assembler, and can in principal cut and paste artifacts and backgrounds from the pictures that Jim has created in a image software program.
We could assume that Norse did not find a publisher interested in Dorque & Imp, and after the studio released Legend of Myra (for PC), it seems that they had to close down. In May 2011, 3 playable beta levels from an incomplete version of Dorque & Imp were shared and preserved online. You can find them in here:
Thanks to Saga Darvulia for the contribution and to Peter Waher for sharing some playable levels from their lost project! If you are a collector, you can buy an official cart of Dorque & Imp to play on your SNES thanks to Piko Interactive.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience, by continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to the use of cookies. Find out more about cookies.Hide
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
