Tower of Goo Unlimited is the original prototype, made some years ago, of World of Goo, a famous indie game for Pc and Wiiware. Even if you can create only a tower in this concept, the basic gameplay and the graphic style are essentially the same as the released version. There is a level called “Tower of Goo” in the final game, but it is much more technically refined.
2dboy has a prototype section about the development of World of Goo.
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As we can read on Wikipedia STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, previously known as Stalker: Oblivion Lost, is a PC FPS by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, published in 2007. The game was first announced in November 2001 and had its release date, originally in 2003, pushed back several times. Due to the delays some considered Stalker to be vaporware.
While the game was really released in the end, the final version was somewhat different from the original Oblivion Lost prototype: in late December 2003, a pre-alpha build (vr 1096) of STALKER was already leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, and fans of the game were then able to compare it to the final build and find some of those differences.
Last week another Alpha (vr 1935) of STAKER was made available to download and this time, it came from its own developers: on the 25 February, GSC Game World released the STALKER “‘xrCore’ build 1935, Oct 18 2004″ on their official forum! You can find links and mirros for the download in that topic.
Gamers are now able to try this early version of the game and all the changes that were made on the final project can be found and preserved. Huge props to GSC! More studios should follow their example and share interesting informations from their gaming development. It’s sad when important pieces of gaming history like these are lost forever because no one cares to preserve them somehow.
As we can read on Rock Paper Shotgun: “S:OL was also a dramatically larger game than S:SOC. While plenty of locations are familiar, there’s a distinct lack of those cocking indestructible barbed wire fences that so hobbled free-form adventuring in S:SOC. To make this huge world navigable, build 1935 includes driveable vehicles”
Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!
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Do you remember Tiny Toon Adventures: Defenders of the Universe? It was an interesting 4 Players brawl / fighting game that was in development by Treasure, and even if the Tiny Toon brand could turn you away, dont be fooled: this game was going to be a “spiritual” successor to Rakugaki Showtime, one of the most fun (and rare) Treasure games! So, was TTA as much fun as the original Rakugaki? You can find out by yourself: thanks to linlhutz from the Lost Levels Forum, this game was finally leaked 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.
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Another interesting link from Robert Seddon: on Wikipedia we can read that “Ant Attack is a ZX Spectrum computer game by Sandy White. It was published in 1983 by Quicksilva, and converted to the Commodore 64 in 1984. The code for the ZX Spectrum version of Ant Attack contains graphics depicting a plane although these were not used in the final game.” We can see this unused plane in the screenshot below on the bottom-left!
A new RS Links chapter: Robert Seddon sent to us a link to an interview at IGN with a couple of Baldur’s Gate developers, in wich we can read some interesting informations about the creation of the game and its characters:
Imoen’s popularity was a surprise, mostly because she didn’t exist. What’s that mean? Her character was a late addition to fill a non-psychotic-thief gap in the early levels. We had no recording budget left, so I assembled her lines by editing voice-over left from a scrapped demo. The original character was a guard named Pique. That’s why she has no standalone confrontations / interactions with other party members, which makes her relationship to the player seem closer, and led to making her a half-sister in BG II.
I was hired by BioWare just before Christmas in 1996, but didn’t actually start until May of 1997 when I actually completed my Computer Science degree. Between those two dates, our original concept for a game called Battleground: Infinity had begun to transform into Baldur’s Gate.