Gotcha! (ガッチャ) is a cancelled Playstation game that was in development by a really obscure Japanese company named “Relief Ace” (リリーフエース), of which we cannot find much information online. Thanks to GDRI we know that Relief Ace published at least two games before vanishing forever, “Shin Fortune Quest: Shokutaku no Kishi-tachi” for Playstation and “Ojousama Express” for Sega Saturn, but none of them looks anything like Gotcha!.
We only know about this lost Playstation game thanks to a video that was uploaded a couple of years ago on Youtube, but later removed (or at least I cannot find it online anymore, so I re-uploaded my backup-copy). From this short promotional teaser it seems Gotcha! could have been some kind of 3D action game in which to find people hiding in the crowd to hit them with a toy hammer.. Or something like that? Yeah, we are not sure.
If you can help to unveil more details about this mysterious game or Relief Ace, please let us know!
Morphs: Flashback 2 is the cancelled sequel to the original game developed in 1992 by Delphine Software. As the first game Flashback 2 would have been a 2D sci-fi cinematic platformer and this new chapter was planned for the ill-fated Genesis / Mega Drive’s Sega Mega CD add-on. For some reasons Delphine were huge fans of the Sega Mega Drive, and as told by Paul Cussiet (Flashback’s creator) to Retro Gamer magazine (#118): “The best version for me is the Mega Drive version. The game was created for this platform“.
Flashback 2 was never officially announced by Delphine, but we were able to gather a few details about this lost sequel thanks to Thierry Levastre, a french developer who worked at Delphine as a 2D / 3D artist for many years. Thierry told us that the Flashback team did start working on Flashback 2 after the first one was released, but only an early draft of its story, game intro and a short animation of a mech were done before the project was cancelled.
Initially it seems Delphine decided to move away from sci-fi games and instead started working on a new medieval fantasy adventure titled “Dragon Blade” and a new racing game titled “Enduro Rider”, which later were picked up by BMG Interactive to be published for PC and Playstation in USA. After many years of development Dragon Blade evolved into Darkstone: Evil Reigns (finally published in 1999) and Enduro Rider probably became Moto Racer (finally published in 1997).
We can speculate Delphine had some internal development problems with Dragon Blade and Enduro Rider, as they soon resurrected their Flashback sequel to work again on this idea. They scrapped their classic 2D graphic and rotoscoped animations, to invest their efforts in creating a fully 3D world. In the end the project evolved into “Fade to Black”, the official 3D sequel to Flashback released in 1995 for PC and Playstation. As far as we know, the initial story planned for Flashback 2 was adapted and reused for Fade to Black.
The short Flashback 2 mech animation created by Thierry was running on the Dpoly Editor on Amiga and presumably unreadable, but many years later Gregory Montoir was able to create some kind of web-player which reads DPoly files and this animation can now be seen again in motion (even if a little bugged – choose “mecha”).
It’s interesting to notice that Delphine also worked on the cancelled third chapter of Flashback, titled “Flashback Legends”, in development for GBA in early ‘00s. Unfortunately Delphine had to close down in 2002 for bankruptcy.
“In November 2002, rumors began spreading that GTA3 for GBA had been cancelled. Destination Software denied the claims, responding, “The game has not been canned. We’ll be making an announcement at the end of the week”. Sure enough, shortly after, news leaked that Crawfish had GTA3 for GBA in development. What’s more, was that the report claimed it was already well into development with an expected 2003 release. Insanely, a week after this report, Crawfish shut down, laying off all of its staff and putting the development in limbo.
According to former Crawfish head, Cameron Sheppard, “Crawfish had many titles finishing and a number of publishers not paying on time. These issues joined meant that the company couldn’t continue quite long enough”. That was, until Rockstar handed it over to Digital Eclipse. Over the next year, Destination Software still claimed they were publishing it, both after Crawfish shut down and after production begun at Digital Eclipse. Whether their claims were truthful or not, when they ultimately lost the license is unclear. However, they were not the publisher by the time Digital Eclipse’s version hit store shelves.
It’s possible that Destination Software was involved with publishing while Crawfish was the developer, but it’s also possible that they’d lost the license by the time Crawfish landed the project. A former Crawfish developer confirmed that “There was one before ours that also got canned“. It’s unclear whether Digital Eclipse was involved with both the Crawfish one and this cancelled one, or if that previous title had been the end of the line for Destination Software. Either way, it would seem that there’s still at least one pre-Crawfish GTA3 prototype out there, somewhere.
In July 2003, several former Crawfish developers began to share details on their unreleased GTA3. This wealth of information described elements which showed up in Digital Eclipse’s GTA Advance, and aspects which did not, such as the controls and multiplayer.”
Thanks to Brian we also saved information about the planned story:
“Former Crawfish developer, Dave Murphy explained, “My version was set a few months before the events of GTA3.”. Digital Eclipse’s version also took place prior to the events of GTA3. As for the characters, Murphy explained, “[the game] featured a mix of old characters from the PS2/PC version and new ones based on my colleagues.”. He reiterated, “Many of the characters were based on other members of [Crawfish] staff”. It’s clear that these characters didn’t persist in the Digital Eclipse version.
Murphy continued, “The main character wasn’t the same as the PS2 but he looked kind of similar. He is taken on by the mafia at the beginning of the game, like the original, but stays working for them throughout, as he chases a mafia deserter and a case full of money from the Callahan bridge to the Cedar Ridge Observatory.”. Interestingly, the story is different from Digital Eclipse’s.”
A multiplayer mode for GTA 3 GBA was also planned:
“Multiplayer never made it through to the final version. Although it was planned during the Crawfish development, even Crawfish expected it to be cut. Crawfish’s Dave Murphy explained, “Yes multiplayer was planned but we probably wouldn’t have got it in there, with the time the project running over.”. As for Murphy’s design, he revealed the following: “We decided on four different modes:
+ Liberty City Survivor: Standard death match similar to GTA 1&2 on PC. + City Circuit: Racing on pre-set routes round the three islands + Car Jack Crazy: Players race to collect a list of vehicles and return them to their garage. + Special delivery: All players fight over a package which must be taken to their base.”
In December 2016PtoPOnline published a video showing an early tech demo / prototype of this cancelled Crawfish version of GTA 3 for GBA, with just a few features and most of the game missing.
Between 2000 and 2002 Intelligent Games developed a few games such as Tweenies: Game Time, LEGO Stunt Rally and 2002 FIFA World Cup for Playstation 2, GameCube and Xbox. Before to close down in December 2002 they were working on “BPM: Ministry of Sound” for PS2, a music-tool to be published under Ministry of Sound brand.
This music-making title was somehow eventually completed many years later by Mix Max as MTV Music Generator 3 and published by Codemasters.
Using the same 3D engine the team also worked for just a few days on an prototype for an action platformer inspired by Jak and Daxter. It was just a way to test their engine to see if it could have been used to create another kind of game other than a music-tool.
In this action-platformer prototype there was a bunny-alike character which could run around the small world and a few NPCs to look at. Not much more was ever done on the prototype and was soon put away before the closure of the company.
“The main hook of Crash Tag Team Racing is the “clashing” feature found during the racing sections of the game. The player can “clash” with another vehicle by pressing a certain button depending on the gaming platform. The player’s vehicle will merge with a nearby opponent’s vehicle, and the player will then take control of a powerful turret weapon to shoot at other vehicles.”
Crash Tag Team Racing DS would have been a fun multiplayer title for Nintendo’s dual-screen console, but unfortunately it seems Sierra though the game would have bombed because of the competition with Mario Kart DS. Other rumors say the real reason for its cancellation were internal issues between Sierra and Sensory Sweep, but we don’t have any official statement.
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