New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Lunatik (Pure Entertainment) [Playstation, Saturn – Cancelled]

Lunatik is a cancelled shoot ‘em up that was in development around 1997 by Pure Entertainment, planned to be published by Eidos for Playstation, Sega Saturn and PC. The team wanted to develop something similar to a 3D Defender, while showcasing their gorgeous (at the time) 3D engine, featuring dozens of enemies on screens, high number of polygons and detailed textures.

Unfortunately gameplay was not as fun as they hoped for: the project needed more time to be improved, but Eidos did not want to invest any more money into it. In the end Pure Entertainment reworked Lunatik as some kind of ATI Graphic Cards tech demo, and this version was released in limited quantities in ATI bundles. We can assume this ATI Edition was much different from what the team had originally conceived for Lunatik. As we can read on Sega-Saturn.net:

“But ultimately the project failed because the original concept (3D Defender) was next to impossible to do really well. We tried many different gameplay mechanisms to make it work, and none were working. Ultimately we ran out of time to make it work and Eidos cancelled the project. The game did get a limited release for the PC. It was bundled with graphics cards as a graphics showcase, but the game itself was poor.”

We were also be able to gather some early PR text shared when Eidos were promoting the game to gaming magazines and websites:

“Little known London-based Pure Entertainment is the developer behind the project. They are striving to update the genre with a true 3D engine, giving the player full freedom of movement within Lunatik’s 3D world. LUNATIK is a 3D Shoot ‘Em Up, drawing on the addictive gameplay aspects of classics such as Defender and Zaxxon for inspiration, and merging them with a uniquely dramatic look and feel, the combination of which has never been seen before.

Drawn with strong Manga cartoon influences, the 3D real-time graphics have paved the way for an unusual ‘above and behind’ perspective, which will be backed by some in-house techno tunes.

Lunatik will sport eighteen levels, a barrage of Armageddon-like weaponry (including a heat seeker), power ups galore, shields, cloaking devices to collect and bosses that appear at designated times throughout the game.

One interesting touch is the boss timer. Each of the 18 levels features a construction area, where the enemies are busy building a boss monster. If you fail to complete the mission before the timer ticks down, the boss monster is built, and immediately comes looking for you. Gameplay is very much a case of fire or be fired upon, and if you do succeed then the nastier and smarter the AI of the bad guys gets.

The game itself has 8 large levels, each one being a man made ‘moon’ orbiting the decaying relic that was once Earth. All out war is occurring between 7 of the Corporation Dominated Moons and one other, Nu Earth 3, an indomitable civilization holding out against everything the Corporate armies can throw at them. Your mission? Quite simply, wipe the floor with the enemy.”

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Footage from the released ATI Tech Demo (Thanks to Liqmatrix!):

Legion (Torus Games) [PSP – Cancelled]

Legion is a cancelled action adventure that was pitched by Torus Games for PSP around 2004. The team created this tech demo to show their ideas to potential publishers, but it seems they never found one interested in funding the project. The game was never officially announced and canned early in its development, so there are no details about how it would have been played. By looking at the only screenshots preserved, we may assume it would have been some kind of horror – Gothic adventure: for sure it looked great for a PSP game!

In the end the only released games by Torus on PSP were Monster Jam: Urban Assault and Shrek Smash n’ Crash Racing. Their other PSP projects such as Full Metal Alchemist and Parkour were never completed.

Thanks to Josuke for the contribution!

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Legend of the Five Rings: Ronin [PC – Cancelled]

Legend of the Five Rings: Ronin is a cancelled RPG that was in development in 1997 – 1998 by Engineering Animation Inc (EAI), based on the homonymous collectible card game (at the time owned by Wizards of the Coast) and planned to be published by Activision for PC. Gameplay would have been similar to Diablo (released in 1997), with dungeons to explore, many enemies to kill, loot to collect and a world inspired by the fictional empire of Rokugan.

It seems the game was playable at E3 1998, but we were not able to find any footage yet. Unfortunately there are no details about what happened to the project, it just vanished and then forgotten by everyone. We can speculate gameplay was not food enough to rival Diablo and Activision just decided to kill the project.

If you can find more screenshots or videos from this lost game, please let us know!

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Denshi Maid Techou: Koi no Iroha [Nintendo DS – Cancelled]

Denshi Maid Techou: Koi no Iroha (Electronic Maid Notebook: Iroha’s Love) is a cancelled day organizer – life simulation game that was in development by SNK Playmore around 2006, planned to be published on Nintendo DS. The project was officially announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2006, with many other titles that SNK were publishing for DS (such as Doki Doki Majo, Metal Slug 7 and SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash).

In Denshi Maid Techou players would raise a digital version of Iroha from the Samurai Showdown series, somehow like a Tamagotchi. By doing this she would start learning more about the world and help you in your daily-schedule, similar to an organizer App. Nice idea to gamify boring “do my homework, do my laundry, do my shopping” checklist, isn’t it? Some details about this strange software can still be found online in Japanese forums:

“In addition to the daily schedule function, elements of training, communication, and changing clothes are also included. There are about 100 costumes for Iroha. Mr. Takkun (Denshi Maid Techou character designer) commented: “Please put it on your desk at home or at work and enjoy one maid in the family”.

The traditional Japanese girl Iroha who looks out of a fairy tale suddenly appears in front of the protagonist: serving players at home, school and outside with the gentleness of a traditional Japanese geisha. But because Iroha doesn’t know the real world, players must also take some time educating her.

The game provides 5 kinds of “educational activities” every day, plus mini games to play against Iroha. Dialogues with Iroha and her personality depend on how players educate her. By playing every day you can also unlock new costumes for Iroha, with more than 100 types in total.”

A similar simulation game featuring Iroha was later released for smartphones, but it sees they removed the life organizer features. As we can read on the SNK Wiki, “a character named Tsunami was originally created for this game. However, she later appeared in Days of Memories series and Koi no Iroha games for mobile phones”.

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Fury of the Furries 3D [PS2 – Cancelled]

Fury of the Furries 3D is a cancelled platform adventure that was in development for Playstation 2 by Kalisto Entertainment around 2002. It was meant to be a sequel to the original title Kalisto released for PC and Amiga in 1993, but now in 3D and fully embracing its funny settings by making its protagonists parodies of popular video game characters. For example one of the Furries would be a pissing caricature of Link from The Legend of Zelda, or an obese Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.

Each Furry would have had its own ability, for example in the original game one was able to swim and another to dig underground. You could imagine it as a level based Metroidvania, with swappable characters. Fury of the Furries 3D would have offered similar gameplay mechanics, letting players explore levels in 3D for even more comical situations and parodies of other video games.

The Kalisto team was able to develop a playable prototype of their new Fury of the Furries, but unfortunately the studio was liquidated in April 2002 for bankruptcy and all of their projects were canned and lost forever (such as this, VIP, Shide, Silent Chaos, Nightmare Creatures 3 and Highlander: The Gathering).

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