Developed by Reflection Interactive ( best known for its Driver series ), Steam is a cancelled 3D, third person adventure with a gothic flavour. Scheduled to appear in ’99 on PC the game never reached the stores shelves maybe because their parent company, GT Interactive, was acquired by Infogrames in that same year.
Scans from Next Generation issue 51.
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Popcorn is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by Eighth Wonder in 1997 / 1998 for the original Playstation. In the nineties Rare was one of the most prolific developer on Nintendo platforms. So it was quite a shock when in 1997 a small number of employees (game designer Oliver Davies; software engineers Oliver Norton, Steve Patrick, and Jeff Stafford; and two artists, Christopher Gage and Adrian Smith later replaced by Andrew Wood and Jemie Hemming) left the company to form a new studio called Eighth Wonder funded by no other than Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Nintendo main competitor at the time.
The deal had SCEE committed to publishing the new development house’s first three titles, with an option to pick up the next three. The first title in the work by this promising studio was an action/adventure game named Popcorn (also known as Short Fuses) that was similar to a 3D Bomberman clone but with puzzles and exploration elements.
Popcorn featured six world themes, each with three levels and after you beat the boss of each world you could progress to the next one and use the boss as a playable character (more than 10 playable characters including the hidden ones were planned such as a knight or a female ninja). The games was said to sport nice lighting effects, high resolution graphics (512×240) and a consistent framerate at 30 FPS.
At E3 1998 the game displayed under the Sunsoft booth so it is likely that Sunsoft would have been the american publisher. However as often happen with very publicized deals that involve many projects, Eighth Wonder are believed to have experienced a number of internal problems and, by 1999, the studio no longer existed relegating Popcorn into obscurity.
Thanks to Celine for the scan! (Console+ magazine issue 78 and Edge issue 60)
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Vanished Powers is a cancelled action adventure / RPG that was in development in 1995 / 1996 by Neon Software (creators of Tunnel B1) and it would have been published by Ocean for the original Playstation and PC. It was going to use an isometric 2D graphic style, with prerendered backgrounds and lots of FMVs, along with more than 70 (weird) characters, modeled with Silicon Graphics. In the end the Vanished Powers was never released, but we dont know the reasons behind this decision.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Scans from Cd Consoles #15 and Player One #62
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Theseis (AKA Thesis) is an action adventure that was in development by greek team Track7 Games, to be published by Ubisoft (?) for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The project was started in early 2005, but after a couple of years of active promotion, Theseis vanished without traces and we can assume that it will never be released. It’s possible that they did not find a publisher interested in their project.
In the original press release we can read more about the game’s unseen features:
-A gripping storyline that places you in a Greece full of marvel, danger and back-stage scheming, just beneath the surface of everyday life.
– Play with both Andronicos and Pheve as they race against men and monsters to uncover the secret of Theseis.
– Frantic action and intriguing puzzles. Challenge both speed and wit in every corner of this dark fantasy world.
– Colorful characters and localities, ranging from neo-classical buildings to the grim depths of Hades.
– Innovative customized new power graphic engine, built specially to portray the full glory of Theseis’ stunning environments.
– Dynamic original music score.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution!
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Saffire is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by Saffire (yes, the company used its same name to call their project) for the GameBoy Color. This version was going to be one chapter of the Saffire epic series, that was meant to be published for the Nintendo Dolphin (aka the GameCube) and the GameBoy Advance too. On IGN we can read part of the planned story:
The basic storyline of Saffire revolves around ancient Grecian myth. As the tale goes, in ancient times the god Zeus saw that the other gods were carelessly destroying the planet. To end this, he decided to seal off all of his enemies into the underworld, whereupon he himself swore never to return to the Earth. Centuries later, in modern times, a group of archeologists accidentally stumble upon the dangerous seals and open them, letting loose all the destructive gods of ancient past. Zeus watches from afar, but ironically, because he swore never to return, cannot do anything to stop the madness. Zeus enlists the help of teenage gods to put an end to the chaos engulfing the planet.
Saffire was one of the first development studios that started to create game concepts for the new Nintendo’s “128 bit” console, and they shown some famous tech demos as Saffire (Young Olympians) and Saffire Shooter. This GBC game was never finished for unknown reasons, but at least Dolphin’s Saffire evolved into Barbarian after some development issues. Saffire Corporation released their last title, Van Helsing, in 2004 (for the PS2, XBOX and GBA) and went out of business sometime afterwards.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution!
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