Cyberdreams

Reverence (TSI) [PC – Cancelled]

Reverence is a cancelled FPS that was in development around 1996 by TSI (Three Space Imagery), planned to be published on PC by Cyberdreams. The game looked like a mix between Duke Nukem, Hexen and Exhumed (PowerSlave), with a strange blend of tibetan – gothic – egyptian – norse mythology settings. Luckily a playable alpha of the game was preserved in 2015:

“You have been chosen by the gods themselves to determine the future of the human race. According to them, humans are weak and pathetic and don’t deserve to exist anymore. You need to pick up a bunch of guns and energize yourself with a wide array of spells and defeat them one by one.

The leaked alpha version can be considered almost a full game. It appears to have all levels with most of the graphics, music and sounds. The game is divided into four big realms, each with its own theme. Realm of Osiris, an Egyptian god of underworld full of lava lakes and fire demons; Kokyangwuti, Hopi goddess of life, desert-like world; Frejya, Norse goddess of love whose realm lies under the vast waters and last but not least, Manjursi, Tibetan god of wisdom, who has a vast dominion in mountains.”

TSI was founded by Alberto Menache in the early ’90s, creating innovative motion capture software for games and computer graphics. Their collaboration with Cyberdreams covered at least two games, one of which was the released Noir: a Shadowy Thriller, but then the publisher had to cancel most of their projects. As we can read on Mobygames:

“In 1995 an “internal shake-up” had taken place at Cyberdreams: the investors removed management and installed a “turnaround management team,” that would make a transition to 3rd party publishing. It wouldn’t help. Cyberdreams only managed to publish one more title, Noir: A Shadowy Thriller (1996). In the meantime a lot of projects (almost all action games) were announced / taken into development: Species, Reverence, The Incredible Shrinking Character, Blue Heat, Ares Rising, and Wes Craven’s Principles of Fear. Sometimes they had been in production for years.”

Reverence was canned and TSI moved to other projects such as TV commercials.

Thanks to RareAlone for the contribution!

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The Incredible Shrinking Character [Cancelled – PSX SAT PC]

The Incredible Shrinking Character is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by Go-Go Interactive Studios and that would have been published by Cyberdreams for the Playstation, Saturn and PC in 1996. The plot involved a crazy doctor that shrinked the main character with an experimental potion. Players would had to explore the (now) huge laboratory resolving puzzles, to find a way to return to normal. As we can read at Bill Narum’website, former owner of Go Go Studios:

The year is 1959. You are a Private Investigator hired to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Julie Caldwell, daughter of a wealthy east-coast industrialist family. The subject, in her early twenties, was last reported heading to visit the home and laboratory of Dr. Warren Franklin. […]

On the afternoon of January 30th, you head off to the doctor’s castle for the interview of a lifetime. Unknown to you, Dr. Franklin has laid a trap, and you awaken in a stupor to find yourself only 3 feet tall and gradually shrinking. You realize now that finding Julie will be no simple task. […]

Another reoccurring sound you can’t help but notice is that of a female screaming, most likely the victimized Julie. The volume and intensity increases as you approach the dungeon. You must find the antidote and save Julie soon, but first you must evade becoming dinner for the doctor’s house cat, and numerous other deadly creatures, bats, rats, roaches and ants, etc. that inhabit the mysterious castle.

They planned at least 10 levels in the game, in which the main character would have shrinked more and more each hour, leaving us to deal with big ants and size-based puzzles. A short preview of The Incredible Shrinking Character with some screens were published in NextGeneration magazine issue 14 and some more info on the project can be found at Bill Narum’website. You can even download a playable beta demo for PC! Huge props to Bill for preserving some documents of this lost game!

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Thanks to Ari for a backup of the demo!

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