platform

The Mask [SNES – Beta]

The Mask is a platform game (based on the film with the same name) developed by Black Pearl Software and published in 1995 by THQ for the Super Nintendo. Early in its development, the game was much different from the final version, as noticed by Mister Syd on the Lost Levels Forum:

Health meter is a series of facial expressions, while the health meter is numerical in actual game.

The Mask’s sprite is completely different in shape, color and design, almost as if this build was completely dismissed and recreated from the ground up.

Visually, I find this the most interesting because it looked like it was going to play more like a brawler than the platformer it turned out to be.

All of the screenshots’ backgrounds are not used anywhere in the final version of the game.

Unused abilities; The Mask has no low-kick, or a (strange-looking) gun that fires projectiles in the game and the mallet is a different color (and pose) but the tornado’s design might of been used in the game.

Some of the enemies in the screen shots I think are actually still in the game, but could be edited a bit in the release; the man with the gun by the bank vault is likely not in the final release though.

The Mask was also planned for the Genesis / Mega Drive, but this version was never released.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! (scan from EGM #61)

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Gremlins 2: The New Batch [GameBoy – Beta]

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a Game Boy side scrolling platform game based on the film with the same name and released in 1990 by Sunsoft. TheActionGameMaster noticed a small beta difference in an old screenshot, found in a magazine. You can see that the life counter is at 5 lives. This is not possible in the final version, because there are only two chances at extra men in the game, and Gizmo begins each continue with 2 men.

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Pterosaur – Dawn of Destruction [GC/XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

Pterosaur: Dawn of Destruction is a cancelled platform / action game that was in development at Atomic Planet in 2002, for the GameCube, Playstation 2 and Xbox. In the game the player would had used a Pterosaur (a flying reptile) to lead your fellow dinosaurs to safety, or see them condemned to extinction, while the world was coming to an end.

To do that, you had to learn to recognise the most vulnerable dinosaurs and how they behave, to be able to save them. While bigger dino-predators were searching for the weaker dinos to eat, they could have been lured away or defeated in an open battle.  The scenario could have been explored to find hidden paths, with the help of friendly dinosaurs that cleared the way.

The Pterosaur project was never released for unknow reasons, but we can speculate that the gameplay was not that much fun and Atomic Planet was not able to find any publisher interested in the game. On the 25th of February 2009 Atomic Planet went into administration after a number of redundancies and the offices were closed: maybe a playable demo of Pterosaur: Dawn of Destruction could be leaked sooner or later.

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Angel [Saturn – Cancelled]

Angel is a cancelled platform / action game that was in development by Scavenger for the Sega Saturn. Sadly there are just few info and a couple of screenshots about this lost project, found by Rod_Wod in an old magazine. It seems that players would have took the role of an angelic girl (?), to explore a gothic tower and other demonic areas to stop the devil from ruling the world… or something like that. A demo was shown at E3 1996, but we dont know if it was a playable one or just a video. In late 1996 / early 1997, Scavenger had to close down for economic problems and all the games that were in development in their studio were canned.

If you know someone that worked on this game and could help us to preserve more screenshots, please let us know!

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Clockwork Knight [Saturn – Beta]

Clockwork Knight is a side-scrolling platform / action game that was developed and published by Sega in 1994 for the Saturn. The game was shown in some magazines and VHS videos before the release of the console, and in this early beta version Clockwork Knight had some big differences, as noticed by Ritz in the Sonic Retro Forum:

Clockwork Knight looks completely different here; 92% of the levels’ foreground content was stripped from the game, the animations and movement physics are noticeably unrefined, Pepper has a different attack animation, the Toy Can has a fucking whacky damage routine (also with an unused animation), and the Lubancy character that wound up totally absent from the actual games is a functional enemy. And it’s all set to an original rendition of the game’s theme!

Thanks to Rod_Wod for the scan!

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