tech demo

Symbiosis (elseWhere Entertainment) [PC/XBOX/PS2 – Tech Demo/Cancelled]

Symbiosis (formerly known as Project Alpha and The Incident) is a canceled futuristic stealth action/adventure game developed by elseWhere Entertainment in 2002 for PC, alongside potential Xbox and Playstation 2 versions.

Information about this project is pretty scarce. The game was designed by former developers of Appeal Studios, known for developing the 1999 PC game Outcast. The title was first mentioned in 2002 by Gamekult:

“(…) elseWhere Entertainment, a two-year-old company is currently working on Project Alpha, a working title which, admittedly -even from its founder, will be the conceptual continuation of the first Outcast.”

It was then Jeuxvideo.com which, in 2003, revealed the first images of the game alongside new information:

“elseWhere Entertainment is currently developing Symbiosis, an adventure/action game planned for PC and consoles. If the developers maintain still some mystery concerning the scenario of the game, we know that the action will take place in a futuristic universe with a crucial part of interactions between the characters. The team wishes to go beyond their previous project, Outcast, in terms of A.I. and storytelling, leveraging their NeoReality technology.”

After that, elseWhere Entertainment decided to cancel Symbiosis in order to focus on Totems instead, also canceled a few years later. Michaël Defroyennes shared in 2013, on his personal blog, some additional information on the concept of the game:

“Some concepts I did for a game prototype called Symbiosis, started in September 2002 : The game concept was about action/stealth combats in a space station on an unfriendly planet, unfortunately it was stopped to focus on other prototypes.”

Oddly enough, Gamestar also shared information regarding the concept of Symbiosis, slightly different than what was revealed until now. According to them, Symbiosis was going to be:

“(…) A squad based tactic shooter with a 4 player coop mode set in an futuristic environment. Before it was announced as Symbiosis it had the code names Project Alpha and The Incident.”

After the cancellation of Symbiosis, elseWhere Entertainment was acquired by 10Tacle Studios and released their only game in 2006, a sport title named David Douillet Judo, before shutting down in 2008.

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Desert Diner (Tarsier Studios) [PC – Tech Demo, Cancelled]

Desert Diner is a canceled First-Person Shooter tech demo developed by Tarsier Studios in 2006, exclusively for PC. As we can read on Gamespy, the demo took place in an abandoned diner located in the Mexican desert where you could interact with the environments, thanks to the PhysX processor of AGEIA:

An action-packed sampler level designed to show off the hardware-accelerated PhysX engine, Desert Diner is a First Person Shooter located in a deserted Mexican truck-stop. This one-level tech-demo includes a massive number of unique rigid bodies, advanced cloth simulation and jointed systems that enables the spectacular destruction of the Mexican truck-stop town.

By looking the few screenshots currently available, it looks like the demo was somewhat similar to the game CellFactor: Revolution, another project whose main feature was the interaction with the environment, again, provided by the AGEIA processor PhysX. The weapon and the HUD visible on the pictures are, in any case, the same as in this title.

Unfortunately, that demo totally disappeared after its announcement, back in December 2006. Therefore, we do not know why this was never materialized. CellFactor: Revolution, to which Desert Diner could have been considered as a mod, was released on May 8, 2007 and was met with mixed reviews from the press. Tarsier Studios is still around to this day, and well known for their Little Nightmares games.

If you know someone who worked on Desert Diner and could help us preserve more screenshots, footage or details, please let us know!

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Labyrinth / Legend [Playstation – Tech Demo]

In the first months of 1994, before launching its first console, Sony created a few tech demos in order to show to the public the hardware capabilities of the new Playstation: F-1, T-Rex, Fighting Demo  and so on. In june 1994, Edge published an article about a video with some PSX tech demos that recently aired on japanese Tv Asahi’s program Tonight. One of them, a yet unnamed  platform game, eventually became Jumping Flash, but the most interesting of them was “Legend“, a first person dungeon crawler (no relation with King’s Field) that remained just a tech demo / concept:

legend labyrinth 1994 psx
In this tech demo video the player moved around the dungeon‘s fully textured, highly detailed corridors and encounter a massive dragon. Another screenshot of Legend (now called “Labyrinth“), appeared in august 1994 on Edge 11:

labyrinth tech demo psx

We don’t know which team developed the Labyrinth / Legend concept for Sony or if the latter was ever planned to become a full game. If you have more info about this tech demo, please let us know in the comments below!

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Nichimen Graphics Beat ’em Up [N64 PSX SAT – Tech Demo]

At E3 1996, Nichimen Graphics shown a tech demo with a beat ’em up for the Nintendo 64, Saturn and Playstation. As we can read in an old press release, their N-World 3 engine included N-Geometry (polygonal modeler), N-Dynamics (scripting), Skeletal Animation System (motion capture editing tools and animation tools, plus skeletal posing using both IK and traditional methods), N-Render (photorealistic ray tracing renderer), N-Paint & N-Paint 3D (2D and 3D paint systems) and Game Express (for artists to preview data directly on a 3D game platform). Currently we dont know if this engine was ever used for a realeased beat ’em up / fighting game.

In one of the photos published in Edge magazine from June 1996 you can notice that over the TV with the N64 tech demo, there was also a Ultra 64 prototype pad.

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