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The Wonderful 101 is an action game for the Wii U, developed by Platinum Games in partnership with Nintendo and was directed by famed Japanese designer, Hideki Kamiya, of Okami and Devil May Cry notoriety. It was released in 2013 and has since developed a small cult following among Wii U owners.

The game follows the adventures of The Wonderful 100, a team of superheroes, as they fight to defend Earth from an alien menace known as the ‘GEATHJERK Federation‘. Despite being released almost a full year into the Wii U’s lifespan, the project had in fact been in the works for a few years prior. As revealed by the staff who worked on it over the course of its development, its direction underwent some considerable shifts along the way.

Video Game All Stars, Unite Up!

As disclosed by Hideki Kamiya at Gamescom 2013, The Wonderful 101 began life as an entirely different entity. Kamiya’s involvement with the project started a few years earlier, when the President and CEO of Platinum Games, Tatsuya Minami, tasked him with creating an action game with a cast of some of gaming’s biggest icons. It was set to feature Nintendo characters primarily, as well as guest stars from third party companies.

The project in this form dates all the way back to 2011 and was planned to be developed not on Wii U, but on the Wii.

“At that time it wasn’t necessarily based on any specific platform. But when we took it to Nintendo, the discussions went from there, and we decided to put it on Wii.” – Hideki Kamiya, on the first iteration of The Wonderful 101 project.

Although it has been never stated which characters from companies outside of Nintendo were planned, Kamiya did elaborate on the main cast of this original vision at 2013’s Penny Arcade Expo. During an interview with Siliconera, he mentioned that Link and Mario were among those featured. This suggests that the two might have been the basis for the ‘Unite Hand’ and ‘Unite Sword’ moves, based upon the traits of either character.

“Initially, the idea was proposed by Mr. Minami, to create a game featuring Nintendo characters or other popular characters together in one game. With the idea of putting characters like Mario and Link into the same game, you end up with a situation where fans of Mario are forced to play as Link.“

Moreover, during Platinum’s panel at the event, Kamiya described one piece of concept art for the project, involving other Mario characters. He gave the example of a portion where Peach, Luigi and Yoshi attempt to grab hold of one another to form a bridge, with Mario hopping across the top of them, allowing him to traverse a large bottomless pit. One artist, Kibbles, has put together a sketch for us to illustrate what this roughly might have looked like.

It appears that this idea might well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. The director went on to to say that the people at Nintendo viewing this concept in particular was the point at which they decided the project could not be realised.

Unite Master Sword?

In October 2013, Nintendo released an Iwata Asks interview on The Wonderful 101, discussing the game with some of the team’s key members and the director described how Platinum’s Nintendo all star concept informed the direction of the overall project. He explained that The Wonderful 101’s ‘Unite Morph‘ ability was born out of a desire to balance out the amount of screen time each of the characters would have, in order to please the fans of each respective series. Just as they did in the final product, the characters would have joined together to form large structures, such as a sword or a hand.

Two examples of ‘Unite Morph’ from the final game.

Kamiya’s inspiration for this ‘Unite Morph’ mechanic came from two books he had read as a child. One of these was a story called ‘We Turned Into Monsters‘ (Kaibutsu Ni Nacchata) by Japanese author, Yasuko Kimura. The short novel was about a group of forest critters, who huddle together to form the shape of a giant monster, in order to fend off an actual monster, inhabiting a mansion.

On the other hand, he also recalled ‘Swimmy‘ by Leo Lionni. Similarly, this children’s tale focuses on a black fish called Swimmy, whose friends, a group of little red fish, are eaten by a large tuna. Swimmy, lonely, explores the ocean until he finds another group of small red fish. He teaches them to swim together, mimicking the appearance of a bigger fish, and eventually scaring away the malevolent tuna.

Swimmy – one of Kamiya’s inspirations for the game.

“As a kid, the idea that small, separate things could join together and become strong was really exciting for me. I feel like that’s where the core of this whole project came from.” – Hideki Kamiya.

Platinum’s vision for this video game all star title was never put into full development and not even a test prototype for it was produced, JP Kellams told us. According to him, conceptual documents were all that was ever created. When the developer presented their plan to Nintendo, Hitoshi Yamagami almost immediately declined the proposal, describing it as “impossible”, under the belief such a game would be overambitious; among other reasons.

“Setting the contents of the game aside, I’ve learned from experience that trying to squeeze in so many characters into one game to the point where they practically change shape, was impossible.” – Hitoshi Yamagami on Platinum’s Nintendo all star pitch.

As a result of not being able to get permission to use Nintendo’s characters, the project was shelved.

“As far as PlatinumGames was concerned, the project was all about the characters, so we stopped the whole project for a while, because we knew it would be difficult if we couldn’t get permission there” – Atsushi Inaba

Given Nintendo and Platinum’s continued reluctance to show any of the concept images for the game at this stage, even in their Iwata Asks segment; it is possible that the aforementioned third party guests were a part of the main team of characters and that there were pictures of them created strictly for internal purposes, without the permission of the license holders. When asked if he thought these images would ever be released publicly, JP Kellams replied simply with “nope“.

We also got in touch with Kamiya via his Twitter, where he revealed that the main character of this planned game would not have been Mario or another established all star, as you might expect. In actuality, the designer had in mind a brand new character created by Platinum. Upon being asked whether or not this enigmatic hero evolved into Wonder Red, the central protagonist of The Wonderful 101, he clarified that this was not the case and that the character was “lost forever“.

One user pushed him for more details on the concept’s character line-up, to which he had this to say:

Everyone. RT @RosaUrquhart Which Nintendo characters did you want in your pitched All Star game before TW101?

— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@PG_kamiya) October 18, 2014

The Wonderful… 5? A Darker Superhero Concept

Several months later, Hideki Kamiya had just finished development on another ultimately cancelled concept and Platinum was keen to set him on a new project. After much insistence towards producer, Atsushi Inaba, that he wanted to resurrect the shelved all star game in some form, he was given the green light to work on it once again. Despite Nintendo taking issue with the first proposal, Kamiya was still determined to work on a title using that central conceit of separate, smaller beings unifying themselves to become something stronger.

The director devised the idea of using original superhero characters of Platinum’s own design and drew plans to present a second pitch to Nintendo. He made a special request to employ the help of Mai Ohkura, Bayonetta’s UI designer, to draft concept art for the protagonists of his new game; having been satisfied with their previous work together.

In the beginning, Kamiya’s vision for the superhero title involved a team of only five characters and was reasonably darker in comparison with the finished project from a visual standpoint. Ms. Ohkura and Kamiya were heavily influenced by “US comic book art” when imagining the initial look of the game, according to him at his PAX 2013 presentation.

The first character designs put together were for the game’s main hero, Wonder Red, and were considerably different from his final appearance. One, included a large blade placed on his back and a white helmet with a green visor. Another, featured a machine gun under his right arm and noticeably less hair.

Wonder Red’s weapons were removed soon after and the character’s hair was changed too. According to Kamiya, during his aforementioned panel at PAX, he personally suggested that Red “needed to have more hair” to Ohkura. The artist defended her decision, but Kamiya’s insistence won out and the hero was redesigned with a bigger head of hair. The mock-up which followed was much closer to the final product, though still embodying the darker tone of the project at this early phase.

Wonder Red’s beta look – much closer to his final design.

Concept art of the initially envisioned ‘Wonderful Five’ group is sparsely available, but they can be glimpsed upon in one render, which shows the team gazing out over a dark urban landscape, under siege by the invading alien forces in the distance. Upon closer inspection, they appear to be equipped with different weapons from the finalised Wonderful 100 crew and one of them even appears to be levitating, suspended above the ground.

A silhouetted peek at the original team.

The Wonderful 100 Begins! Cut characters & more…

Not long after conceiving of his new squad of heroes, Kamiya increased their numbers drastically, making a change that would impact the direction of development fundamentally. Up from the mere five of before, he imagined a team of one hundred defenders of justice, known as ‘The Wonderful 100’.

In the early conceptual stages of The Wonderful 100, Platinum considered each member of the squad having his or her own completely unique character design and gameplay ideas; many of which, ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor. Furthermore, around this time, the superhero titles of each were stylised as ‘Wonda-ONES’, as opposed to ‘Wonder Ones’, as they would later be referred to.

Kamiya’s early comic book inspirations are evidenced in a number of these concepts. Some of them possessed special abilities, such as ‘Wonda-FIRE’, who, clad in a fire fighter’s helmet, could conjure flames from his hands. ‘Wonda-RIDER’ was a motorcyclist, similar to Marvel’s Ghost Rider and ‘Wonda-STONE’ looked to be a large, muscle-bound warrior, whose body was composed of rock; similar to The Thing from The Fantastic Four.

Many of them border onto more zany territory. There was a centaur hero named ‘Wonda-CENTAURUS’, ‘Wonda-WING’, a pterodactyl-like creature; and even ‘Wonda-SATAN’. ‘Wonda-TIMER’ was a floating hourglass with disembodied, Rayman-esque hands and ‘Wonda-P’ was simply the ‘P’ from Platinum Games’ logo, donning a Wonder Mask.

It appears they also experimented with the possibility of duo characters, such as ‘Wonda-DOG & CAT’, two anthropomorphic animal fighters. Others include ‘Wonda TAMER & TIGER’, as well as ‘Wonda-MAGICIAN & RABBIT’.

During his PAX panel, Kamiya mentioned that out of the long list of rejected designs, ‘Wonda-GIANT’ was his personal favourite. This enormous character can be glimpsed at in the below collage of the concept art renders released, which shows that it would have been so large, that its boots alone were the size of a regular Wonder One.

Between the beta character designs recovered, we can get a look at some of the very earliest drafts of the main characters, as well. In the final game, the core cast of Wonder One heroes number a total of seven, but in these early iterations, it was as high as twelve. Not only were five of them removed, Platinum’s artists completely reworked the majority of the retained characters. Among them, Wonder Red is the only one whose appearance didn’t undergo another big transformation and was more or less untouched from this point onwards.

As you can see, the initial drawings of Wonder Blue, Green, Pink, Yellow, White and Black were vastly different from their finished versions. Blue was later given a longer hair style, a trench coat and, of course, his trademark ‘valiantium sword’. The original Wonder Green was replaced with another character model from pre-production named ‘Wonda-FRENCH’. Although, neither of the two designs included the final Wonder Green’s beloved gun, who he affectionately dubs “Christine Daae”. Likewise, Wonder Black’s earlier sketches portrayed him as a pale-skinned white male with dark hair. This was eventually switched out with another character concept called ‘Wonda-DIGITAL'; a small Indian boy, regularly seen holding a handheld gaming device.

 Wonder Pink’s first appearance was completely dissimilar from her look in the released build, too. At this stage, she was represented as a short-haired brunette woman, with a little more tomboyishness about her, by comparison. We can observe some slight changes to White’s model, who was given robes, large claws on his hands and a golden Japanese character on his forehead, which translates to “hundred”. Wonder Yellow, on the other hand, wasn’t altered an awful lot. The team maintained his bulky appearance, only building around it with his timid personality, Russian background and the addition of his hammer weapon.

The cut members of the main Wonderful 100 heroes appear to be very much emblematic of the edgier tone of the project at this phase. Three of them: Brown, Gold and Green all are shown smoking cigarettes; a feature that none of the characters would flaunt in the final game. It is known that the script, from its early prototype beginnings, went through a plethora of revisions, as specified in the Iwata Asks interview. It’s likely that these scrapped heroes were simply dropped as the story became more focussed, and to make room for the other characters to be introduced.

One of the earliest drafts of the complete team of 100.

Beta / Prototype 001

As Platinum prepared to present their new superhero title to Nintendo, they put together two playable prototype builds. According to Atsushi Inaba, the ideas for the core gameplay of the all star pitch remained fully intact during its revival. Work on the prototypes began initially without Nintendo’s knowledge, and it wasn’t until Inaba was later invited to view it that the publisher’s involvement restarted.

The first beta / prototype was shown to a modest audience at Penny Arcade Expo 2013, during Platinum’s postmortem panel on the Wonderful 101. Filming of the show was reportedly prohibited by Nintendo, but we have been fortunate enough to receive this exclusive footage of it, as captured by the folks over at 1upisland.

Perhaps the most immediately striking aspect of the video is how dark the colour palette used in the environments and enemies is, in comparison with the game we know today. The game had a graphic style that somehow reminds of one of Kamiya’s classic, Viewtiful Joe. The different animations and overall slower pace of the gameplay are noticeable, too.

As described by Kamiya himself, the in-game models in this build for the heroes were very similar to one another, but used a variety of colours for uniforms. The large number of characters on screen each have one of three attacks: punching, firing a gun, or swiping a blade. The player could command the crowd to simultaneously barrage enemies with their individual moves. This would eventually evolve into into the ‘team attack‘, in which the heroes charge forward and cling on to them, attacking repeatedly.

In a quite considerable contrast with the final game, the amount of characters the player can recruit into their party can exceed one hundred in this prototype. In The Wonderful 101, of course, you are able to recruit civilians by fitting them with Wonder Masks. However, there is a maximum capacity of 100 heroes total during standard gameplay. The limit of Wonder Ones present in this version, on the other hand, appears to be indefinite. During this video, the number of team members grows as high as 112, as indicated by the digit in the top-left corner of the HUD.

The Wonderful 112?

At this point in development, Platinum had begun to implement their proposed ‘unite morph’ attacks. Although at this point, only unite hand, gun and sword were playable. The appearance of the morphs is reasonably different from how they would ultimately turn out here. The hand shape is noticeably longer, the transformation animation is slower and the colours are not nearly as bright as they are in The Wonderful 101 either. 3D movement during a unite morph looks to have been noticeably stiffer, as well.

If you look closely at the crowd following Red, you will see that the the previously mentioned ‘Wonda-FRENCH‘ design for Green with purple hair was included, as well as the early version of Wonder Pink. In addition, the Wonderful 100’s robotic assistant, P-Star, had still yet to be created and is therefore absent from this demo.

Towards the top-right corner of the screen, you will see a radar, which tracks the units on-screen. This aspect was something experimented with throughout development and ultimately dropped. A similar feature is available on the Wii U gamepad in The Wonderful 101, although it doesn’t display enemy signals like this one.

According to Kamiya, the enemies seen in this beta demonstration were not ever planned to be part of the final game. You can see the player taking on several mysterious reptilian creatures at various points of the clip. In actuality, these were nothing more than placeholder models taken from Platinum’s archives, which are used for prototype development only.

Platinum, at this preliminary stage of The Wonderful 100’s lifecycle, had not yet conceived of the idea of drawing around civilians to recruit them, as you do in the released game. Instead, players were forced to approach each character separately and push a button on the controller. Kamiya described this early factor of the gameplay as “not fun“, during his explanation for why it was altered.

Around the same time that work on the prototypes began, the director himself began putting together posters for The Wonderful 100 to, in his own words, “cheer on” the developers. One piece, which was created in close collaboration with Platinum’s artists, was posted on the company’s Twitter shortly after the game was released. This movie-style poster was reportedly part of the developer’s proposal to Nintendo, as a means of conveying its style and concept.

Beta / Prototype 002

The second beta / prototype, also shown at PAX, was created shortly after the first and displays how the project quickly began to evolve and become fleshed out into the game we have today. Special thanks to 1-upisland for the footage, and to Streets for translating the Japanese dialogue.

Crucially, this version of the game, as well as the other prototype, were not running on the Wii U. They were being developed with unspecified HD Nintendo hardware in mind, but were in fact running on PC. The prototypes had entered development towards the very end of the Wii’s lifespan, but the Wii U (then codenamed Project Café) had still yet to be announced, and Platinum was not yet aware of its nature. The team had no knowledge of the planned gamepad controller, and instead created the demos around a more conventional controller; the Xbox 360’s. You will see that towards the start of the footage, the game prompts the player to press “RB” on the controller. Later, the ‘A’ button from the 360’s controller appears to dismiss an on-screen notification, as well.

This prototype marks the introduction of some of the game’s side characters. The first versions of Alice MacGregor and P-Star, two allies of The Wonderful 100 in the final game, are visible in the video when Platinum demonstrates how the beta’s conversation system worked. It appears similar to how it works in The Wonderful 101, although rarely do these exchanges take place during active gameplay, as they do here.  There are some slight differences between the appearances of these characters, such as Alice’s uniforms, larger forehead in the prototype and the design of her communications headset; as well as the fact she wears it on her left here, instead of her right.

Concept art for these designs are unlockable in The Wonderful 101 in the ‘Art Gallery’ menu, allowing us a clearer look at these renders. There is also an early, alternative look for Commander Nelson in the same art style from around the same period of the game’s development.

The stage played through during the demonstration appears to be an early iteration on ‘Operation 001-A’ from the final game, taking place in the urban setting of Blossom City. Gameplay at this point looks to have been steadily nearing the released version, but is still noticeably more sluggish. Wonder Red’s running speed and the pace of his attacks both are visibly slower.

Kamiya explains towards the start of the clip that they still had yet to come up with the idea of “drawing the Unite Morphs”, as you do in The Wonderful 101. Instead, these moves were apparently chosen by “selecting an icon” using a button on the controller. The concept of drawing them wasn’t conceived of until months later, when he was introduced to Wii U’s gamepad and its touch screen.

“In this version, you can kinda pick the punch, the sword or the gun based on an icon and use it, but it wasn’t any fun, so we ditched that and went with the drawing mechanic”

A first look at the ‘Unite Sword’ attack is shown in the clip. In an interesting contrast, it was originally a move initiated by Wonder Red, as opposed to Wonder Blue, as it is in the final game. It appears as though, regardless of the characters in your party, all of the morphs would have emanated from and been controlled by Red instead. This suggests that the idea of each of the core Wonder One heroes having their own unique morph (e.g. Black’s bomb or Pink’s whip) wasn’t realised until later on.

The director also mentions that ‘Unite Gun’ was a part of the beta, despite it not being shown here. ‘Unite guts’ and ‘Unite Spring’, the evasive maneuvers in The Wonderful 101 were not yet added, however.

Wonder Red’s Unite Sword.

By listening carefully, you will be able to hear an alternative version of the song “ST01 Roll Out, Wonderful 100! Battle in the Blossom City Burbs” from the game’s musical score. This track was omitted from the final soundtrack, according to Kamiya. Based upon comments made in his blog post about his work on the game, it looks as though this was created by The Wonderful 101’s lead composer, Hiroshi Yamaguchi.

“I worked on The Wonderful 101 for around two years of its development. When I first joined the team I was the only one in the BGM section. While experimenting with various directions to take the music, rough design documents and in-progress screenshots were my only reference.”

Early incorporations of two of the enemies from the finished title are shown at various points of the video. We can see GEATHJERK infantry units, the ‘Dough-Goo’ foot soldiers, as well as an untextured ‘Diedough-Goo’ robot towards the end. Their designs are more or less entirely consistent with their final looks, disregarding the lack of textures on the latter model.

Midway through the demo, a ‘results screen’ appears in the top-right corner of screen, displaying the points accumulated during that portion of gameplay by the player. However, as specified by Kamiya, these notifications were, in reality, “fake”. They did not yet actually measure player performance or score, and were instead put in for demonstration purposes and as a note for the developers to add them in further down the line.

The first versions of the unite morphs, ladder and chain, are also shown. Given the way the chain is visualised, with a bridge shape briefly flashing as the characters cross it, it appears as though ‘Unite Chain’ was the only traversal morph of this nature and ‘Unite Bridge’ was not a part of the game at this stage. In the final game, the Wonder Ones choose between a chain and a bridge shape to cross large gaps, based upon the situation at hand.

A Visual Overhaul

After work on the title had been underway for some time, Platinum Games presented their efforts to Nintendo once again. The publisher came on board with the project this time, on the condition that the game’s visuals be reworked. The Iwata Asks interview on The Wonderful 101 gives us a behind-the-scenes explanation as to why this quite considerable alteration to the art style was made.

Apparently, it was felt by Nintendo that the darker art design being used at the time would limit the potential reach of the game, and alienate children.

“Matsushita-san loves action games, so I showed it to him, and asked, ‘This project will be really interesting. Won’t you work on it with me?’ And right away, he said something like ‘The images are too dark. Elementary and middle school kids won’t go for this.'” –  Producer, Hitoshi Yamagami.

Nintendo and Platinum initially had some back and forth on whether or not the beta’s vision should be changed.

“I’d heard that the folks at PlatinumGames were very particular, so we had a lot of discussion within the company about how we could get it across to them, and whether we should just prioritize PlatinumGames’ concept and move forward with it.” – Shingo Matsushita, a Nintendo director who oversaw development.

Ultimately, the developer folded and became more open to changing it after coming up with the idea for an alternative visual style.

“The ‘realistic figure, realistic toys’ concept was born then. The look is both pop and realistic at the same time.” – Hideki Kamiya.

Kamiya was once asked which audiences he was trying to reach with the game in the beginning and he responded with this:

“It was originally aimed at me… [laughs]. When I make games I never really think about who I’m targeting the game for. I just want to create something that’s fun and enjoyed by the audience.”

A Group of Fearless Warriors

With Platinum Games’ second pitch accepted and a fresh art style settled upon, The Wonderful 100, as it was still being referred to internally, went into full development around late 2011. Kamiya began to work on the script for the game more intensely, and finally made the decision to have seven main heroes at the centre of the story. The lighter visuals in tact, lead artist, Mai Ohkura was soon at work on assembling new designs for their finalised team. Near completed drafts of the group met the director’s approval and the character modelling staff began implementing them.

The looks of the characters used here are almost identical to their appearances from the released game, but keen eyes will detect a few contrasts, such as Wonder Black being slightly taller here and Green carrying a sniper rifle over his shoulder, instead of his “Christine Daae” weapon.

It was around this time that Platinum came up with the idea of them each having their own unique Unite Morphs, which explains the addition of their individual weapons, like Blue’s sword and White’s claws. It’s possible, albeit unconfirmed, that the concept of having seven main heroes stemmed simply from the necessity for a device to pace out the of the Unite Morphs. By assigning one to each of them and gradually introducing the characters, it allowed them to disperse them throughout the game, without overloading the player.

Heir To The Throne of The Roaming Rhullo

As the in-game narrative progressed, Kamiya and Inaba began throwing more characters into the mix, including an antagonist for Wonder Red, who was tentatively referred to in draft simply as “Rival”. This would later turn out to be the space pirate leader, Prince Vorkken. When first drawing him, Ms. Ohkura based his design around Red’s, as you can see here.

Unlike most of the other characters brought to life during the project, Vorkken’s look evolved little over the course of development. Some minor details, such as the size of the ridges on his clothes were changed; but this was one character design that stayed roughly the same throughout. Although, the floating cubes revolving around him in this concept were removed from any future images. The nature of these blocks is unknown.

It appears that in some of the first script iterations, the title of the aforementioned antagonistic space pirate band from the final game, the “Guyzoch“, was previously “Gaizork“. This is indicated by a number of other concepts produced by Ohkura, such as one of Vorkken’s right hand man, Chewgi. Chewgi’s name at the time was instead spelled “Chugi“, as well. You can also get a glimpse at early designs for The Meizerr, the Guyzoch’s space vessel, and the Virgin Victory ship.

The Road To E3

In early 2012, the game’s main mechanics began to go through an experimental phase, as the team were honing its strengths and figuring out what would make it more enjoyable. Platinum was set to debut their new project at the fast approaching E3 Expo in June, but still quite hadn’t honed in on the direction they wanted it to take.

As Revealed by Shingo Matsushita during the Iwata Asks, elements of strategy were implemented and tested around this time:

Project P-100

An early form of the game was officially revealed at E3 2012, under the codename of ‘Project P-100‘. It was made up of a mission redone from the first two betas, ‘Operation 001-A’, set in Blossom City. Nintendo unveiled the title on the show floor to journalists, following their press conference. The ‘P-100′ title was a blend of the word “Platinum” and 100, in reference to its true name at the time, The Wonderful 100.

The logo for Project P-100.

During the event, Nintendo released the first official trailer online and by this point in development, both the visuals and general framework of the game had reached their near final form. Although, there are still many changes we can distinguish between this build and the one released in 2013.

To begin with, the general graphical fidelity of ‘Project P-100′ is visibly below the standard of The Wonderful 101. Just about everything, from the character models to the environments, are marginally less detailed. Whether or not these slightly more simplistic visuals were implicit and not just a result of the game still being over a full year from completion is uncertain, but the difference is clear.

In the image above, a comparison between P-100 and The Wonderful 101, we can see a number of the tweaks made. The overall lighting and aesthetics in W101 are darker, for one, and just about every feature of the graphics appear to have been polished up. This is especially evidenced in Wonder Blue’s hair, which was a blurry, pixelated muddle in the E3 demo; later given more defined textures. The amount of polygons on the models was raised noticeably and subtle details, such as the wrinkles on Red’s jacket were added.

The ‘Wonder-Pendants’, the badges embedded on the chests of the heroes, took on a different design in the E3 version. Instead of the ‘W’ logo, it was an image of a Wonder Mask with a white background. For your reference, we have put together some side-by-side comparisons of P-100 concept art, alongside artwork from The Wonderful 101; offering a closer look at these distinctions in the models and more.

In spite of this, the game was always planned to take on these new ‘Wonder-Pendants’. They were changed specially for the E3 demo, purely for the sake of perpetuating the mystery surrounding the title at the time. Its true identity was being kept under wraps by Nintendo as a marketing ploy.

By careful analysis of the P-100 demo, we noticed that in one of the results screens, you can see an image of a Wonder One model that Platinum and Nintendo neglected to change. Assuming this wasn’t an intentional, hidden hint, this appears to have been a mistake. You will, however, notice the E3 badge added to the bronze medal.

At a glance, the core gameplay of ‘Project P-100′ looks almost identical to The Wonderful 101, but this was apparently not the case. Hideki Kamiya himself labelled this early form of the game bluntly as “not fun at all”. Fundamental to the director’s issues was the simplistic nature of how it played. In previous builds, P-100 included, there were only two main attacks the player could perform at a given moment. One, of course, was the ‘unite attack’ and the other was called a ‘lock-on/rush combo’.

Although this ‘rush combo’ mechanic might, on the surface, appear to function no differently from the ‘team attack’ seen in The Wonderful 101, the opposite is true. Mapped to the gamepad’s ‘X’ button, this move would propel a group of the Wonder Ones forward en masse to briefly beat up enemies in the immediate area; leaving the leader to move around freely. They would then return to the commanding hero after a short moment.

The ‘Rush Combo’ in action.

Contrary to the ‘team/climb attack’ from the released game, which causes the Wonder Ones to cling to the enemies and attack them repeatedly, the ‘rush combo’ was a very basic light attack. It also required the player to keep pressing the ‘X’ button to stop them from withdrawing. Using Green’s ‘unite gun’ would not cause the heroes to attach themselves to enemies either. Instead, they’d drop to the floor and be momentarily knocked out after colliding.

P-100’s Unite Gun.

This all meant that, in a title where combat plays a central role, the player had only two relatively straightforward offensive maneuvers at their disposal (other than switching between the other morphs). At this stage, Platinum had yet to include the ‘Multi Unite Morph’ feature either, which lets players perform multiple morphs at once. It wasn’t until almost a year beyond E3 that these issues would find resolution.

Aside from these contrasts, there was a number of features available in the demo that are locked behind special requirements in the final build. Wonder Green, for example, is not a part of 001-A and within the canon of the story, doesn’t join the group until the following mission, 001-B. Likewise, there certain combat abilities, such as the ‘Unite Charge’ custom block, which allows you to automatically increase the size of your Unite Morph by holding the ‘A’ button. In TW101, this particular unlock isn’t introduced until much further on in the story mode.

‘Unite Charge’ in P-100.

On the other hand, there is a variety of art assets used in P-100 that were later altered or removed. For instance, the analysis screens, which appear whenever you face a new enemy were completely different.

As you can see, everything from the fonts used to the colours and the information included on these cards was almost entirely revised. The original screens recorded details of where they were typically found and even the material they were made of, which was in this case iron. These were omitted in favour of adding the name of the area in which they were first encountered. The spelling of this enemy, originally ‘DYDOGUH’ was changed to ‘DIEDOUGH-GOO’, as well.

Examining it further, there are some inconsistencies in the weight and height measurements between the two images. The height of the Diedough-Goo in the P-100 demonstration was 292″ (the equivalent of 7.4168m), which was raised to 13.5m (531.49″). The weight, on the other hand was also upped from 2721 Ibs (1.3605 tons) to 307 tons (614000 lbs). It appears, however, that the figures were totally random in the E3 demo, as every enemy had these exact same numbers.

For reasons unknown, it appears that Platinum went through the trouble of retitling almost all of the GEATHJERK units, like the Diedough-Goo. All of the ones that were a part of P-100, for example, were ammended to match this new naming style.

In one instance, the Dough-Goo and the Chew Dough-Goo (then known as ‘DHOGUU’ and ‘SHUDOGUU’ respectively) were grouped into one card for the sake of the demo. This is because the Dough-Goo are introduced prior to 001-A, the E3 mission, in the prologue, which was not part of the 2012 build.

For reference, here are the remaining enemy analysis screens from the demo, compared to their final appearances. You will see that they are all labelled “GEARTHJERK Invincible Planetary Federation Armada”. This title was later dropped in favour of “GEATHJERK Supreme Federation Armada”.

Assumedly for preview purposes, the layout of the E3 demo’s version of Operation 001-A is very different. It’s not only much shorter, but includes enemies that are not encountered until later on in the first chapter, such as ‘Diedough-Goo’ and ‘Hoedown’, as well as the ‘Gah-Goojin’ mini boss set piece from 001-B.

Diedough-Goo early on in 001-A, later moved.

Aside from this, the HUD in P-100 is in many ways unlike the one in The Wonderful 101. It seems to function relatively the same, but includes a radar in the bottom left corner that displays GEATHJERK signals, in addition to team members. Furthermore, the first section of the battery bar on the left of the screen was blue here, instead of orange, and there are a few changes in fonts, like the mission number text. This typeface was not retracted from the game in its entirety, however, and was repurposed for the title of the in-game upgrade store, the Wonderful Mart, in the finished game.

Intriguingly, some of the terminology used for some of the attacks at the player’s was different here, too. ‘Unite Spring’, a move used in The Wonderful 101 to evade attacks and other threats, was tentatively dubbed ‘Unite Dodge’ here. Similarly, ‘Unite Chain’ was shortened to ‘U-Chain’. This ‘U-Chain’ worked more or less the same, except a red model of a chain would emerge, alongside a speech bubble labelled “Let’s Go!!” to indicate where to initiate it. 

One stylistic choice on display in the Project P-100 build is speech bubbles that appear above the heads of the Wonder One in charge. For example, when Wonder Red initiates a ‘Rush Combo’, the words “GO!!” and “RUSH!!” emerge in front of him. This feature was removed from the game completely in May 2013.

Another aesthetic detail that was shown in P-100, but omitted as time went on were manga-esque flames appearing above the lead Wonder One during combat. Upon successfully initiating a rush combo, these would trigger.

Due to the fact the English dubbing cast for the game had not yet been assembled at this point, the dialogue in P-100 is not voiced. You are able to hear the grunts from the Japanese actors during gameplay, but cutscenes went without voiceover. Instead, every time a character speaks, it is accompanied by digital sound effects of gibberish bleeps and bloops.

According to Platinum, The Wonderful 101’s script went through a total of 14 full drafts. The P-100 demo allows us a look at another one of those earlier iterations, where the English dialogue had not yet been finalised. Not many changes of note can be seen, although we can see that Wonder Red’s commonly used phrase of “Team, Unite up!” had not yet been conceived of. Red announces the slightly wordier “Team, prepare for battle!” instead.

Lastly, as shown in the official trailer, P-100’s multiplayer had a slightly different HUD. As you can see, there were icons for each unite morph next to the individual point tally for each player.  You can see an early version of the item select in the bottom left corner, too. Keen eyes would have also been able to spot the icon for unite hammer, which discretely revealed Wonder Yellow’s attack months before a formal announcement.

The Won-stoppable Wonderful, Wonderful 101

Around August of 2012, Hitoshi Yamagami was determined to change the name of the project, which was still going under the secret title of “The Wonderful 100“. Concerned that the number, “100” was “forgettable”, he sought to alter it in order to make it more memorable. Platinum felt very strongly against changing it, until Yamagami suggested during a board meeting that they call it “The Wonderful 101″ instead.

Kamiya, who had been putting the finishing touches on one of the first full drafts of the script, realised that renaming it “101” would fall in line with an idea he had for the one of the cinematics later in the game. Platinum and Nintendo once again reached an agreement and The Wonderful 101 was officially announced to the public in September, during a Nintendo Direct presentation.

A Gamble Late In Development

Following E3, Platinum was still hard at work on the game. In the eyes of Kamiya and many of the other staff members, the core gameplay remained troubled and it wasn’t until as late as May 2013 that the developer finished solving its cental problems.

Towards the start of 2013, the team decided to scrap the aforementioned “rush combo” mechanic. As an alternative, they introduced the “climb attack”, also known as the “team attack”. Whereas the rush action made for a very simplistic light offensive maneuver, the climb move caused heroes to cling to enemies and attack them repeatedly.

From Kamiya’s perspective, this brought in an interesting element of strategy to the gameplay. It meant that players would actively have to manage where their heroes were on the battlefield and choose how to divide them between the morph attacks and hurling them to attack independently.

“We should have already had that part done when we entered into production, but we weren’t clear on what to do with it so we kept on working that way.” – Hideki Kamiya

In another risky move for the developers, they also decided to introduce the ‘Multi Unite Morph‘ feature, as seen in the final game. This drastic change to the formula was brought about as late as May 2013 – less than 3 months before it was planned to be released.

“We really put in Multi Unite Morph at the last possible moment.” – Shingo Matsushita

According to producer, Inaba, the team was very skeptical about the technical side of implementing this concept, worried about how well the engine would cope with use of multiple simultaneous unite morphs during the story mode. It was thanks to their work on the multiplayer, which already supported up to 4 morphs one screen at a time, that programming this feature became easier.

The addition of ‘Multi Unite Morph’ occured without the involvement of Nintendo or the higher ups at Platinum, who had been actively overseeing and supervising the project throughtout development. Completely unbeknownst to Matsushita, Kamiya impulsively had the team include it without the approval of his superiors.

“During one of the recurring debug meetings, I heard “We’ve actually gotten a request from Kamiya, and it’s already built in.” And we were like “Huh? What did you just say?” – Shingo Matsushita

The gamble paid off from Kamiya’s point of view, who thought this major adjustment made the game “a lot more fun“. Its issues of slower, repetitive gameplay from before E3 had finally been dealt with.

Spoiler Alert! “I’m thinking… Platinum Majin”

In the closing act of The Wonderful 101, the team joins forces with a giant mecha, who they dub “Platinum Robo” (in reference to Platinum Games itself). In the final game, the machine assembles itself out of the remnants of Blossom City. However, before Kamiya had come up with this idea, Okura had drawn another, very different concept for the robot.

Here are the two designs, side by side, for comparison:

The post The Wonderful 101 [Beta / Concept – Wii U] appeared first on Unseen 64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

Ross Sillifant sent us a lot of contributions, info and interviews about cancelled videogames and their development, from different software houses and for various consoles / PC. To be able to publish all those info we’ll need more time, but to start here’s a first collection of random facts that should be saved in the Unseen64 archive!

Mike Singleton (RIP) was working on Midwinter III, for PS2 and Dolphin (GameCube) working title was Skyfall Year Zero: Total Midwinter.  See Arcade Mag Timewarp March 1990 and this tweet by Chris Wild.

Activision CANNED PS1 Hyperblade (A futuristic rollerblading sport game) after almost 12 months in development, Activision unwilling to disclose reasons why it was canned though.

Interview with Andrew Hewson:

Q) Is it true you had a PC Engine version of Paradroid ’90 all finished and it was to be Hewson’s 1st crack at the emerging console market? If so, what became of it? Was it never released because PCEngine didn’t get a UK release?

Andrew:Umm, that’s news to me.

Interview with Stuart Gregg:

Shadowrunner: Do you have any unreleased games on any platforms you’d like to share with us?

Stuart: I did port Rick Dangerous to the Acorn Archimedes, I have no idea where that is.

Shadowrunner: There was supposed to be an Atari Jaguar CD release of Demolition Man and there’s even a really early beta floating around. Do you know how far along it was, and if there would have been differences between it and the 3DO version?

Stuart: The first time I have heard of it…

Stuart: I really liked Ian Stewart and It was a good laugh with Neal Young when he was a producer at Probe. I think my mind is blocking out the pain as I can’t remember anyone I want to dump on. If you asked me at the time I’m sure the answer would be different. Does anyone have the alternate ending to Dynamite Düx ?

Stuart:  I worked on some things at Virgin that never came out, I should have paid attentions to the alarm bells going off in my head, LOL.

Interview with Mike Fullton about Jaguar Quake:

Quake didn’t come out on the PC until mid ’96, like 9 months after I had left Atari.  By that time, new Jaguar projects were pretty much non-existent. So it seems unlikely that there was anything going there, at least not with ID.  It’s far more likely that someone started playing around with the QUAKE source code when it was released.

The big hurdle to overcome for Quake (as well as Tomb Raider) would have been the lack of a texture-mapping 3D library.  Having such a library would take development of the game from 0% to about 70% in one jump, so someone saying QUAKE was 30-40% done sounds like they were talking about someone working on a library, not so much the game itself.

Interview with Andrew Holdroyd about Wolfenstien 3D on Sega Mega Drive (Never finished or released)

Wolfenstein was the first project I had in C instead of assembler. I had the source code for the SNES version and after a month of tearing my hair out I realised there was a bug in the C compiler/linker. I don’t think anyone believed me and they sent someone from the software supplier with the intention he would show me where I was going wrong. He sat beside me. I had on my screen the source and object code and I showed him the error. He said ‘Oh!’ Anyway they fixed the problem. The SNES code was really good. It compiled and ran on the Sega with little trouble and then all I had to do was code the final rendering and audio which took only a few weeks. It was a long time ago and I’ve no idea why it was never released.

Interview with Paul Carruthers:

Q)You ended up working on ‘Escape From L.A’ for Virgin, which was canned, so…what platforms was it due o, how far along did coding get? and why was it canned?

PS1.We hadn’t got very far at all when it was cancelled. I got the impression that early screenings of the movie had shown it wasn’t going to be a huge success!

Q) Moving onto your time at Climax next, you were handed the Dreamcast conversion of N64 Turok The Dinosaur Hunter (something i’d loved to have of seen), again i wonder just how far along coding got/why it was canned and how you felt seeing yet another project cancelled?

Coding never even got started on that game. Canning games before they start or very early into production isn’t a problem and it’s quite common.

I did a Gameboy version of Xor that never saw the light of day!

Interview with Andy Satterthwaite, developer and producer on many games such as Wipeout 2097, Colony Wars, N-GEN Racing, Quantum Redshift:

Colony Wars had actually been in development for about a year when I was finishing on 2097 … it had been developed in the Psygnosis US office, but it was struggling and the team was brought back to Liverpool. […] My recollection of when I first saw the game was of a cube-like spaceship floating in space not doing very much; a gargantuan design document and a schedule that said the team had to do 170 hour days to get it finished. […] We cut the number of missions in half, re-scripted the game, made it wonderful etc. etc.

Q14)You then were signed up by Microsoft to do 2 (?) titles for the Xbox, yet we only ever saw 1, the fantastic Quantum Redshift, could you detail how you came to be working for MS, how they were to work with in terms of pro’s and cons etc?

I believe the game sold about 250,000 copies despite the good reviews; Microsoft said they didn’t get out of bed for less than 500K units, so they no longer wanted the sequel

Wii Speed Racer, I believe the game did quite well though; we actually did produce a demo on PS3 too … that would have been beyond awesome; but the lack of film success nailed that coffin shut.

Top unreleased stuff that I can think of:  “Storm Chaser” – something we were pitching during the death of Curly Monsters, A combo of disaster sim, racing/chasing game & pokemon-snap, as you try to take the best photos of twisters destroying stuff.

“Racing Life” – a whole horse ownership/management/racing RPG – this was actually designed with no intention of release, but at the time to get a PS3 dev license you had to get Sony concept approval on a full boxed title, so this was my “full boxed title” that got us that license (and then allowed us to make GripShift as a PSN download)

“Space” – a PSP mobile friendly Elite-like space game

“Arena Soccer” – an indoor soccer game (basically I want to make a 5-a-side Sensible Soccer for mobile, if anyone will let me !)

“Spy Hunter” – an epic reinvention of the midway classic, which Warner Bros were interested in – but not interested enough.

An interview with Neil Casini

3D Lemmings actually started life as a puzzle game that was created by James Thomas and Martin Hall working under the name Lunatic Software. They were already working for Psygnosis (they did a fantastic job of porting Wiz’n’Liz to the Amiga) and I believe during a code review, someone said could this be reworked to make lemmings in 3D? The idea stuck and the project was green-lit.

Batman Begins for E.A: We were really up against it actually. Initially we thought just two sections would be quite easy but EA wanted each section to last about 10 minutes. On full boost, the Batmobile travelled about 200mph. So for a section to last 10 minutes we had to build about 30 miles of track! All of a sudden we had a mountain to climb. I remember the levels really testing the game engine to the max but I think they turned out pretty well and were a welcome change to the slow pace of the main game. In actual fact, some of the takedown mechanics and ideas were borrowed for the next version of Burnout so I was pretty pleased to hear that!

Dead Space Extraction : Originally, it was meant to be an on-rails shooter very similar to Sega’s The House of the Dead; a very loose story, no cutscenes as such… just shoot, shoot, shoot. This is until we delivered our first vertical slice (a snapshot of what the final game could look like so execs can understand what they are getting and officially green light the completion of the project). Based on what they saw, EA elevated the status to AAA over night and from that point on, everything changed.

There is one game that will be of particular interest to you and your readers. I worked on a prototype for a Next Gen Contra. Eurocom was in talks with Konami and another internal team had made an attempt at a visual style but it didn’t go anywhere, they gave me a crack at it. I threw it all away (sorry lads!) and started from scratch, focusing in on the fundamental mechanics of a run’n’gun game. I decided to take inspiration from Geometry Wars and utilise a twin-stick control system whereby you steered your character with the left stick and aimed and fired your gun with the right stick. It had a semi-auto lock-on that meant you just pointed the stick towards the enemy and it would handle the vertical aiming for you. It meant that we could author the camera to keep the action on screen and always look dramatic while you just jumped around looking cool. We thought it was awesome. As did the Konami producer when he came to see the demo. Sadly, we didn’t get the contract. We were gutted. It’s a game that I’d still love to make one day.

Interview with Will Harbison:

A) When you have been in this business as long as i have you’ll find that a lot of projects fall by the wayside, for example I was in the process of working on an isometric Simpsons game while working at Ocean for the Atari ST and Amiga. That is one that i would have liked to have seen through to the end. Another game that got canned at the last minute was while i was working for a company called Malibu Comics who were soon to be bought by Marvel. The game was based on one of their superhero characters called Prime and was going to be a side scrolling, platform beat-em-up. I still have some graphics for that project. More recently I was working on a golf game starring Spongebob Squarepants and various other characters from the show. The game was pretty much complete but the plug was pulled right at the last minute.

A scan for the cancelled Playstation version of Alien VS Predator, released for the Jaguar.

Interview with Dave Taylor, former ID Software employee that worked on both Wolfenstein 3D and Doom for Atari Jaguar:

Dave Taylor: I don’t recall Quake even being a brain fart of an idea on the Jaguar. I seem to recall that Wolf or Doom or both actually sold at a better than 1:1 ratio with the system for a while, and even at that stupendous sales ratio, I think we still did some pathetic number of sales, like a couple hundred thousand units tops, which with cartridge margins is super not worth the suffering. Between that and all the dev suffering, neither of us was like, “Oh goodie, let’s do some more of that!”

Dave Taylor: Golgotha (PC) was canceled after we ran out of money and went to the public domain. Bits of it were re-used for years in lots of things.  Worked on an educational math game I was quite excited about a year and change back written in coffeescript running under node.js, and that was a lot of fun, but I lost the original coder to burn-out (from previous work) and couldn’t finish it under my own steam. Not sure what became of that, but as I was the only one working on it at the end and had written most of the gameplay code, I imagine it’s still on ice.

Mick West Interview:

 Q6)ROTOX was planned for the ill-fated Konix Multi-System and indeed work had started on it (i’ve seen youtube footage of it). It was also said to make use of the systems hydraulic chair. Were you directly involved with the Konix version and if so, what were your thoughts on the Konix hardware and it’s chances in the marketplace, had it been released?

A6) I only briefly saw the Konix, then Binary Design went bankrupt and laid everyone off. There was some shady re-organization, and they re-emerged as Creative Materials. So I never got to use the Konix. I never actually saw Rotox on it, but just now looked it up on Youtube (on the “Konix Multisystem – Prototype Footage” video). It does not look like they got very far with it.  It was an interesting console, I’m really not sure how it would have done though. Hard to break into a large market with only a marginal improvement. Probably they lacked money.

Q12)Can you shed light on any of the unfinished games (on any platform) you either assisted with or wrote yourself….and how did it feel to see such hard work go down the pan?.

A12) Neversoft had quite a few. There was a Ghost Rider game, which was kind of like a Castlevania game. It got canceled as Crystal Dynamics were going through some re-organization. I can’t say we had time to mourn it,  as we immediately went into overdrive writing demos, trying to get work elsewhere. We did an futuristic racing game, a rally race game, a golf game, and a mech 3rd person shooter called “Big Guns“, which we eventually got Sony to let us do, and at about the same time landed the MDK gig. Big Guns was a fun game, but it kind of got designed out of existence by the Sony Producer, and eventually was cancelled. That’s a shame, but then that led to Apocalypse and hence Tony Hawk, so it’s all good.

The post Random interviews and info on lost games! appeared first on Unseen 64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

Do you know Lobotomy Software? If you played Exhumed / PowerSlave on Saturn or Playstation, you probably remember that it was a real masterpiece, a Metroid-alike adventure in first person view, before Metroid Prime even existed.  Lobotomy were founded in 1993 and they released some other games like the successful Sega Saturn ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, that shown to the world what the 32Bit Sega Console was able to do with 3D graphic when great developers were able to work on great games.

They were also planning 2 new original games, Aquaria (Nintendo 64 + Playstation) and Exhumed 2 (Playstation), but unfortunately these were cancelled before being completed and gamers will never be able to enjoy them. In 1998 Lobotomy’s talented developers were acquired by Crave Entertainment and the team was renamed to Lobotomy Studios, to work on a Caesar’s Palace game for the Nintendo 64, but after a year of development the game was postponed and eventually cancelled. As we can read on Wikipedia, at that point Lobotomy Studios was closed and employees were let go or given the option to be relocated to another position at Crave Entertainment.

Thanks to our friend Ross Sillifant we are able to publish this interview with Brian McNeeely, one of the main Lobotomy Software developers that worked on all their games, to ask him about his memories on their released projects and their cancelled titles. And if you still don’t know why it’s such a shame that we lost Exhumed 2 and Aquaria, please take your time and watch the video below (created by Tatsu  from Lobotomy Software Blog), to understand why Lobotomy Software was one of the most talented development team in the mid ’90, affected by an unlucky fate.

Interview with Brian McNeely by Ross Sillifant

Before we get started, i’m going to try and ‘avoid’ as many technical-based questions as possible, or least phrase them in a more general manner, as i think these type of questions would be better suited to coders like Ezra Dreisbach, with your goodself i’m looking more for the insights into the company itself, hopefully being able to get a few rumours from the press cleared up etc etc.

Q1) Starting with the standard, cliched opener, Brian, please introduce yourself to our readers, in terms of your background, if you could be so kind.

Brian: Thanks for this opportunity Ross.  My name is Brian McNeely (my name was actually Brian Anderson up to around 1996 when I changed my last name to McNeely, which is my birth name).  I’ve been working in the gaming industry since January 1989, when I was hired at Nintendo of America as a Game Play Counselor.  It’s hard to believe that was over 26 years ago!  I look back at those days as a golden era both in the gaming world and in my career, and I feel very lucky that I was at Nintendo’s epicenter during that period.  The NES, SNES, and Gameboy hardware and software were all the rage, and I had the privilege of playing those games full-time and helping gamers all over the world with game tips and “counseling.”  It really was a ton of fun.  I love what I do now and what I’ve done since then, but that was one of the best times of my life for sure.

When I look back at that experience I realize more and more how it was essentially an education in game design fundamentals.  Over the course of several years I played hundreds of games while on the job, many of them to completion, and some of them multiple times.  Simultaneously I was taking calls from people non-stop all day long, helping them with solutions, gaining new insight from them, and discussing games.  As the years developed I reached a point where I had memorized a large amount of answers to nearly all questions that came through across the majority of available games.  And it wasn’t that I was just memorizing answers, I was also absorbing knowledge and experience through many unique perspectives and sharing that information with others.  There was also a competitive side to the job where Game Counselors pushed each other to find answers and finish games.  It was a very unique job in that you had to be able to visualize, over the phone, where in a game the caller was and what they needed to progress based on a few key points of information they provided, and then piece everything together into a mental (and verbal) solution to the puzzle.  The constant bombardment of calls was the tough part about that job, but helping people with a shared passion made up for it.

Through it all I was able to gain a lot of design insight into what makes a game fun, what frustrates the player (for better or worse), the importance of rewarding the player, pacing, difficulty, the relationships between art and game play and audio and technology, level design, progression, etc., etc…  I could go on and on but I’ll stop by just saying it was awesome and I learned a lot.

Q2) I’d like to start the interview, proper as it were by asking about how Lobotomy in effect came to be. You’d been working under the security as it were, of Nintendo Of America, for some 4 years?, before deciding to ‘break out’ and go it alone. So, i wonder just what the reasons for setting up your own were (perhaps you’d always had vision of the games you wanted to make, yet knew you’d never be ‘allowed’ to make them at Nintendo?, so you needed the creative freedom perhaps?) and also, if it’s ok to discuss it, the sheer scope of stepping out into a very cut throat industry, setting up a new studio and having to prove yourselves. Could you talk us through the thought processes involved, risks you knew you were going to take and indeed the timing of starting the company?

It all started with Paul Lange, the founder of Lobotomy.  It was his idea to break away from Nintendo and start a game development company.  We had been working together as Game Play Counselors for a while before we each eventually moved into different departments of the company.  After a couple of years there I started going to art school full time and working at Nintendo part time at nights, and I wasn’t entirely sure what my future held.  I knew that somehow I wanted to combine my two passions (art and game design) into some sort of career in game development, but the process and the companies that did it were somewhat of a mystery to me at that point.  This was before schools offered any kind of education specific to game development, and finding job openings at development companies was very rare.

So when Paul approached me at Nintendo with his idea to break out and start a new game development studio I was thrilled.  He also recruited two other Nintendo friends, and I recruited a couple of my good friends from art school, and we all began preparing to actually do it.  When Paul quit his job at Nintendo and began laying the groundwork for the company the reality of it all hit.  Shortly after Paul left I also quit my job and our initial small group began working out of Paul’s apartment.  We initially had to learn how to use the art tools available at the time (Deluxe Paint and Deluxe Animator), and so we worked together to figure out how to make digital art for games from the ground up.  One of our first projects was a SNES boxing game demo similar to Punch Out but based on the career of Joe Louis, so it had a retro feel about it.  Once we had that demo up and running in playable form we were ready to begin shopping it around.

Q3) Sticking with the above, once the company was ‘up and running’ how difficult was it, to become an established name or serious player in the industry?. How did a young, unknown to many i guess, company, like Lobotomy, go about ‘selling itself’ to the industry?. Did you take along tech demo’s or early versions of planned games and try a kind of ‘we are making THIS or can get hardware to do that… and feel it’d be ideally suited for your company to publish/or be suited to a conversion of.. your planning’…?. It’s something i’ve always been interested in learning more about, just what it took for fledgling companies to get a foot on the ladder as it were, with in the industry. Did your work for N.O.A hold you in good steed?

It was definitely difficult at first, but also exciting.  We reached out to some of our contacts we had established while at Nintendo, and we hired an agent to help us find business.  The first year or so was pretty tough, and honestly we were willing to do just about any type of game project to get the business moving.  We tested games for various publishers to make ends meet, and we attended CES in Vegas and Chicago (this was well before E3 existed), and we met with various publishers to show them our SNES boxing demo.  We also continued creating additional SNES demos to show more of what we could do, including a pinball game using a jetpack Pig as the ball called “Pigball” (using SNES Mode 7 for the playfield) and a side-scroller we called “Hippie Man” in which you controlled a hippie with flapping wide leg pants.  The hippie man was actually me.  I borrowed a pair of vintage wide leg pants from my girlfriend’s dad and we filmed me running on a treadmill from the side.  Then I literally traced the frames over the video using tracing paper taped to a television, scanned the images into digital form, and cleaned up each frame pixel by pixel to create the main character animations.  I really wish I still had the ROM of that demo.

We eventually landed our first contract with Crystal Dynamics to port a game called The Horde to SNES, which we finished, but sadly was never released.  I don’t remember the exact details of how that played out, but I think by the time we finished the game Crystal Dynamics had decided there was no market interest in the game.  A couple of other notable early projects that helped get us going were Microsoft Soccer and Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System, both for Windows 95.  Obviously, neither of those were dream projects, but they helped pay the bills.  Our ultimate goal was to start our own project, and to get closer to that we got our hands on the “Build” engine and started working on concepts for a first person shooter.

Q4) Ok, lets look at the games, Lobotomy 1st leapt to UK Gamers attention with Exhumed (Powerslave in USA)…and to many kinda put the Sega Saturn on the map, in terms of it being able to handle FPS (and in style). Are claims game was originally planned as a PC FPS, called ‘Ruins‘ true? and also you originally just planned to port the PC version to Saturn?. If so, what made you change your mind and turn the console versions into something of a FPS with more depth than your average FPS of that era?.

Yes it’s true the game began as a PC FPS called Ruins.  Paul wanted to make something with an Egyptian theme, so we started developing the game using the Build engine for Apogee in tandem with three other games they were making using the same engine.  The other three games were Shadow Warrior (ninja theme), Duke Nukem (sci-fi theme), and Blood (horror theme).  Our Egyptian themed game rounded out the “theme spread” for this set I guess, or at least I think that’s what Apogee’s original vision was.  Eventually the product changed hands on the publishing side and we continued development on 3 platforms:  PC, Saturn, and PlayStation.  Playmates Interactive published the U.S. versions (“Powerslave”), and BMG published the game in Europe (“Exhumed”) and Japan (“A.D. 1999: Pharaoh’s Revival”).

The PC version was well underway when we began planning the Saturn version.  I don’t remember why we started with the Saturn version first over the PlayStation version, but it became our lead platform between the two consoles.  At first is seemed reasonable that we would attempt to just port the game to the Saturn, but I realized we had a great opportunity to do something different with the console versions of the game that could break away from what was typically expected for first person shooters at the time.  There wasn’t really a push at that time to cater first person shooters to console gamers, and for the most part the console FPS selection was very limited.  I remember specifically there was a huge hole in that area on the Saturn, and I may be wrong about this but I’m pretty sure the only FPS available for Saturn when we began development was a game called Robotica, which I played in detail to see what we would be competing with.  It became clear that if we struck in a certain way we could really run away with something great that hadn’t been done at all up to that point.

There were a few key areas where I saw lots of opportunity to expand the FPS genre on consoles.  One of them was controls and mobility, and so we set out to speed up movement to feel more like a jog, and also allow the player to make soaring jumps.  This allowed us to take a fresh approach with level design and factor in more dexterity and “3D FPS platforming” style of game play.  Another area was the overall structure and progression of the game.  I wanted to avoid a linear experience, and instead offer a feeling of exploration and accomplishment, so we designed the “artifact system” in which the player discovered artifact items to gain permanent new special abilities so that they could gain access to areas of the game previously impossible to reach.  The world map was added to help reinforce the setting and game world and navigate the level structure.  All of this was kind of a nod to Metroid and several other games, so it wasn’t a new concept by any means, but it was new to the FPS genre and seemed to fit well for console gamers.

Q5) Sticking with Exhumed, the Egyptian setting was fantastic!. I’ve always wondered if this was a deliberate ploy, ie the setting lended itself brilliantly to level/creature design, helped it stand head and shoulders above the more generic FPS crowd etc. Were you / members of the team into the whole Egyptian mythology i wonder?. Also how much research into the mythology aspect made it into the game?.

At the time there weren’t many games that utilized the Egyptian setting, and I’m pretty sure that was a motivator for Paul in his decision to go that route, and I don’t think there were any Egyptian themed FPS games at all so we knew it would make the game more unique.  All of us thought it was a great idea, but none of us were experts in Egyptian mythology so we did as much research as we could to find ways to tie it into the game, but the tie-ins were very loose.

For the most part the mythology connections were built around the artifact system, and the abilities acquired with them. For example I knew I wanted a mask-like item that would give the player the ability to breathe underwater, but wasn’t’ sure what to call it.  I researched Egyptian mythology and found “Sobek,” the God of the Nile.  He had an alligator head and was referred to as a water-related deity.  It sounded good to me, and the water connection was there, so the “Sobek Mask” was born.

It’s funny to look back at how simple all of it was though.  The most important part was to make everything somewhat authentic.  Although not incredibly deep, we implemented enough legitimate reasoning to make the Egyptian setting seem more believable.

On a side note we literally got into character to make a lot of the character assets for the game.  All of the enemies and first-person weaponry art were digitized clay models and human actors and then touched up.  To make the Mummy I dressed up in a mummy costume and we used a video camera to capture all of the frames using a makeshift set with a few desk lamps and a black felt backdrop.  One of our artists (John Van Deusen) was Anubis, and all of the first person hands were mine which John touched up to look veiny and rugged.

Q6) Playstation Exhumed always seemed something of a ‘remix’ edition, rather than straight conversion, again i’ve always wondered if this a deliberate move on your part or.. did Sony themselves ask for any (specific) changes to be made to PS1 version and if so why?.

There were a few reasons for the differences between the PlayStation and Saturn versions.  The PlayStation engine didn’t allow us to display quite as many polygons on screen, and so we had to redesign all of the levels to accommodate this limitation.  Although the final PlayStation layouts were slightly more confined overall, they were also more refined and had better balance in my opinion.  The process of revising the levels presented the chance to add more polish to the flow and pacing of the game.

Sony never asked to make the games significantly different though.  They only asked for one thing:  “Add one unique piece of content exclusive to the PlayStation version.”  To satisfy this we changed the art of the spider enemies into scorpions, and that was it.

Q7) I’d like to ask of about your personal experiences working with both Sega and Sony. Reasons being that both suffered from some poor FPS conversions to their hardware (Saturn Doom / PS1: Hexen and Duke Nukem 3D) and i wonder if you were ever in demand from either and what conflicts that might of caused, IE could’nt do PS version of game until Sega version finished due to contractual obligations. Plus is it true Sega Of America originally turned down Powerslave (Exhumed)? if so, why?. Also Sega seemed unconcerned about things like censorship in games like Duke Nukem 3D, Nintendo by comparison censored the N64 version, did Sony ever ‘differ’ in attitudes to Sega i wonder?

I could be wrong about these answers because it was so long ago, but I’m pretty sure we had a contractual agreement with Sega for the exclusives of Quake and Duke Nukem, and so PlayStation versions weren’t an option.  As for Sega of America turning down Powerslave, I honestly don’t remember if that happened or not.  Regarding censorship, I didn’t get the chance to work with Sony in that area so I can’t say what their stance was as the time.  Needless to say we were all glad the strippers made it into the Saturn version of Duke Nukem because that game was nothing without them.

Q8) Sticking with above, how did you find working with the European and American ‘arms’ of both Sega and Sony and did the ‘press reaction’ influence the feelings of either?.Over here the UK Press (Saturn specific in particular) seemed to love you guys, big previews, covers screaming about your conversions, interviews etc etc, did this give Lobotomy a certain degree of ‘clout’ as it were?.

We were thrilled with our popularity in the UK, but unfortunately things weren’t the same in America.  I think the main reason for that was because Playmates and Sega of America just didn’t push the game here.  They only published a limited number of Powerslave copies, and so no one really knew about it.  Add to that the press coverage in America was nothing compared to Europe and as a result the game didn’t receive very much attention and exposure.

On the flip side though, the exposure we received in Europe was fantastic.  That was a great time for us, and to see Exhumed being enjoyed by so many was incredibly rewarding.

Q9) I recently stumbled across an interview from the time, with Ezra talking about the Playstation version of Quake being finished, but sadly never released, despite being superior to the Saturn version, it seemed to be felt ‘unwanted’ as it were, game deemed too old hat and this had a killer blow on the company.This must have been a horrendous period for yourself and the team, can you talk us through how you came to be working on PS1 Quake (as we’d been reading in UK at the time 7 developers had tried, failed to get game running on PS1 etc etc, it simply was’nt going to happen).

Also any ideas as to why the FACT you had converted Quake to PS1 and just how fantastic a conversion it was, has gone so undiscovered for so long?. I’ve read interviews/features/articles on Quake in Gamestm, Retrogamer Magazine etc, yet no-one seemed aware of missing PS1 version, which is most odd. Plus is there ANY chance of source code being sat somewhere and if so, could it ever be released/preserved?

At this point I honestly don’t remember a lot of the details about our PlayStation Quake version.  I do remember that it was a surprise, and I think Ezra just casually said that he had done it one day.  It wasn’t that much of a surprise though because our engineers were awesome and so it was kind of expected that they routinely did the impossible.  I do know that it didn’t have a negative effect on the company though, so I don’t know where that perception came from. I suppose the negative impact of not landing a contract for it was a factor, but it definitely was never seen as a killer blow of any sort.

Q10) Regarding Saturn Duke Nukem and Quake conversions… i’d of thought after Exhumed, you’d of been Sega’s 1st choice for getting the contracts to convert these 2, but claims suggest others had started at least one of these, but it was’nt very good. Without naming names :-) just how far along had earlier attempts gotten and how did it feel to be 2nd or 3rd choice? or were you, as a company, just bloody glad to have landed the contracts, period?.

The way I remember it is that a handful of developers were being considered and that it took the right person in the right position to recognize who would be the best fit for the job, and so we were chosen.  We were definitely very happy to get the business, but it was bittersweet because we had hoped to be in a position where we could develop our own games without relying on ports to keep the business running.

Q11) I’d like to talk about a few other ‘Lost Games’, if i may: We know Lobotomy were a fantastic team and turned out simply stunning products, time and time again, so we were gutted to see ‘Aquaria’ get canned. Can you remember much about the game itself (it was often refered to as being similar to Saturn Nights, but set underwater) and just how far along development got and also what caused it to be cancelled?.

We had a playable demo of Aquaria up and running on PlayStation.  It was a free roaming third person underwater adventure game where you controlled an alien merman character.  The Nights comparison ties into how fluid the controls were.  You could do various dolphin-like acrobatics to maneuver through the environment.   In addition to the playable demo I had the majority of the design pretty much completed but when the company began to close its doors we had to stop development.  At one point we were contacted by Sega to possibly make the next Ecco the Dolphin game and we sent them our Aquaria prototype, but that never panned out.  If you’ve ever played Ecco the Dolphin Defender of the Future you can get a pretty good idea for how the core character controls and camera system for Aquaria were designed.

Q11b) Next up: ‘Mutant Chronicles: The Mortificator.’ This seemed to be a game that the fans of the series really wanted, i wonder if you can remember if the game would of been more action-orientated or more RPG based?

Although we never got past the very early stages of development, it was shaping up to be an action-oriented FPS.  We showed a playable demo at E3 one year and it’s unfortunate we couldn’t finish the game because we were having a lot of fun with it.

Q12) The closure of Lobotomy was a crippling blow to so many of us here in Europe alone, it simply seemed unthinkable, you were THE premier console developer to many of us, the ‘Darlings’ of the UK Magazine world, what future projects were you looking at? (Exhumed 2 perhaps) and on what formats were they planned for? Dreamcast maybe?. On that note, could you detail ANY  OTHER lost games you’ve been involved in, over the years? (any format).

We had started development on Exhumed 2 for PlayStation, which was going to be set in ancient Egyptian times and centered on the main character Horus.  It was in third person perspective, entirely 3d, and we had a playable demo up and running, but again the timing was off and we had to stop development.  Looking back I regret the decision to go with third person instead of first person, because we were moving too far away from what we were really good at, and I think we would have had more success if we had done a true FPS sequel.  Other than that I don’t remember any other lost games that haven’t already been mentioned.

Q12b)  Also, i ‘assist’ with Lost Games sites like Unseen64 and Games That Were’nt (GTW). These guys pour blood, sweat and tears into researching and preserving lost game material and i’m hounoured to give of my time to assist where i can and people like your goodself giving of your time is an utter godsend. Do you have any source material (images, design docs, video drawings etc), you feel happy to pass on, so they can be preserved on these sites? i ask as i recently interviewed Farran T (Jaguar Mindripper) who’d deleted all his Atari docs and the images were lost forever :-(

I’ve included some old sketches and art from some of our projects with this interview.  Enjoy :)

Q13) Did Lobotomy find itself more at home to a particular target market? ie did European gamers perhhaps ‘get’ your games more than those in the USA? if so, what would you put differences down to? marketing support from publishers (ie did Sega Europe push your games harder than Sega USA), gamers tastes? press coverage? or all of the above?

I attribute the popularity differences to media exposure and available units.  There was a distinct media buzz about Exhumed in Europe that didn’t exist in America, and they were the exact same game. Add to that the sheer number of printed copies available in Europe compared to the few thousand available in America, and you can see how the game’s success had a vastly different outcome in each territory.

Q14) I mentioned this already, but at the time, you were the ‘darlings’ of the PS1/Saturn press, lot of interviews etc, were you ever miss-quoted? i ask this as looking into lost games and being a once avid UK mag.reader, the amount of quotes that were altered to suit a writers viewpoint or simply incorrect or even made-up, are startling over the years and it still continues.Did you ever read something and think, hold on, i never said that!

I’m sure there are a lot of articles that I’ve never seen so I can’t say for sure, but all of the interviews I’ve read have been accurate from my perspective.

Q14) Finally, do you keep in contact with your old team mates?. What are you currently doing yourself? (any future plans) and any messages for your legions of fans out there? (for so many of us, Lobotomy are true legends).

I still keep in touch with a lot of my old team mates from Lobotomy (we call each other “The Lobotomites”).  We share never-ending stories and jokes and memories from those crazy times.  We used to refer to our office as a development fraternity.  We were a group of talented and unique guys, working insane hours, shooting from the hip, determined to make something great.  Those were some of the best times of my life.

I returned to Nintendo about 9 years ago to work in game development (Nintendo Software Technology to be specific).  I work with one of my very good friends and Lobotomites Kevin Chung, whom I’ve known for 25 years.  We reminisce about the Lobotomy days frequently, often leading to laughter-induced stomach pain.

I fired up Exhumed the other night on Saturn for the first time in about 15 years, and I thought “damn this game looks old!”  And then I started playing it and thought “damn this was a pretty good game!”  And then I kept dying and I thought “damn this was a pretty difficult game!”  And then I wanted to keep playing.  I suppose that was a taste of what it was like for someone playing the game for the first time in 1996, minus the looking old part.  I’m just glad so many gamers stuck with it and kept playing, because it was almost unfairly difficult.  It was definitely designed for the more hardcore gamers.  Without question though it was a great experience to make the game and work with so many great people.  And although Lobotomy didn’t make it in the long run, at least we had the chance to provide something special to gamers that we were proud of and that we would want to play ourselves.

Huge thanks to Brian for taking part in this interview. Many, Many thanks.

Ross Sillifant 

The post Unseen Interview: Brian McNeely (Lobotomy Software) appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

A long time ago, Unseen64 was just a shell of itself. It was hosted on the notoriously bad Xoom.it hosting service, and looked pretty much like a 90’s website horribly made with Microsoft Frontpage. However, as old as Unseen64 looked back then (it was 2004!), it wasn’t the first site dedicated to unreleased games maintained by Italians. That particular accolade belongs to The Strange (and Rare) Videogame Pics Page, created by Fabrizio Pedrazzini, an Italian games journalist, known for his work at magazines such as the glorious ‘Super Console’. TS(&R)VPP, as the name says, wasn’t solely about beta games. There were pictures of pirated software, obscure and limited edition consoles, demos, and more. Hidden among those pages was the Taito/JSB/ASCII WOWOW console.

Page 10, Console+ Issue 10 (June 1992) (click to enlarge)

For years, the only available information on the Taito WOWOW was limited to this report from the 1992 Tokyo Toys Show, via French videogame magazine, ‘Console+‘:

Another alliance between publishers and manufacturers has been established in Japan. It’s about JSB (that controls the satellite channel Wowow), ASCII and Taito.

A prototype has been developed. It’s small and equipped with a CD-Rom player. The basic idea is innovative: it’s about distributing games via satellite, like the streaming of TV programs, and to charge only the time really spent to play.

The other interesting thing about the console is that the games that will be released to the public will be the same of the arcade versions, with the video and audio quality of the originals.

The first games available will be Darius, Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars…

A released date has not been disclosed yet.

Taito’s booth at Tokyo Toy Show 1992 (picture courtesy of Hardcore Gaming 101 blog)

The interview with Yukiharu Sambe

We have been able to get in touch with the Research & Development manager of TAITO Corporation Mr. Yukiharu Sambe, Professional engineer at the time the Wowow was created, and he was kind enough to share some new information, previously unknown, about this unreleased console. Enjoy!

Note: original interview in english, without edits or corrections

Question: How did you start to work in the videogame industry? What did you do at Taito back then?
Yukiharu Sambe: I was electrical engineer and interested in the microcomputers in late 70’s. One day, I happen to see ‘Space Invaders’ video game at the arcade and it attract me much.  After I joined Taito, I designed/managed many arcade hardware and game programs. I’m happy that you know Darius which I directed and managed hardware, game concept, software developments and so on.

Q: How the WOWOW project started? What was the idea behind it?
YS: Japanese administrator had a plan of data broadcasting. Meanwhile, I wanted to deliver games to home television set. And I happen to know, JSB is trying to combine CPU and memories on its satellite receiver. I talked to JSB and project started.

The only other known scan of the Wowow, thanks to Andro from the Assembler Forum, translated by @painapple9

Satellite transmissions, VR, Network Games,… With the arrival of new gaming systems, games begin to change. Other than the CD-ROM, what’s becoming the key to a revolution in gaming are new technologies, that enhanced quickly during the last year. This actual thing is VR and game download services via satellite transmission. Nintendo, Sega and others continue researching on VR.

As far as download services for games that use satellite transmission go, with the licenses of these systems possibly coming in as early as this year, implementation is making progress. Indeed one might think it’s difficult to make this new technology standard for games in the course of this year. Still, it is a fact that these developments are continuing and 1992 is becoming a crucial bridge building year for the next new generation of games.

For VR applying CG in 3D an AIFON (?) as seen on the right is used. Even though it looks like it could be applied to games instantly, reducing the costs is an issue. Regarding VR, so far Namco is part of a step to actual utilization with arcade systems and one can’t think of it’s appearance on home consoles as something far off. VR developer Steve Glenn is even claiming Nintendo was going to release an amazing game system taking advantage of VR 2-3 years later.

A system receiving game software sent via satellite, that let’s you obtain new games from home. It has been announced this was one of the capabilities of the new system proposed by JSB. The image shows a screen in experimental phase and of the reception-hardware.

Q: Why there was a partnership with the broadcaster JSB and ASCII corporation?
YS: JSB has their own satellite and its channel, ASCII has developing satellite data communication systems.

Q: Could you describe me in details your role in the WOWOW project?
YS: I was a manager of new technology R&D in TAITO at this time. I directed some of Taito young engineers and develop/designed this wowow game console, include hardware, sample game programs and menu selection programs.

Q: The console was based on some specific arcade hardware?
YS: I selected and modified arcade video game hardware because I used to it.

Q: How the satellite connection worked? How did you use the satellite: to download games, to stream games? How did you pay for the service?
YS: JSB satellite had not only video broadcasting channel but data stream channel also. Taito send date stream to JSB satellite base(which was located near Tokyo) through RJ45 connector and JSB transfer these stream to satellite. Home receiver detect these data flow and store it into receiver memory. If subscriber select game play, on memory game program will run. We responsible to the game delivery, JSB responsible to satellite communication and ASCII responsible data interfaces. We intended to collect the game subscriber fee through JSB.

Q: What games were planned for the console? Were there mostly arcade ports?
YS: We have to think about the game memory size. Small size was best and I planned to use some early 80’s arcade games (they are small size).  As a demonstration and presentation game, we modified and minimized the game ‘Darius’.

Q: Were there any exclusive games designed for the console?
YS: We modified the ‘Darius’ only as a game. We developed menu selection software which had original graphics and sound also.

Q: Why the project was cancelled? Too much competition? Technical problems? The satellite technology was not good enough?
YS: We had two reasons to suspend this project. One: Data transferring speed was not enough and many error correction packets eat up these precious data speed. User should wait more than several minutes to download one small game. And if we try to broadcast several games at the same time, the download time needs more time. Second: At the beginning, JSB intended to combine game hardware in the home satellite receiver. However, memory was expensive and all combined receiver made the cost estimation very high. 5 years later, Nintendo absorbed satellite music company ‘St.GIGA’ and started their satellite download business in 1995. The data stream was almost same structure that we designed. Nintendo use their game console with special satellite game equipment, however, Nintendo did not make good success on this business. They had similar difficulties that we encountered before.

Q: When the console was canned, it was on early stage of development of it was almost completed?
YS: Project was suspended at the early stage. We made presentation and demonstration for newspapers, administrate people and so on. The demo was good, however it was difficult to plan good future satellite game business and I decided to suspend it. However/fortunately, these experiences made me to found new entertainment business ‘telecommunication Karaoke’ (in Japanese tuushin-karaoke X2000 in 1992) and it was successful. I found home karaoke business X-55/mediabox in 1995 through analog telephone line and distributed games to home, also. Every experience are precious.

Q: Are there any others existing images/videos about the console (maybe a press release kit, planned advertisement, magazine’s articles)? Is a working console still existing somewhere in Taito’s headquarter?
YS: Unfortunately, I have no pictures and sample console, also.

Thanks a lot to Yukiharu Sambe for his time 

The post Interview with Yukiharu Sambe, R&D manager of the unreleased Taito WOWOW appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

To celebrate the release of our book “Video Games You Will Never Play” (published in September 2016), we would like to suggest to you even more amazing video game books you can read while trapped at home during the upcoming cold winter or to buy as a Christmas present for your nerd cousin who loves video games. There are already many “top 10 books” lists with some nice suggestions (such as the ones at Goodreads, Wikipedia, Games Radar, Heavy, PC Gamer and The New Yorker), but those usually don’t have less known titles we love and often they list the same books over and over. We’d like to suggest many more books related to games, with the help of our readers, like you!

This long list with all our favorite games-related books (available in English) was originally meant to be added as a bonus in our own volume, but as we had to cut a lot of content to fit our articles in the 480 pages limit, this “best video game books” list had to be canned too. In the end we decided to still finish this huge article and to publish it on our website, so here it is!

We also asked to some of our favorite authors and gaming historians (such as Bob Pape, Brian Schrank, Chris Kohler, Clyde Mandelin, Felipe Pepe, Gabe Durham, Jeremy Parish, Jesper Juul, John Szczepaniak, Nathan Altice, Nick Montfort, Rob Strangman and Sorrel Tilley) to suggest a book themselves and in the end, we collected more than 100 titles. We would like to add even more videogames books, to create the most complete list ever to help people to find the most interesting ones. Each book is listed with details, price, number of pages, size and average price on Amazon, so you can easily compare them (remember: always check the current price on Amazon, as they often change day by day and could be on sale!).

If you know of other great video game books that should be added, please leave a message below with a short description to explain why you loved that book, so we can include it in our list! Thanks a lot for your help :)

Jump to:

• Books about classic and must-play games
• Books on popular video game series and genres
• Books on video game history
• Books on specific consoles & computers
• Video Game Artbooks and Coffee Table books
• Books on video game design, theory & social effects
• Fiction books based or inspired by video games

Books about classic and must-play games

Title: 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die
Author: Tony Mott
Publisher: Universe
ISBN-10: 0789320908
ISBN-13: 978-0789320902
Dimensions: 6.7 x 2.6 x 8.5 inches | 17 x 6.7 x 21.6 cm
Number of Pages: 960
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £13 (Amazon.co.uk) | €23 (Amazon.it) | €19 (Amazon.de) | CDN$22 (Amazon.ca) | €23 (Amazon.es) | €23 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Description: Tony is the editor in chief for Edge magazine and he surely saw a lot of games during his career. In this book you can find a collection of the most important titles that every gamer should try at least once, with a focus on the ones published in the ’90s and ‘oos.

Title: An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games: A detailed guide to the most important games; explores five decades of game evolution
Author: Simon Parkin
Publisher: Lorenz Books
ISBN-10: 0754823903
ISBN-13: 978-0754823902
Dimensions: 8.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 inches | 22.5 x 2.1 x 2.1 cm
Number of Pages: 256
Price: $21 (Amazon.com) | £14 (Amazon.co.uk) | €20 (Amazon.it) | €45 (Amazon.de) | CDN$27 (Amazon.ca) | €53 (Amazon.es) | €18 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Featuring 151 classic games with screens, reviews and curiosities, this book is another nice addition to your collection of video games books. The list is focused on the history and evolution of video games though the ages, with memories and details about their developers, so you will find something for each decade from the ’70s to the 2000s.

Title: The 200 Best Video Games of All Time (Color Edition)
Author: Kurt Kalata
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1511546530
ISBN-13: 978-1511546539
Dimensions: 7 x 0.5 x 10 inches | 17.8 x 1.3 x 25.4 cm
Number of Pages: 216
Price: $35 (Amazon.com) | £23 (Amazon.co.uk) | €33 (Amazon.it) | €33 (Amazon.de) | CDN$64 (Amazon.ca) | €30 (Amazon.es) | €32 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Description: Hardcore Gaming 101 is one of the oldest and best websites for videogames insights and historical articles, to learn more about classic and obscure titles from all around the world. With this volume they choose 200 of their favorite videogames, from the early days of arcades to the modern 3D consoles, to suggest the most important ones that should be played by every gamer.

Title: The Gamer’s Bucket List: The 50 Video Games to Play Before You Die
Author: Chris Watters
Publisher: Key Lime Press
ISBN-10: 1633531317
ISBN-13: 978-1633531314
Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 139
Price: $13 (Amazon.com) | £11 (Amazon.co.uk) | €14 (Amazon.it) | €14 (Amazon.de) | CDN$18 (Amazon.ca) | €14 (Amazon.es) | €7 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This book is mostly a collection of images to show you the author’s 50 favorite games,  with just a short description for each one. While the content does not go deep into explaining the full history of those titles, it’s a nice list to remember some classic games you loved or to discover new popular ones that you may enjoy.

Books on popular video game series and genres

Title: CRPG Book
Author: multiple authors edited by Felipe Pepe
Publisher: independent publishing
ISBN-10: N/A
ISBN-13: N/A
Dimensions: N/A
Number of Pages: 350+
Price: FREE!
Description: The CRPG Book is a crowd-sourced, non-profit project to create a free, easily available ebook on the history of Computer Role-Playing Games. Written by multiple authors over the course of a few years (and they’re still working on it!) this book is massive, with more than 350 pages, over 300 RPGs from 1975 to 2015,  articles on the genre, beautiful screenshots and related content. Did we already mention that is free? Go read it!

Title: Halo Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide To The Halo Universe
Author: Tobias Buckell
Publisher: DK Publishing
ISBN-10: 0756655498
ISBN-13: 978-0756655495
Dimensions: 10.1 x 1.1 x 12.1 inches | 26 x 2.9 x 31.4 cm
Number of Pages: 352
Price: $35 (Amazon.com) | £40+ (Amazon.co.uk) | €32 (Amazon.it) | €54 (Amazon.de) | CDN$80 (Amazon.ca) | €54 (Amazon.es) | €29 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Halo is one of the major gaming icons of the last decade and fans all over the world spent hundreds of hours playing the games and reading about their lore, world and characters. If you are a hardcore Halo fan that read every website, wiki and forum dedicated to Bungie’s classic series, probably you will find nothing new in here, but this encyclopedia will make happy everyone else would like to have a book with detailed info about the Halo series up to ODST.

Title: Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Castlevania
Author: Kurt Kalata
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1482742187
ISBN-13: 978-1482742183
Dimensions: 7 x 0.4 x 10 inches | 17.8 x 1 x 25.4 cm
Number of Pages: 158
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €22 (Amazon.it) | €23 (Amazon.de) | CDN$48 (Amazon.ca) | €22 (Amazon.es) | €23 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This book is a must have for even the most marginally interested Castlevania fan.  Spanning from the original Castlevania to the most recent Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 this  book is overloaded with reviews, trivia, spin offs, knock offs, and so much more about the iconic  series. On the fence? Check out the creator’s original website astlevaniadungeon.net for  just a taste of what lies in the book.

Title: Legends of Localization Book 1: The Legend of Zelda
Author: Clyde “Tomato” Mandelin
Publisher: Fangamer
ISBN-10: N/A
ISBN-13: N/A
Dimensions: N/A
Number of Pages: 208
Price: $29 + shipping (Fangamer) | 36$ + shipping (Amazon.com)
Description: How much is lost in translation every time a game is ported from Japanese to English? This is what we can find about in this interesting volume focused on the first Legend of Zelda, written by one of the authors behind EarthBound Central and the Mother 3 translation. Legends of Localization Book 1 is full of details about the world of Zelda and the fascinating errors or decisions that made some of the text much different in the English version of the game.

Title: Silent Hill: The Terror Engine
Author: Bernard Perron
Publisher: U OF M DIGT CULT BOOKS
ISBN-10: 0472051628
ISBN-13: 978-0472051625
Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1.5 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 172
Price: $27 (Amazon.com) | £24 (Amazon.co.uk) | €25 (Amazon.it) | €26 (Amazon.de) | CDN$25 (Amazon.ca) | €25 (Amazon.es) | €26 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Fans of the Silent Hill series know it not only for the masterfully crafted horror experience  it delivers but also it’s vague and engaging storyline. This books take a scholarly look into the  history, symbolism, and influences of the series to produce new insights to even the most diehard Silent Hill fan.

Title: The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures
Author: Kurt Kalata
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 146095579X
ISBN-13: 978-1460955796
Dimensions: 6.7 x 1.7 x 9.6 inches | 17 x 4.4 x 24.4 cm
Number of Pages: 772
Price: $27 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €24 (Amazon.it) | €23 (Amazon.de) | CDN$27 (Amazon.ca) | €22 (Amazon.es) | €23 (Amazon.fr)
Description: The world’s first graphic adventure game, King’s Quest, was born in 1984 and it sparked a  new, highly popular, genre in the world of video games. A Guide to Classic Adventures is  Hardcoregaming101’s ambitious attempt to review not just King’s Quest but over 250 other graphic adventure games spanning from 1984 to around 2000. On top of reviews for this  story-heavy puzzle-filled genre the book also contains interviews with some developers who  worked on graphic adventure games.

Title: The History of Sonic
Author: Marc Pétronille, William Audureau
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
ISBN-10: 1926778561
ISBN-13: 978-1926778563
Dimensions: 8.2 x 0.9 x 9 inches | 21.3 x 2.8 x 23.4 cm
Number of Pages: 300
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £28+ (Amazon.co.uk) | €29 (Amazon.it) | €34 (Amazon.de) | CDN$35 (Amazon.ca) | €33 (Amazon.es) | €33 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Description: If you grew up in the ’90s with a Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, you probably played Sonic the Hedgehog, and in this book you will find everything you need to know about this cult series. Not only the book is full of great screenshots, concept arts, sketches and related images, but you will find a lot of details, curiosities and historical facts on the development of Sonic and its developers.

Title: The Making of Prince of Persia
Author: Jordan Mechner
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1468093657
ISBN-13: 978-1468093650
Dimensions:  5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches | 13.3 x 1.9 x 20.3 cm
Number of Pages: 330
Price: $17 (Amazon.com) | £12 (Amazon.co.uk) | €15 (Amazon.it) | €13 (Amazon.de) | CDN$22 (Amazon.ca) | €16 (Amazon.es) | €16 (Amazon.fr)
Description: If you’re a fan of the Prince of Persia series, retro gaming, or interested in the inner  workings of the video game industry then this book is for you. Pulled directly from the personal  journals of Prince of Persia’s sole creator Jordan Mechner, this book gives a unique and personal  insight into the creation of an iconic video game series.

Title: The Unofficial Guide to Konami Shooters
Author: Kurt Kalata
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1500737178
ISBN-13: 978-1500737177
Dimensions: 7 x 0.4 x 10 inches | 17.8 x 0.9 x 25.4 cm
Number of Pages: 152
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €22 (Amazon.it) | €23 (Amazon.de) | CDN$32 (Amazon.ca) | €22 (Amazon.es) | €22 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Exhaustively researched and jam packed with information, this book is a must have for anyone who is a fan of old school Konami shooters such as Gradius or anyone interested in the development history of Konami.   This book discusses little known facts about these games such as the regional differences between domestically and internationally released versions, as well as tons of pictures, reviews, and so much more.

Books on video game history

Title: A Casual Revolution
Author: Jesper Juul
Publisher: The MIT Press
ISBN-10: 0262517396
ISBN-13: 978-0262517393
Dimensions: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1.3 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 264
Price: $13 (Amazon.com) | £11 (Amazon.co.uk) | €14 (Amazon.it) | €16 (Amazon.de) | CDN$19 (Amazon.ca) | €16 (Amazon.es) | €16 (Amazon.fr)
Description: In A Casual Revolution Jesper Juul offers some insightful and thought provoking ideas on the  subject of casual games and casual gamers. He describes the ‘casual’ movement as a  reinvention of video games and explores what this movement can tell us about players, games  and their interactions today. The essays are backed up by interviews, with both developers  and gamers, which can be found in the latter half of the book.

Title: A Gremlin in the Works
Author: Mark Hardisty
Publisher: Bitmap Books
ISBN-10: 0993012957
ISBN-13: 978-0993012952
Dimensions: 9.2 x 2.4 x 10.5 inches | 23.5 x 6.2 x 26.6 cm
Number of Pages: 572
Price: $31 (Amazon.com) | £23 (Amazon.co.uk) | €38 (Amazon.it) | €26 (Amazon.de) | CDN$39 (Amazon.ca) | €35 (Amazon.es) | €35 (Amazon.fr) | £30 (Bitmap Books)
Description: This 572 page book is beautifully presented as a set of two hardback volumes housed in a stylish cardboard slipcase. The two volumes chart the success of Gremlin Graphics from its humble beginnings in 1984 to its purchase by Infogrames in 1999. The book is packed full of interviews, game design documents, memorabilia, old letters, staff photos, and way more.

Title: Atari Inc. Business is Fun
Author: Marty Goldberg, Curt Vendel
Publisher: Syzygy Press
ISBN-10: 0985597402
ISBN-13: 978-0985597405
Dimensions: 6.7 x 1.8 x 9.6 inches | 17 x 4.6 x 24.4 cm
Number of Pages: 800
Price: $30 (Amazon.com) | £19 (Amazon.co.uk) | €23 (Amazon.it) | €23 (Amazon.de) | CDN$40 (Amazon.ca) | €23 (Amazon.es) | €23 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “This book details Atari’s genesis from an idea between an engineer and a visionary in 1969 to a nearly $2 billion dollar juggernaut, and ending with a $538 million death spiral during 1984. A testament to the people that worked at this beloved company, the book is full of their personal stories and insights.”

Title: Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts
Author: Mia Consalvo
Publisher: The MIT Press
ISBN-10: 0262034395
ISBN-13: 978-0262034395
Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1.8 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 272
Price: $30 (Amazon.com) | £22 (Amazon.co.uk) | €30 (Amazon.it) | €29 (Amazon.de) | CDN$41 (Amazon.ca) | €22 (Amazon.es) | €30 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This study of Japan’s contribution to the worldwide video game market is more than just an  exploration of Japanese video games. It is a study of globalisation which confidently argues  that globalisation does not exclusively move from the West outwards by demonstrating the  close links between Japanese and Western game developers and players as well as how they influence each other.

Title: Bible Adventures
Author: Gabe Durham
Publisher: Boss Fight Books
ASIN: B00UDG4Z0M
Dimensions: N/A
Number of Pages: 99
Price: $5 (Amazon.com) | £3.25 (Amazon.co.uk) | €5 (Amazon.de) | CDN$7 (Amazon.ca) | €5 (Amazon.es) | €5 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “This fascinating book takes a look at the genesis of the infamous game company known as Wisdom Tree, as well as the development process behind its notorious video games. Gabe shares some insight into a side of early video game production that I had never stopped to consider before!” – Clyde “Tomato” Mandelin, author of “Legend of Localization“

Title: Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie
Author: Rob O’Hara
Publisher: lulu.com
ISBN-10: 1847285821
ISBN-13: 978-1847285829
Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1.1 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 168
Price: $15 (Amazon.com) | £9 (Amazon.co.uk) | €12 (Amazon.it) | €12 (Amazon.de) | CDN$20 (Amazon.ca) | €12 (Amazon.es) | €12 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “Commodork gives readers an insider’s view of what it was like to be involved in the Commodore and IBM BBS scenes of the eighties and nineties. Rob O’Hara brings the era to life with wit and humor, giving a fascinating look at that subculture to those that weren’t there, and bringing back fond memories for those that were.” – Rob Strangman, author of “Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman“

Title: Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation
Author: Blake J. Harris
Publisher: Dey Street Books
ISBN-10: 0062276700
ISBN-13: 978-0062276704
Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches | 15.3 x 4.2 x 23.4 cm
Number of Pages: 576
Price: $12 (Amazon.com) | £18 (Amazon.co.uk) | €13 (Amazon.it) | €12 (Amazon.de) | CDN$10 (Amazon.ca) | €15 (Amazon.es) | €12 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Nintendo was the biggest video game company in the early 1990s, dominating the home  console market in the United States. But then Sega, a faltering arcade company, called Tom  Kalinske to turn this scenario around. From a hardly-known company to a toe-to- toe  competitor, this book tells the story of the most famous console war that divided friends  between Sega and Nintendo, family oriented and more adult oriented, Sonic and Mario.  Console Wars lets you know how the two companies battled for domination focusing on the  marketing and sales perspective, not on the actual engineering and specifics of each  company and software development.

Title: Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World
Author: David Sheff
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN-10: 0679736220
ISBN-13: 978-0679736226
Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches | 13.3 x 2.5 x 20.3 cm
Number of Pages: 451
Price: $31 (Amazon.com) | £45 (Amazon.co.uk) | €18 (Amazon.it) | €28 (Amazon.de) | CDN$76 (Amazon.ca) | €18 (Amazon.es) | €17 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Written in an easy to read almost novel like style Game Over aims to tell the complete history  of Nintendo from its humble card manufacturing days to it becoming a giant in the video  game industry. The book does not just concentrate on Nintendo’s games and cute characters;  it also looks at the legal landscape of the 1980s and takes a look at some of the legal battles  that almost led to the company’s bankruptcy.

Title: It’s Behind You
Author: Bob Pape
Publisher: independent publishing
ISBN-10: N/A
ISBN-13: N/A
Dimensions: N/A
Number of Pages: 138
Price: FREE!
Description: “My favourite game development book is It’s Behind You by Bob Pape. It came out a few years ago. Fascinating insight into the life of a bottom-rung coder in the seedy and unglamourous world of 80s game development. Available free on his website!” – Sorrel Tilley, author of “Monochromatica”

Title: Masters of Doom
Author: David Kushner
Publisher: Random House Trade
ISBN-10: 0812972155
ISBN-13: 978-0812972153
Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches | 13.4 x 2.8 x 19.7 cm
Number of Pages: 368
Price: $12 (Amazon.com) | £10 (Amazon.co.uk) | €13 (Amazon.it) | €12 (Amazon.de) | CDN$17 (Amazon.ca) | €12 (Amazon.es) | €10 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Description: This book is much more than the history about how Doom was born, it’s the legend of a small independent studio that revolutionized games in the ‘90s, the tale of the friendship among John Carmack and John Romero, and even a great novel full of interesting (real) characters.

Title: Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman
Author: Rob Strangman
Publisher: lulu.com
ISBN-10: 131210483X
ISBN-13: 978-1312104839
Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 3 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 472
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €23 (Amazon.it) | €24 (Amazon.de) | CDN$23 (Amazon.ca) | €24 (Amazon.es) | €24 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Virtual Caveman takes readers on a trip through some of gaming’s most defining moments as viewed through the eyes of industry veteran Rob Strangman. Unlike most other gaming history books this one is a deeply personal account, however Strangman’s accessible writing style and fun stories make the book easy to relate to. The book also contains a few guest writers and it is capped off by a series of interviews conducted by Strangman with various industry insiders.

Title: Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames
Author: Herman Leonard
Publisher: ROLENTA PRESS
ISBN-10: 0964384825
ISBN-13: 978-0964384828
Dimensions: 0.7 x 5.5 x 8.4 inches | 1.9 x 14 x 21.4 cm
Number of Pages: 312
Price: $5 (Amazon.com) | £9 (Amazon.co.uk) | €25 (Amazon.it) | €25 (Amazon.de) | CDN$9 (Amazon.ca) | €60 (Amazon.es) | €10 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Phoenix is a book about the history of videogames, with its ups and downs, containing  reliable information broken down year by year and it also includes information on consoles  and releases on Japanese and European territories that are usually unknown in the United  States. As the book covers a lot of systems throughout the years, it is more of a collection of  in-depth information about the industry, a must-own for gamers who want to have detailed  information on it.

Title: Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games
Author: Ken Horowitz
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN-10: 078649994X
ISBN-13: 978-0786499946
Dimensions: 6.9 x 0.8 x 9.9 inches | 17.5 x 2 x 25.1 cm
Number of Pages: 312
Price: $39 (Amazon.com) | £32 (Amazon.co.uk) | €39 (Amazon.it) | €40 (Amazon.de) | CDN$54 (Amazon.ca) | €39 (Amazon.es) | €40 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “Drawing on interviews with nearly 100 Sega alumni, this book traces the development of the company, revealing previously undocumented areas of game-making history, including Sega’s relationship with Tonka, the creation of its internal studios, and major breakthroughs like the Sega Channel and HEAT Network. More than 40 of the company’s most influential games are explored in detail.”

Title: Playing at the World
Author: Jon Peterson
Publisher: Unreason Press
ISBN-10: 0615642047
ISBN-13: 978-0615642048
Dimensions: 7 x 1.6 x 10 inches | 17.8 x 4.1 x 25.4 cm
Number of Pages: 720
Price: $26 (Amazon.com) | £23 (Amazon.co.uk) | €29 (Amazon.it) | €30 (Amazon.de) | CDN$36 (Amazon.ca) | €29 (Amazon.es) | €30 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “This book shows how game history is really about thousands of tiny changes, and that these changes are sometimes are combined into high-level concepts and genres that only later seem obvious and eternal.” – Jesper Juul, author of “Half Real”, “The Art of Failure”, “A Casual Revolution” and many more

Title: Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life (2016 ed.)
Author: Chris Kohler
Publisher: Dover Publications
ISBN-10: 0486801497
ISBN-13: 978-0486801490
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 inches | 14 x 21.6 cm
Number of Pages: 352
Price: $13 (Amazon.com) | £10 (Amazon.co.uk) | €19 (Amazon.it) | CDN$21 (Amazon.ca) | €12 (Amazon.es) | €10 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This is a book dedicated to fans of Japanese games, that explains through a thoughtful series of memories, anecdotes and data how Japan became one of the major countries in the gaming industry. If you wonder why most console manufacture and your favorite titles are created in Japan, just read this book to know everything you always asked for, and even more. In October 2016 Dover Publications will release an updated version of the book, with a new chapter and revised material.

Title: Replay: The History of Video Games
Author: Tristan Donovan
Publisher: Yellow Ant
ISBN-10: 0956507204
ISBN-13: 978-0956507204
Dimensions: 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 3.3 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 516
Price: $19 (Amazon.com) | £13 (Amazon.co.uk) | €15 (Amazon.it) | €19 (Amazon.de) | CDN$24 (Amazon.ca) | €15 (Amazon.es) | €16 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Replay tells the history of the most popular and dynamic forms of art: videogames. Extensive  research and 140 interviews allowed the author to tell how it all started, the vision of the first  game designers and the evolution of the industry from 1965 to 1995. This is a very  informational book containing an in-depth chronology of how the industry developed itself and  the details on the business landscape for gaming. It focuses on the hardware, initial formation  of videogame consoles and formats, and the creation of gaming genres.

Title: Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA
Author: Sam Pettus
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1494288354
ISBN-13: 978-1494288358
Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 2.8 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 480
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €26 (Amazon.it) | €25 (Amazon.de) | CDN$33 (Amazon.ca) | €25 (Amazon.es) | €25 (Amazon.fr)
Description:This Kickstarted book is the definitive word on the history of SEGA spread across 480 pages. It’s a narrative history that begins when SEGA did in the 1950s and ends with the Dreamcast in the early 2000s. The enhanced edition of the book contains all of the descriptions, facts and images from the first edition along with new European specific details, fixed facts and interviews.

Title: Speccy Nation: A tribute to the golden age of British gaming
Author: Dan Whitehead
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1479193925
ISBN-13: 978-1479193929
Dimensions: 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 0.7 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages:124
Price: $6 (Amazon.com) | £4 (Amazon.co.uk) | €6 (Amazon.it) | €7 (Amazon.de) | CDN$8 (Amazon.ca) | €7 (Amazon.es) | €7 (Amazon.fr)
Description: In Speccy Nation journalist Dan Whitehead explores fifty games from the ‘golden age of  British gaming’. The book concentrates on a computer known as the ZX Spectrum which  allowed British gamers to both play and create some instant hits as well as some titles best  summed up as ‘quirky.’ While many people will be eager to hear about some timeless British  classics Whitehead does not shy away from looking into some of the smaller 80s cult hits.

Title: The A-Z of cool computer games
Author: Jack Railton
Publisher: Allison and Busby
ISBN-10: 0749082062
ISBN-13: 978-0749082062
Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.2 x 7.4 inches | 14.7 x 3.2 x 18.8 cm
Number of Pages: 287
Price: $5 (Amazon.com) | £4 (Amazon.co.uk) | €9 (Amazon.it) | €27 (Amazon.de) | CDN$24 (Amazon.ca) | €27 (Amazon.es) | €16 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “The A-Z of cool computer games has a silly-sounding title, but is actually a very comprehensive look at the history of the video games industry, with a focus on the British retro gaming industry. It covers the period up to the first PlayStation and I’d definitely recommend its inclusion on the list.” – Rob Hesketh

Title: The Bitmap Brothers: Universe
Author: Duncan Harris
Publisher: Read-Only Memory
ISBN-10: N/A
ISBN-13: N/A
Dimensions: 190 x 240 mm
Number of Pages: 300
Price: £30 (Read-Only Memory)
Description: If you are an old-school gamer you probably know who The Bitmap Brothers are and why they are important for the history of video games. In this book you can finally read a comprehensive collection of memories, interviews and curiosities on this legendary team, other than beautiful screenshots, artworks and photos. If that was not enough, there are also a few canceled games revealed for the first time and a bunch of unused content from their released projects. A must have for Bitmap fans.

Title: The History of Nintendo 1889-1980 SC
Author: Florent Gorges, Isao Yamazaki
Publisher: Les Editions Pix’N Love
ISBN-10: 2918272159
ISBN-13: 978-2918272151
Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches | 15 x 1.5 x 21.1 cm
Number of Pages: 242
Price: $40 (Amazon.com) | £36 (Amazon.co.uk) | €45 (Amazon.it) | €31 (Amazon.de) | CDN$70 (Amazon.ca) | €52 (Amazon.es) | €20 (Amazon.fr)
Description:This publication delves into the often forgotten past of one of the biggest video game  companies in the world. It catalogues the company’s product portfolio in astounding detail  beginning with playing cards and moving through board games, electronic toys and more  right up until their home video game consoles.

Title: The History of Ocean Software
Author: Chris Wilkins & Roger M. Kean
Publisher: Fusion Retro Books
ISBN-10: N/A
ISBN-13: N/A
Dimensions: 8.6 x 7 x 0.9 inches | 22.5 x 18.3 x 2.3 cm
Number of Pages: 264
Price: £20 (Fusion Retro Books)
Description: This is a high quality narrative history book which charts the rise and fall of Ocean Software across 264 pages. It contains all of the facts you would expect from such a book along with full colour photographs, images of sprites from Ocean’s games and memorabilia that has never been seen outside of Ocean’s Headquarters before.

Title: The Story of US Gold
Author: Chris Wilkins & Roger M. Kean
Publisher: Fusion Retro Books
ISBN-10: 0993131530
ISBN-13: 978-0993131530
Dimensions: N/A
Number of Pages: 236
Price: £19 (Fusion Retro Books)
Description: In The Story of US Gold Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean chart the entire history of US  Gold – beginning with its founding and ending with its sale to Eidos. The book is a collection  of memoirs from the developers and artists who worked on some of US Gold’s most  successful titles spread across 236 pages, which are packed with full colour, never before  seen pictures.

Title: The Ultimate History of Video Games
Author: Steven Kent
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
ISBN-10: 0761536434
ISBN-13: 978-0761536437
Dimensions: 7.4 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches | 18.8 x 3 x 23.4 cm
Number of Pages: 624
Price: $16 (Amazon.com) | £14 (Amazon.co.uk) | €15 (Amazon.it) | €16 (Amazon.de) | CDN$22 (Amazon.ca) | €21 (Amazon.es) | €19 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This exhaustively researched book is packed with factual and interesting information ranging  from the Atari to PC. Inside the book you’ll be met with hundreds of facts you didn’t even  realise you needed to know, but you do – such as a look at the time Space Invaders caused a coin shortage, the story of Pac-Man’s design and more.

Title: The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Volume 1
Author: John Szczepaniak
Publisher: SMG Szczepaniak
ISBN-10: 0992926025
ISBN-13: 978-0992926021
Dimensions:  7.4 x 1.2 x 9.7 inches | 18,7 x 3 x 24,6 cm
Number of Pages: 526
Price: $35 (Amazon.com) | £24 (Amazon.co.uk) | €34 (Amazon.it) | €35 (Amazon.de) | CDN$40 (Amazon.ca) | €34 (Amazon.es) | €35 (Amazon.fr)
Description: John Szczepaniak, already a contributor of various magazines and websites among which the excellent Hardcore Gaming 101, had the chance to go in Japan to interview mostly unknown programmers, game designers, illustrators and musicians, active in that extraordinary video games period that were the eighties and the nineties. The Untold History of Japanese Video Game Developers is a book full of previously unknown and interesting info for fans of retro gaming and obscure Japanese developers.

Title: The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Volume 2
Author: John Szczepaniak
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1518655319
ISBN-13: 978-1518655319
Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.9 x 9.7 inches | 18,7 x 3 x 24,6 cm
Number of Pages: 396
Price: $35 (Amazon.com) | £25 (Amazon.co.uk) | €36 (Amazon.it) | €37 (Amazon.de) | CDN$43 (Amazon.ca) | €36 (Amazon.es) | €37 (Amazon.fr)

Description: The first volume was a unique look at the unknown history of old-school Japanese games and with the second volume we can safely claim that the author had made a worthy follow up of the original, both in regards of the content and, especially, of the editing. If you love reading about obscure, curious and strange stories from old-school Japanese gaming studios, The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Volume 2 is a must-have book, that shows how it’s still possible for western journalists to preserve information on the history of Japanese videogames, before it could be forgotten forever.

Title: Video Games You Will Never Play
Author: Unseen64 Collective
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1537389025
ISBN-13: 978-1537389028
Dimensions: 7 x 1.1 x 10 inches | 17.8 x 2.8 x 25.4 cm
Number of Pages: 480
Price (Black & White Version): $27 (Amazon.com) | £23 (Amazon.co.uk) | €27 (Amazon.it) | €28 (Amazon.de) | CDN$31 (Amazon.ca) | €27 (Amazon.es) | €27 (Amazon.fr)
Price (Full Color Version): $62 (Amazon.com) | £45 (Amazon.co.uk) | €62 (Amazon.it) | €63 (Amazon.de) | CDN$40 (Amazon.ca) | €51 (Amazon.es) | €62 (Amazon.fr)
Description: It’s finally here, after almost two years of work: our book about lost videogames! In this volume you can read about more than 200 cancelled games, starting from early ‘90s computers, to 8-bit games and all the way through to the 7th generation of consoles with Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. In this book you can find the most interesting cancelled games from the Unseen64 archive plus a few previously unknown lost games, new screenshots and details. Also included are essays about the preservation of unreleased games, articles about how we do researches for Unseen64 and 20 interviews with museums and developers who worked on lost games. The content of the black & white and full color versions is identical, the only differences are the cover and the interior color.

Title: Videogames: In the Beginning
Author: Ralph Baer
Publisher: Rolenta Press
ISBN-10: 0964384817
ISBN-13: 978-0964384811
Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches | 21.4 x 14.9 x 1.9 cm
Number of Pages: 280
Price: $22 (Amazon.com) | £33 (Amazon.co.uk) | CDN$76 (Amazon.ca)
Description: “Inventor Ralph Baer documented everything, including the day when he dreamed up the idea of home videogames. This indispensable autobiography tells the story of how Baer invented the first TV game machine, accompanied by full-page color reproductions of the documentation that he would later use to back up his claim of being the father of home videogames.” – Chris Kohler, author of “Power-Up: How Japanese Videogames Gave the World an Extra Life”.

Books on specific consoles & computers

Title: Game Boy World 1989 | XL Color Edition: A History of Nintendo Game Boy
Author: Jeremy Parish
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1532801122
ISBN-13: 978-1532801129
Dimensions: 8 x 0.2 x 10 inches | 20.3 x 0.6 x 25.4 cm
Number of Pages: 104
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £18 (Amazon.co.uk) | €23 (Amazon.it) | €45 (Amazon.de) | CDN$75 (Amazon.ca) | €23 (Amazon.es)
Description: This is the definitive archive of all things Game Boy. The first volume contains an in-depth  analysis of the Game Boy, the people behind it and all of the games released for the system in  1989. On top of a written analysis of each game and an exploration of the companies behind  them the book also features full colour photographs of box art and screenshots.

Title: Good Nintentions: 30 Years of NES: An Unofficial Survey of the Nintendo Entertainment System (Volume 1)
Author: Jeremy Parish
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
ISBN-10: 1518717993
ISBN-13: 978-1518717994
Dimensions: 8 x 0.7 x 10 inches | 20,3 x 1,7 x 25,4 cm
Number of Pages: 326
Price: $18 (Amazon.com) | £18 (Amazon.co.uk) | €18 (Amazon.it) | €19 (Amazon.de) | CDN$23 (Amazon.ca) | €18 (Amazon.es) | €18 (Amazon.fr)
Description: A book written with pure love for the Nintendo Entertainment System, full of interesting facts and little know curiosities about the console that revived the videogame industry in USA. Featuring a complete list of all official published NES games in America, insights on the most important ones, details on the Famicom and articles on the current retro revival of 8-bit inspired games and Youtube series.

Title: Monochromatica
Author: Sorrel Tilley
Publisher: N/A
ISBN-10: N/A
ISBN-13: N/A
Dimensions: N/A
Number of Pages: N/A
Price: Coming soon!
Description: “Monochromatica is a lovingly put together tome on the original Game Boy, featuring interviews with multiple developers; it documents not only a glorious era which has past us, but an era which future generations will have difficulty comprehending. You can’t go home again, and this makes me weep.” – John Szczepaniak, author of “The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers”

Title: Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System
Author: Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort
Publisher: The MIT Press
ISBN-10: 026201257X
ISBN-13: 978-0262012577
Dimensions: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1.3 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 192
Price: $19 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €24 (Amazon.it) | €25 (Amazon.de) | CDN$27 (Amazon.ca) | €17 (Amazon.es) | €20 (Amazon.fr)
Title: I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform
Author: Nathan Altice
Publisher: The MIT Press
ISBN-10: 0262028778
ISBN-13: 978-0262028776
Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches | 15.2 x 1.9 x 22.9 cm
Number of Pages: 440
Price: $37 (Amazon.com) | £20 (Amazon.co.uk) | €37 (Amazon.it) | €65 (Amazon.de) | CDN$50 (Amazon.ca) | €73 (Amazon.es) | €39 (Amazon.fr)
Description: “Both belong to the MIT Platforms Studies series and offer highly informed insights into the Atari 2600 and NES consoles, respectively. While they contain a tremendous amount of retrospective material, their real strength is in their exploration of how those systems’ technology shaped the nature of the games that appeared on them, a testament to video gaming’s unique marriage of art and tech.” – Jeremy Parish, author of “Good Nintentions” and “Game Boy World”

Title: Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works
Author: Keith Stuart
Publisher: Read-Only Memory
ISBN-10: 0957576811
ISBN-13: 978-0957576810
Dimensions: 8.5 x 1.4 x 10.5 inches | 21.6 x 3.5 x 26.7 cm
Number of Pages: 352
Price: £35 (Read-Only Memory)
Description: This book opens with a series of development and concept illustrations for some of SEGA’s  most loved games, original developer interviews and hardware production plans. This is followed by a narrative history of the Mega Drive / Genesis written by Keith Stuart. Capping off the book are 28 interviews with SEGA developers. Complementing the book’s easy to  read style are hundreds of full coloured images dotted throughout.

Title: Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal
Author: Robbie Bach
Publisher: Brown Books Publishing Group
ISBN-10: 1612548482
ISBN-13: 978-1612548487
Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.1 inches | 15.5 x 2.3 x 23.1 cm
Number of Pages: 232
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £17 (Amazon.co.uk) | €23 (Amazon.it) | €22 (Amazon.de) | CDN$27 (Amazon.ca) | €23 (Amazon.es) | €23 (Amazon.fr)
Description: In Xbox Revisited, Microsoft’s former Chief Xbox Officer, Robbie Bach explores the  corporate and civic worlds through the lens of the original Xbox’s creation. He looks at how  the three Ps, which were developed by the Xbox team, were used to revitalise a downtrodden  business and then applies what he learnt to issues in the community.

Video Game Artbooks and Coffee Table books

Title: Art of Grasshopper Manufacture
Author: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: PIE Books
ISBN-10: 4756245862
ISBN-13: 978-4756245861
Dimensions: 7.2 x 0.7 x 10.5 inches | 18.4 x 1.8 x 26.7 cm
Number of Pages: 224
Price: $30 (Amazon.com) | £20 (Amazon.co.uk) | €38 (Amazon.it) | €31 (Amazon.de) | CDN$45 (Amazon.ca) | €38 (Amazon.es) | €38 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Not familiar with Grasshopper Manufacture? Perhaps you’re more familiar it’s CEO Goichi Suda, AKA Suda51, and his lineup of unique, imaginative, and completely bizarre video games.  This book contains a boatload of both finished and concept art of cult games such as Killer7 and Shadows of the Damned, along with detailed commentary by Suda himself so you can get a glimpse into his controlled madness.

Title: Assassin’s Creed: The Complete Visual History
Author: Matthew Miller
Publisher: Insight Editions
ISBN-10: 1608876004
ISBN-13: 978-1608876006
Dimensions: 9.2 x 1.3 x 12.8 inches | 978-1783298822
Number of Pages: 320
Price: $33 (Amazon.com) | £26 (Amazon.co.uk) | €46 (Amazon.it) | €47 (Amazon.de) | CDN$45 (Amazon.ca) | €42 (Amazon.es) | €56 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This is an absolutely 100% must have for fans of the Assassin’s Creed.  This massive hard covered book has an almost daunting amount of content.  Not only do you get pages of high quality concept artwork spanning across all of the different time periods from the first Assassin’s Creed to Syndicate, but you also get just as much developer insight into the historical influences on the games design, the mythology of the game’s world, and so so much more.

Title: Border Break Artworks
Author: Sega
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
ISBN-10: 1927925274
ISBN-13: 978-1927925270
Dimensions: 8.2 x 0.5 x 11.6 inches | 20.8 x 1.3 x 29.5 cm
Number of Pages: 176
Price: $31 (Amazon.com) | £36 (Amazon.co.uk) | €44 (Amazon.it) | €36 (Amazon.de) | CDN$40 (Amazon.ca) | €39 (Amazon.es) | €39 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Unfamiliar with the Japanese arcade game series Border Break? Don’t worry I was too up until writing this.  However that shouldn’t stop you for one second from getting this beautiful art book, especially if you’re a fan of mechs in general.  Revel in the pages upon pages of awesome mech designs and you might just be inspired to create some yourself.

Title: Capcom Design Works
Author: Capcom
Publisher: N/A
ISBN-10: 4757704127
ISBN-13: 978-4757704121
Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches | 26 x 21 x 1.8 cm
Number of Pages: 239
Price: $25 (Amazon.com) | £24 (Amazon.co.uk) | €42 (Amazon.it) | CDN$47 (Amazon.ca) | €42 (Amazon.es) | €46 (Amazon.fr)
Description: If you find yourself unsure of whether or not to get this Capcom art book take a moment to consider exactly how much content you will be getting.  Not only will you be getting 200+ pages of beautiful illustrations, but you’ll also be treated to a wide array of art styles to match Capcom’s wide array of wildly different games.  From the dark and brooding tone of Resident Evil to the fun and bright world of Megaman you’ll have hours worth of content to sink your teeth into.

Title: DISGAEArt!!! Disgaea Official Illustration Collection
Author: Nippon Ichi Software, Takehito Harada
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
ISBN-10: 1926778502
ISBN-13: 1926778502
Dimensions: 8.3 x 0.6 x 11.7 inches | 21.1 x 1.5 x 29.7 cm
Number of Pages: 192
Price: $31 (Amazon.com) | £29 (Amazon.co.uk) | €30 (Amazon.it) | €35 (Amazon.de) | CDN$35 (Amazon.ca) | €34 (Amazon.es) | €38 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Takehito Harada’s work on the JRPG series, Disgaea. With this book you get everything  from game covers to promotional art to even some more rare and obscure pieces: a must  have for any fan of Disgaea, or anime/manga-style art!

Title: Dark Souls: Design Works
Author: From Software
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
ISBN-10: 1926778898
ISBN-13: 978-1926778891
Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.6 x 11.9 inches | 21.6 x 1.5 x 30.2 cm
Number of Pages: 128
Price: $36 (Amazon.com) | £34 (Amazon.co.uk) | €33 (Amazon.it) | €35 (Amazon.de) | CDN$48 (Amazon.ca) | €36 (Amazon.es) | €38 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Dark Souls is known as one of the hardest yet most popular games of all time so when an  English version of a critically acclaimed artbook based on the game was released, it was a pretty  big deal. This book is known as Design Works which takes a look at the game’s concept art, along with character and monster designs. Even an exclusive interview with the  game’s creators is included, altogether making this a must-have for Dark Souls fans.

Title: Dawn: The Worlds Of Final Fantasy
Author: Yoshitaka Amano
Publisher: Dark Horse
ISBN-10: 1593078684
ISBN-13: 978-1593078683
Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.6 x 12 inches | 21.6 x 1.5 x 30.5 cm
Number of Pages: 116
Price: $16 (Amazon.com) | £19 (Amazon.co.uk) | €27 (Amazon.it) | €28 (Amazon.de) | CDN$47 (Amazon.ca) | €28 (Amazon.es) | €28 (Amazon.fr)
Description: This book consents of early concept art for the first 4 Final Fantasy games, from Yoshitaka  Amano himself. The whole book is concept art, no in game screenshots. This means you’ll  get to look into the early stages of development for the game (which, you know, is pretty much what this website’s about)!

Title: Half Life 2: Raising the Bar
Author: David Hodgson
Publisher: Prima Games
ISBN-10: 0761543643
ISBN-13: 978-0761543640
Dimensions: 8.9 x 0.9 x 11.1 inches | 22.6 x 2.3 x 28.2 cm
Number of Pages: 288
Price: $84+ (Amazon.com) | £70+ (Amazon.co.uk) | €96+ (Amazon.it) | €96 (Amazon.de) | CDN$130 (Amazon.ca) | €103 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Probably the current price is a bit too high for this 288 pages long artbook, but if you love Half Life and if you can find this one at the right price, you will get a wonderful collection of concept arts, sketches and curiosities on the development of the two games. Featuring images from unused enemies, characters and level designs, even if there’s not a full history on the changes made to the games before their releases, this is still a fascinating trip down the unseen world of Half Life.

Title: Hyrule Historia
Author: Nintendo
Publisher: Dark Horse
ISBN-10: 1616550414
ISBN-13: 978-1616550417
Dimensions: 9.3 x 1.1 x 12.2 inches | 23.5 x 2.8 x 31.1 cm
Number of Pages: 280
Price: $24 (Amazon.com) | £21 (Amazon.co.uk) | €25 (Amazon.it) | €28 (Amazon.de) | CDN$29 (Amazon.ca) | €29 (Amazon.es) | €29 (Amazon.fr)
Description: Pop quiz: what Legend of Zelda game occurs first chronologically, A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time? Don’t know? Didn’t even know the games shared a timeline? These questions and many more can be answered with this book which contains an official timeline and history of Hyrule from the creators themselves along with beautiful concept art, an exclusive manga, and tons more for even the most diehard Zelda fan.

Title: Japanese game graphics
Author: Works Corporation
Publisher: Collins Design
ISBN-10: 0060567724
ISBN-13: 978-0060567729
Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.2 x 0.5 inches | 28.2 x 20.9 x 1.2 cm
Number of Pages: 176
Price: $5 (Amazon.com) | £12 (Amazon.co.uk) | €6 (Amazon.it) | €4 (Amazon.de) | CDN$4 (Amazon.ca) | €15 (Amazon.es)
Description: Japanese Game Graphics will allow fans to go behind the scenes with some of their favourite games to gain insight on their creation. Twenty six games (including Oni Musha 2 and Final Fantasy X2) are covered in meticulous detail each receiving their own individual chapter. Each chapter is fully illustrated and packed full of insightful interviews with those who worked on the games.

Title: Monster Hunter Illustrations 2
Author: Capcom
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
ISBN-10: 192677888X
ISBN-13: 978-1926778884
Dimensions: 8.2 x 1.3 x 11.7 inches | 20.8 x 3.3 x 29.7 cm
Number of Pages: 400
Price: $35 (Amazon.com) | £45 (Amazon.co.uk) | €52 (Amazon.it) | €46 (Amazon.de) | CDN$50 (Amazon.ca) | €40 (Amazon.es) | €40 (Amazon.fr)
Description: For fans of the Monster Hunter series, this book is definitely a must-have. It covers all the third generation of the Monster Hunter games, so you will have a 400-page book covering the arts of Monster Hunter Tri, Monster Hunter 3G, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd.  This book is complete with all the creature designs, characters designs, weapons, armor and many art sketches. It shows details of the drawings and the evolution from the concept to the actual final, colored art of the game’s assets. There are also with the designers and labels explaining the drawings.  Overall, this is a beautiful book for Monster Hunter fans or for gamers who appreciate the artistic process to produce a video game.

Title: Okami Official Complete Works
Author: Capcom
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
ISBN-10: 1897376022
ISBN-13:  

The post Best Video Games Books: Our Top 100+ List! appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

While working on our book about lost video games, we were able to interview many developers who worked on cancelled projects, but we had to cut some of these interviews from the book because of the 480 pages limit. As promised, we are going to publish all the missing articles directly in our website, and the following interview is one of these! During his career Sean Willsey Kord has worked at Paradigm Entertainment on such games as Duck Dodgers, Mission Impossible: Operation Surma, Terminator Redemption, Stuntman Ignition and on the cancelled Snoopy VS the Red Baron (GameCube).

Unseen64: To start this interview, we would like to ask you to introduce yourself to our readers: we’d love to know more about your career in the gaming industry and what you are working on today.

Sean: Definitely and thanks for keeping game developers hard work in the history books of electronic entertainment :) I’m Sean (Willsey) Kord and I worked at Paradigm Entertainment from 1998-2005 as primarily a character and cinematic animator. While there I modeled and animated for Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century on N64. After Duck Dodgers I animated and modeled characters on an unreleased title for GameCube that I will elaborate on later. Next I created in game cinematics for Mission Impossible Operation Surma. After MI, I was lead in game cinematic artist for Terminator Redemption and finally I created some preliminary work for Stuntman Ignition before leaving Paradigm to relocate with my wife in Denver Colorado area. Due to this move I went into an entirely new career path in forensic animation but having a game development background had its advantages when I utilized the Unity 3D engine for real time feedback on a critical case. Currently, I just relocated back to the Texas area with my 6 year old son and wife and excited to start a new career path in my old stomping grounds!

Unseen64: Can you name some of your favourite videogames? Have you been playing anything lately?

Sean: Favorite video games? Wow hard one to narrow down as I have been an avid gamer since the 80s arcade boom till now. For retro arcade, I have much love for Galaga, Spy Hunter, Frontline, Sinistar and Star Wars. For somewhat more recent titles it is Conkers Bad Fur Day on N64( loved the humor and Rare did such an amazing job) and even more recent would be Assassins Creed. As of now I have been obsessed with one game on PC… Mechwarrior Online and mainly cause I have been a fan of the Battletech universe since it was introduced in the 80s.

Unseen64:  You worked for about 7 years at Paradigm Entertainment, while we know a lot about their released games during those years (1998 -2005), unfortunately some of their projects were canned: did you worked on any of these or maybe seen them in motion? Do you remember anything from them? (Pilotwings 64 II, Harrier 2001, Skies, Magik Karts)

Sean: As far as unreleased titles you listed, I had not even recalled Harrier 2001 until you listed this title. I was not a developer on this title but can say that from what I saw it had amazing graphics for an N64 title ( like you display in your images ) and very polished sim controls due to the fact that one of the lead programmers had been an original founder for Paradigm Simulations. As far as Skies, this was another title I was not directly involved in but saw plenty of preliminary gameplay. I remember there being issues with the scale of the environments and characters. Namely the structures had to be so large so the characters could fly and battle and this resulted in characters feeling like small fairies rather than human scale. Still it had such great potential and promise and unfortunately the publisher decided it could not continue development. One title not on your list that I worked on personally was a GameCube game based on Snoopy (Peanuts character ) and his fight with the Red Baron. The basic premise was you would be Snoopy flying his Doghouse in 3rd person and battle multiple enemies in the WWI aerial setting leading to the  final confrontation with the Red Baron. It would also have power ups involving Woodstock in turrets and multiple Woodstocks to enhance your firepower. The game utilized a cartoon shader and we had concepts for enemy planes that would have crazy elements like 10 wings layered on top… think Dick Dasterdly and his Flying Machines cartoons ;)  I have fond memories of this unreleased title due to the people  involved and the passion we all had for the content of the Peanuts universe. It was a very small team as many were back then ( might have been 2000-2001?) and we were prototyping the content and gameplay. Many of these developers on this project have worked on very high profile games since then. My tasks involved modeling Charlie Brown, Woodstock, and Snoopy as well as animations. We were all sad when this project was cancelled early on since we had such amazing chemistry but all enjoyed every minute of our time creating content for this project. I noticed years later a similar game was released on PC called Snoopy and the Red Baron and appeared to have many of the same elements we had planned in our game. I would like to think our early work somehow influenced this future game but you never know ;)

You can see some of the very early gameplay ( I mean very early prototype ) here:

Unseen64: Talking about all the games that you worked on and that were released in your career (Duck Dogers, Mission Impossible, Terminator 3, etc.), was there anything major that had to be cut or changed from the final versions? Is there anything that you wish it would have not changed, even if you were satisfied with the final product?

Sean: Hmmm… Really I don’t remember much other than the usual iterations you do to get the best game play possible. I guess Duck Dodgers had the most change since at first it had many levels in alpha stage that just didn’t make the cut. Very early in development we even had a gag similar to the Wiley Coyote pause in air, pull sign out saying “Help” and falling to the ground with a big poof except Daffy Duck was in the gag instead of Wiley Coyote. Mission Impossible had a difficult time in the early stages for what was the gameplay actually going to be? All action or stealth. In the end we followed the route taken by another well known game that you probably know all too well and made it primarily a stealth game with quick takedowns for action. I do however love the drone camera controls sequence since it has the best polished controls due to the fact that our programmer was experienced in simulation development.

Unseen64:  Is there anything in particular that you learned or that you like to remember from your time at Paradigm Entertainment?

Sean: While game development can be rough at times with long hours and late nights, I wouldn’t take any of it back for the world. Paradigm Entertainment gave me so many great times and friends. I miss them all and its so nice to see all of them succeeding in other game studios or even large VFX studios for movies. It’s interesting to see some of the indie games returning to smaller teams and for me that was where Paradigm shined in its peak. There were times when we had 5 or more projects going on and each project had a dedicated office area separate from the rest. It allowed for great camaraderie and special moments that you don’t feel in 100 man teams. Our teams back then started out at 8 or so and then in full swing hit 20 at the highest point of development. I think we did some amazing work back then and it’s still warms my heart to read reviews or love for our games years and years later.

Unseen64:  As most of the Unseen64 Staff is italian, we just LOVE to eat good food :) What is your favorite food ever? Any secret recipe that you would like to share with us?

Sean: Hah! I’m probably the worse person to ask this question as I am not a good cook and tend to eat more unhealthy than healthy but my favorite food is Tex Mex meals (Texas and Mexican food combined). I love tacos and enchiladas and fresh flour tortillas with cheese queso dip ;). Of course I love Italian food just as much and can’t resist spaghetti or pizza any day of the week :)

Unseen64:  Well, that was the last question, thanks again for your time!  

The post Unseen Interview: Sean Kord (Paradigm Entertainment) appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

While working on our book about lost video games, we were able to interview many developers who worked on cancelled projects, but we had to cut some of these interviews from the book because of the 480 pages limit. As promised, we are going to publish all the missing articles directly in our website, and the following interview is one of these! During his career Massimiliano Di Monda has worked at Pixelstorm and Raylight Studios on such lost games as Monster Truck Madness (Microsoft), Dukes of Hazzard (Ubisoft) and Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid tech demos for GBA.

Unseen64: To start this interview, we would like to ask you to introduce yourself to our readers: we’d love to know more about your career in the gaming industry and what you are working on today.

Massimiliano: I started working in the world of video games through a friend who worked at Namco in London, we exchanged technical advice on some video games, at some point he told me that there was a team in Naples that was working on a new project and asked me if I wanted to participate. From there, I began this adventure.

So I started to work on video games in 1996 from zero in the QA department, and after years of experience I got into designing and producing video games. In these 19 years, I worked at Raylight Studios on about 30 products for a variety of platforms, ranging from Sony PlayStation and Nintendo GameBoy Color, PC, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and mobile platforms. In 2002 / 2003, I worked at Wing Commander Prophecy for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, the game was named runner up (2nd place) at E3 2002 in Los Angeles in the best technological excellence category (first place was Monkey Ball). Most recently I worked on games such as the much-acclaimed Sniper Elite for Nintendo Wii, published by Reef Entertainment; My Little Baby (1st prize winner Samsung Bada contest in 2010, Nokia / Microsoft App Campus selected project in 2012) for various platforms including Android and iOS; I also worked on a number of ports and bundles titles for Nintendo 3DS. At the moment we are working on PS4 games, Xbox One, mobile, VR and some original IP which I still can not name.

Unseen64: What are some of your favorite video games? Have you been playing anything lately?

Massimiliano: My favorite video games are classic shoot’em ups, arcade driving games and laser disc games. I could mention Radiant Silvergun, Thunderforce, Sega Rally, Ridge Racer, Wipe Out, Dragon’s Lair, etc. I am currently exclusively playing Splatoon and we formed an official e-sports team and a very active Facebook community!

Unseen64: Did you know Unseen64 before this interview? What do you think of our “mission” to create an online archive to remember those video games we’ll never play?

Massimiliano: I knew Unseen64 because long ago you wrote an article about our Resident Evil 3D tech demo for Gameboy Advance. I like your initiative, maybe today with the huge amount of games in development and often never completed you will have a lot of work to do. :) I would limit the preservation to titles of some importance or to games made by teams of a certain level.

Unseen64: In the early 2000s the name of Raylight Studios and your Blueroses Engine became popular all around the world thanks to some awesome 3D tech demos you created for the GameBoy Advance, which showed a 3D graphic level then considered impossible for a handheld console focused on 2D. Was it difficult to develop that kind of 3D graphical engine for the GBA and what kind of feedback did you have from websites, magazines, gamers and international publishers? Do you think it could have been possible to push the GBA hardware even more for 3D or had you used all of its potential?

Massimiliano: In fact we were the first to launch a 3D engine on the Gameboy Advance, I don’t know if it was hard or not (as I was not the main developer), but one day when I entered the office they put a GBA in my hands and on the screen there was a textured polygon… from there we prepared those tech demos that gathered interest from companies like EA, Namco, Midway and Activision and that allowed us to work on titles such as Wing Commander Prophecy, Street Racing Syndicate, Spider-man, Ozzy & Drix. So let’s say that the success was clear. :)

We tapped the GBA for all it could offer, in Street Racing Syndicate we had also implemented texture correction to avoid that annoying texture distortion, but we were really at the limits of its power.

Unseen64: Among your GBA tech demos, one of the most impressive was a full recreation of the first few sections of Resident Evil 2. Did you have any contact with Capcom to develop a port or a new chapter of Resident Evil for the GBA?

Massimiliano: At the time we were invited to the Capcom offices in the UK. We discussed the project at various levels, but then Capcom Japan vetoed it because of the downturn of the GBA, adding the fact that a mature game was not suitable for that type of console.

Unseen64: Another of the most famous tech demos for your Blueroses Engine was the recreation of the Metal Gear Solid Hangar in real time on the GBA: did you have any contact with Konami to develop some games with them, maybe even a Metal Gear for GameBoy Advance?

Massimiliano: No, never.

Unseen64: The Blueroses Engine was then used to develop other games published for GBA, including Wing Commander Prophecy, which initially began as your own new IP titled “Star Giants”. How did the collaboration start and how did it become a new chapter in the Wing Commander series?  Was anything changed compared to the original concept?

Massimiliano: During a meeting in London with CEO of Destination Software Stuart Kaye (now deceased, a veteran in the video game industry), we had shown our demo of Star Giant, which technically impressed their executive producer. Knowing that Destination was fresh from signing a deal with EA for the distribution of some EA titles, I suggested to them that the game could easily be transformed into a Wing Commander game. With just the time of a phone call to EA by Stuart, and we had the license to develop Prophecy.

Unseen64: Over time you moved on to develop for PSP, what do you think of the console and how Sony handled its marketing at the time? Were there some concerns in developing for a much more powerful handheld than the Nintendo DS, but with higher costs, a smaller user base and a high level of piracy?

Massimiliano: In fact, fears regarding the PSP were well founded, we developed a single title “Hot Wheels Ultimate Racing” for the Sony handled, with an almost ridiculous budget compared to our other productions, because the PSP was burdened by many unknowns.

Unseen64: Which difficulties did an Italian game development studio find in a market lead by English, American and Japanese studios?

Massimiliano: There are still many prejudices about Italian developers and the fact that the development of video games in Italy is not yet as mature as in other countries. The same Eastern Europe exceeded us with AAA productions that currently fail to take root in Italy, a bit for lack of active people in the Italian industry, a bit because in the markets you mentioned the development of videogames has been consolidated for years and there are highly respected studios.

However, for what concerns us at Raylight, we have worked and / or are working with Japanese, British and American publishers, with moderate success.

Unseen64: Did you work on other lost games that have never been published, that you can talk about?

Massimiliano: We made several game demos that for various reasons were not developed further and / or have been assigned to other teams, such as Monster Truck Madness (Microsoft), Dukes of Hazzard (Ubisoft) and many more.

Unseen64: On the topic of other games you have worked on over the years and that have been published, was there some interesting element that had been changed or removed before the final version?

Massimiliano: In the PSP version of Hot Wheels we planned an aerial combo trick system, but due to time constraints we had to remove it from the project. It could have been a good feature to give more content to the product, but the time limit dictated by marketing and money almost always have priority on creativity and development.

Unseen64: How do you see the gaming market today, where on one hand there are enormous possibilities to create international success thanks to digital distribution, games for smartphones and the new wave of indie titles on Steam, and on the other hand the competition is higher than ever and it is increasingly difficult to attract the attention of players, now dispersed among countless devices and with an infinite backlog of games still to begin?

Massimiliano: Platforms such as Steam or smartphones and tools such as Unity, opened the world of development to many independent teams… if on one hand it may seems positive with the release of such titles as Limbo, Shovel Knight, Monument Valley, etc. on the other hand this new market has created a huge amount of junk games that subtract visibility to the best ones, creating the paradox that to emerge now you have to spend more on marketing and in the development of the product. I’m a traditionalist, I want my console, with my disc or cartridge, and the manual!

Unseen64: Do you think virtual reality systems can be good for any kind of game, or just for specific genres?

Massimiliano: I think that virtual reality systems are optimized for experiences developed specifically for VR, I am not convinced that classic videogames like Call of Duty or titles with very fast action can work. I think that other fields (such as movies, architecture or culture) will be the ones to drive virtual reality rather than video games, at least in its first phase.

Unseen64: VR is a format that has already been tried in the past with dedicated consoles (Hasbro, Nolan Bushnell, etc) and as an add-on to existing hardware (PC, Sega MegaDrive, Atari Jaguar, etc), both with little success. Today, technology is definitely more fit for the purpose, but do you think that developers have managed to learn from past mistakes? How to get users to buy a VR system with such an high cost, when the only way to appreciate it is to try it yourself?

Massimiliano: This is a question that only the market can answer! There are many problems to be evaluated in addition to the cost of the display, also the cost of a high-performance PC or console, and the space needed to play / interact. It will not be easy, probably as I said before initially VR will be used more for business purposes than anything else. Compared to the past, technology has made leaps and bounds and today it can offer a very high level of realism and involvement, but it is the market that has the last word.

Unseen64: With different types of VR (Oculus, Vive, PS VR, etc.) is there a risk to see the market divided, making it more difficult to reach a wider circulation of the new technology and to find a proper development standard that could make the most out of this technology?

Massimiliano: I think it will be a tough fight, there are many factors that can determine the failure or victory of one or more technologies against the others. Their quality, the price, the games and many more things including the fact that VR needs some space to be played, space that may not be available in every house.

Unseen64: As most of the Unseen64 Staff is also Italian, we just LOVE to eat good food. :) What is your favorite food ever? Any secret recipe that you would like to share with us?

Massimiliano: Being Neapolitan, can I say pizza? I like to cook, but I don’t have secret recipes, I only read and prepare what I find on the internet. :)

Unseen64: Well, that was the last question, thanks again for your time Massimiliano!  

The post Unseen Interview: Massimiliano Di Monda (Raylight Studios) appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

While working on our book about lost video games, we were able to interview many developers who worked on cancelled projects, but we had to cut some of these interviews from the book because of the 480 pages limit. As promised, we are going to publish all the missing articles directly in our website, and the following interview is one of these!  During his career Domenico Barba has worked at the Italian gaming studio NAPS Team on such lost games as Green Beret / Rush’n Attack (GBC), Dark Night and many lost chapters in the Gekido series.

Unseen64: To start this interview, we would like to ask you to introduce yourself to our readers: we’d love to know more about your career in the gaming industry and what you are working on today.

Domenico: Is it possible to tell 20 years of history in less than 20 lines? :) The passion for the world of video games has brought Naps Team together. We did not know each other before, I was looking for a graphic designer for a fighting game (a horrible thing made on Amiga) and different people suggested me someone called Fabio Capone who had fun doing animations and characters with Deluxe Paint. :) Well we were able to meet, under a newsstand, exchanging two diskettes, without cops in hot pursuit. :) Today we are still here and we have the same passion of that time, even after almost 45 games made and many more to make. At the moment we are finishing working on Iron Wings, a huge project for an arcade flight game set in the second World War.

Unseen64:What are some of your favorite video games? Have you been playing anything lately?

Domenico: In the last year, unfortunately no, I’m fully focused on the development of Iron Wings, but I always keep my eyes on many new games and I’m very impressed, both by AAA masterpieces and clever indie productions.

Unseen64: Did you know Unseen64 before this interview? What do you think of our “mission” to create an online archive to remember those video games we’ll never play?

Domenico: To tell the truth yes, but without being able to follow your updates, the mission is praiseworthy and it is great that there can be a memory of unexpressed creativity, with really beautiful games that sometimes fail to see the light of day for the most different reasons. I’d love to sabotage your mission and release Gekido: The Dark Angel one day :)

Unseen64: Which difficulties did an Italian game development studio find in a market lead by English, American and Japanese studios? Are there more opportunities today thanks to digital distribution on PC and Smartphone?

Domenico: There are huge difficulties, but they are mainly related to the Italian territory and absurd management difficulties, instead digital distribution is undeniably a great opportunity.

Unseen64: Gekido is one of your most popular series, of which the first episode was released in 2000 for Playstation: do you remember how development started, how long did it take to complete, and if the final game is what you originally had in mind or if you had to cut something?

Domenico: Gekido had a somewhat troubled genesis, it was born from the skeleton of a 2D fighting game for PC, then turned into a 2.5D one and finally became fully 3D. A lot was cut, but also a lot was added, such as the “arena mode”, and different gameplay modes were conceived in the wake of enthusiasm that the game was receiving in the internal circuit of testers, publishers, etc.

Unseen64: How did you manage to involve important names like Fatboy Slim for the music and Marvel comic artist Joe Mad for the character design in the development of the first Gekido?

Domenico: Everything was thanks to Travis Ryan of Gremlin and Daniel Matray of Infogrames (Atari), they were able to find the best artistic talents that could have been greatly related to Gekido.

Unseen64: Besides the cancelled Gekido: The Dark Angel for PSP (of which there will be a dedicated article in this book) two other episodes of Gekido were in development but never released: Gekido for GameBoy Color and Gekido for N-Gage. What happened to these games and how much was done before the cancellation?

Domenico: More or less the same unfortunate “misalignment of planets” that happened with Dark Angel, it is not uncommon to come across sudden changes in the market or in adverse and catastrophic predictions of analysts that suggest to not continue working on a game, and you are the best witnesses and guardians of these unrealized projects, right? :)

Unseen64: Over the years there have been many different rumors about a new episode of Gekido in development, is there any chance to see this series again in the future?

Domenico: Absolutely yes! :)

Unseen64: Shadow Fighter is another of your most beloved games, Italian and foreign magazines published great reviews for it, CU Amiga gave it 93%, Amiga Computing 91% and so on: how did you feel at the time to receive all these positive comments on one of your first games and did the reviews help to bring a good number of sales?

Domenico: Shadow Fighter was a huge success in sales, luckily for our publisher Gremlin. It was a success beyond every expectations, we were just enthusiasts who certainly did not have a professional approach to the gaming industry at the time.

Unseen64: Another interesting lost game once in development at Naps Team was Dark Night for GBA. Graphically it was truly spectacular considering the console: do you remember how the gameplay was meant to be and why you had to stop working on the project?

Domenico: When Dark Night was canned it was still in beta, and it’s gameplay was similar to Zelda. :) The reasons why it was cancelled is the same unfortunate “misalignment of planets” that i told before, we propose to change our spaceship the next year. :)

Unseen64: Have you worked on other games that have never been published, of which you can speak?

Domenico: Not that I remember, although after several years and difficulties, we always managed to revive ideas that we thought were good, those for which we can still enjoy ourselves as players, and we will continue to do so.

Unseen64: Have you ever worked on some games for Atari Jaguar / Lynx / Panther or the legendary Konix Multisystem?

Domenico: No.

Unseen64: As most of the Unseen64 Staff is also italian, we just LOVE to eat good food. :) What is your favorite food ever? Any secret recipe that you would like to share with us?

Domenico: Unusual question, but tasty. :) Well, being a Sicilian I do not really know where to start, for sure I’m more a good food lover than a good cook, in a ratio of 100 to 1. I would say I love everything that contains eggplant in the recipe, from “pasta alla norma”, eggplant “parmigiana” … i’ll stop here, following on Dark Knight, where there was a huge purple boss named “Milinchan”. :)

Unseen64: Well, that was the last question, thanks again for your time Domenico!  

The post Unseen Interview: Domenico Barba (Naps Team) appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

While working on our book about lost video games, we were able to interview many developers who worked on cancelled projects, but we had to cut some of these interviews from the book because of the 480 pages limit. As promised, we are going to publish all the missing articles directly in our website, and the following interview is one of these! During his career Julian (Jules) Holtom has worked at Imagitec Design, Ocean Software and Team17 on such lost games as HMS Carnage (PC), Worms Battle Rally (PS2, Xbox, GameCube) and many more.

Unseen64: To start this interview, we would like to ask you to introduce yourself to our readers: we’d love to know more about your career in the gaming industry and what you are working on today.

Jules: I spent almost 23 years working in video games, the first machines I worked on were Spectrums, building sprites from character graphics. At the time there were no off-the-shelf art packages to speak of; the few tools that we did have were coded from scratch by the in-house programmers.

Of course as with all things technological this changed, and as an artist you had to be fleet of foot to keep up with the latest tools being developed, to help us to deliver to the ever changing capabilities of target platforms. By the time I quit the industry I was using the same 3D software and rendering tools that the film industry uses to create their cinematic magic.

I’ve been out of the industry now for 7 years, and in that time I’ve turned my hand to photography, design and building websites. I certainly miss the camaraderie of old colleagues, but definitely not the “crunch”.

Unseen64: Which are some of your favourite videogames? Have you been playing anything lately?

Jules: I’ve always had a soft spot for sprawling RPG’s with a few hundred hours of gameplay, such as Skyrim. I also love fps “twitch” games like Battlefield 4 or more recently The Division.

Unseen64: Can you shed any unique / personal  light on Daemonsgate by Imagec, which seems was planned as a trilogy (Dorovan’s Key, Nomads and Homecoming)? Key marketing aspect was that actions in 1 game would have implications in sequels, so kill an NPC in the 1st game i.e. ‘Barry pig-squealer’ and his family would come looking for revenge in the 2nd game (a concept years ahead of its time).

Jules: This game was by any standards, ambitious in scope and scale. We were trying to create a far more involved game world than any equivalent game had to offer at the time, and I expect the mechanics of which have only just been truly realised in these type of games in the last 5 years. The hardware, architecture, and coding capabilities coupled with time constraints meant it simply wasn’t possible to build the game as intended at that time, and I think as with all games, there were some significant compromises from the original brief in order to get the game finished.

Unseen64: What can you tell us about Prophecy: Viking Child? UK Press had claimed that Imagitec had originally planned this as a trilogy of games, was there any truth in this?

Jules: I only helped Blizz (the lead artist) a couple of times on that project, recolouring sprites if memory serves. As it wasn’t my project, I didn’t pay too much attention to what it was meant to be.

Unseen64: Do you have anything you could tell us on canned Imagitec games like Space Junk (which was a WIP on everything from the sega Mega CD, Atari Falcon and then Jaguar CD) or any other lost Imagitec projects that never seen the light of day?

Jules: Imagitec often had games “using as yet unseen technological advancements” in development, it sounded good and helped Martin Hooley, the studio owner, raise funding to keep the studio going. In truth, I have no idea if any of these titles were ever really meant to be completed.

Unseen64: In mid / late ‘90 Ocean Software wanted to develop some really groundbreaking games, they rebranded their internal development department as “Tribe”, invested a lot of money, hired a lot of new talent and asked everyone to come up with amazing original concepts huge enough to fill a CD-ROM (!). One of these concepts was the stunning looking HMS Carnage – a 3D flight sim, set on Mars, in an alternative, Steampunk future. We have read memories from Nigel Kershaw about his involvement on HS Carnage but we’d love to hear your side of the story: how was to work on such an ambitious project and do you think it could have achieved what was planned if only the team had more time?

Jules: Nigel and I had worked together for some years both at Imagitec (which became Dreamweavers, then Runecraft), and at Ocean; he was the designer behind Daemonsgate and Space Junk. Not afraid of taking a brief and creating a game of “epic proportions” from it, he was the perfect fit to drive HMS Carnage. I was the lead artist heading up the 3d team, and at the time, we really were treading water, using hardware and software than no one had any experience of, including the coding team that were getting to grips with real 3D.

Unseen64: What did you work on while at Ocean before HMS Carnage? At the time they were also working on Silver (released in 1999) and on a point ‘n click adventure with Hanna-Barbera characters, called “Zoiks” that was later cancelled. Any other lost games or pitches for unrealized ambitious projects that you remember from those years?

Jules: Jurassic Park, but couldn’t tell you what console it was for. I also helped render some FMV sequences for out of house dev teams. I believe one game was called Central Intelligence, the other was one of the flight sims that came from DID.

Unseen64: Long shot, but whilst at Ocean, we’re you aware if Jaguar proposals for games like Water World, TFX and Robocop ever getting past proposal stage? They often pop up on YouTube videos as lost Jaguar games, but unlike Toki Goes Apeshit (which we have actual footage of) there’s so far seemingly nothing to suggest they were ever started and thus aren’t true lost games..

Jules: Unfortunately I cannot say. When you are in a team, you usually only focus on the task before you and pay little heed to projects elsewhere. You might be better of speaking to a producer of that time, who had a top down view of everything that was in development and what happened to it.

Unseen64: You worked for more than 9 years at Team17 on many popular games, but unfortunately a few of those were never released. One of them was Worms Battle Rally: what do you remember about this project? How was the gameplay like and why was it canned?

Jules: The Worms franchise has often been shoehorned into other successful game genres, trying to piggyback off of their success to eek out more money from fans loyal to the original game. Worms Battle Rally was no exception, essentially aping Mario Kart. Unfortunately the team bought together to work on it, had little experience of building driving games. That began to tell after a while when the game simply wasn’t living up to expectations, both internally and when compared to games already out there. The lack of confidence to deliver meant the plug was pulled.

Unseen64: Do you remember other cancelled games in development or pitched at Team17 during those years? If so, can you share some details about what they could have been?

Jules: I expect there will be quite a few, but I can’t remember them, sorry.

Unseen64: Working on videogames is often tough and gruelling work, but every development team has both one catastrophic and one funny story (or at least bizarre). Do you remember any such stories from your experience in so many different gaming studios?

Jules: Too many to mention, particularly from the early days of game dev, which were let’s say… a little like the Wild West frontier of old. Rules were far and few between. However a few do stand out; Gaffa taping a programmer to a chair on his birthday then handcuffing them to the back of a car and towing them at speed around the company carpark. The following year we handcuffed the same guy to the drainpipe outside the office and deluged him in buckets of water… his birthday was in the middle of winter.

Another chap we worked with used to get on the wrong side of many of us, one day it was decided we’d mete out a collective punishment and covered his entire car in shaving foam and disposable razors. The man in question was notoriously short-fused, and we knew full well he’d hit the roof upon seeing his car, but I think the cherry on top the pushed him over the edge was the word “cock” on his reg plate.

Unseen64: That was the last question, thanks a lot for your time Jules! 

The post Unseen Interview: Julian Holtom (Imagitec, Ocean, Team17) appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.