Trivia Browser
subdirectory_arrow_right Sonic Riders (Game)
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A version of Sonic Riders was also being developed for the Game Boy Advance, but SEGA wanted to make the game "more 3D", resulting in the GBA version being scrapped entirely.
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In Volume 5 of his Famitsu column "Toby's Secret Base", creator and director Toby Fox revealed that Ralsei's name came from a period in elementary school where he and his brothers constantly experimented with RPG Maker, having long had a shared interest in game development. Fox's oldest brother spent years working on a game called New Genesis, which featured a protagonist named Ralse; Fox simply appended an "i" to the name when incorporating it into Deltarune years later.
In the same column, Fox stated that the prolonged development of New Genesis discouraged him from making games for a long time. When he finally returned to the field in his teenage years, he sought to temper his expectations from the outset by making smaller-scale titles and preemptively planning out his approach to development to avoid biting off more than he could chew.
In the same column, Fox stated that the prolonged development of New Genesis discouraged him from making games for a long time. When he finally returned to the field in his teenage years, he sought to temper his expectations from the outset by making smaller-scale titles and preemptively planning out his approach to development to avoid biting off more than he could chew.
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Concept art for the 2001 build of the cancelled Foodfight! game developed by Midway Games West was released on artist Jason Leong's website, showing a set of character concepts and game scenarios with various fictional and real-life product mascots. The character concepts shown include:• The red, yellow, and blue M&M's carrying vitamin supplement boxes with muscular hammer-wielding arms coming out of them.
• The Keebler Elves firing bows and arrows with flaming Tootsie Pops.
• A team-up of the Green Giant, a muscular version of Poppin' Fresh the Pillsbury Doughboy, and a jacket-wearing Kool-Aid Man.
• Mr. Clean commanding an army of Scrubbing Bubbles.
• Cap'n Crunch shooting a bazooka made out of a Pringles can.
• Hawaiian Punch's mascot Punchy punching a soup can made by Brand X, a fictional brand from the movie.
The game scenarios seem to feature various mini-games among main game missions, including:
• An early human version of Dex Dogtective swinging with a grappling hook, finding shortcuts between products, being launched from Hamburger Helper's mascot Lefty in platforming sections.
• What appears to be a mini-game where Dex and a Brand X mascot would bump into one another on shopping trolleys.
• A mission where fictional mascot Daredevil Dan flies above the supermarket in his plane.
• The Green Giant rolling over tiny Brand X bots with either a barrel or a mango bowling ball. This mini-game has two pieces of concept art, one that presents it as akin to the game Tempest and another that shows the Green Giant stepping on robots.
• Dex commanding the M&M's in a shooting mini-game.
• A platforming mini-game with Cap'n Crunch jumping off of barrels.
• A mini-game where fictional mascot Polar Penguin must destroy pillars on the ice.
• A cow-herding mini-game featuring Twinkie the Kid.
• A food-fighting mini-game, like the climax of the movie, specifically themed around Chef Boyardee.
• A mini-game where Dex throws Lucky Charms at Brand X drones.
Of the licensed characters featured in this concept art, only Mr. Clean, Punchy, Chef Boyardee, and Twinkie the Kid would appear in the film when it eventually released in 2012.
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In December 2020, Steel Wool Studios announced that the "Curse of Dreadbear" DLC originally released for the game in 2019 would be ported to Xbox consoles and Nintendo Switch. While the DLC would be released for the Switch version of the game on September 28, 2021, development on the Xbox version appears to have been abandoned as there have been no updates on it since the initial announcement in 2020.
Port announcement:
https://twitter.com/SteelWoolStudio/status/1339038204125536256
Nintendo eShop page with release date:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/five-nights-at-freddys-help-wanted-curse-of-dreadbear-70050000023397-switch/
https://twitter.com/SteelWoolStudio/status/1339038204125536256
Nintendo eShop page with release date:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/five-nights-at-freddys-help-wanted-curse-of-dreadbear-70050000023397-switch/
Company: Kane Carter
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Kane Carter is known for being the creator of the Five Nights at Freddy's fangame series "POPGOES", and all the titles that he has made or conceptualized since 2015 have has been part of that series. However, in August 2023, Carter revealed that he, his girlfriend (known as "Turntail" online), and fellow developer Emil Macko worked on a scrapped concept for an original Unreal Engine horror game around 2017-2018, named "Floodbound." Carter described the basic story as:"You play as a murderer, trapped in a rainy purgatory parallel world, after almost dying in a car crash that happened while you were fleeing the scene of your third victim. [...] It's home to a single, bizarre villain named Drain Face - a creature who was once human, turned into a mutated monster that survives only off of the rainwater that falls in the rainy parallel world. [...]"
Carter also stated that the goal of the game was to travel through three large areas while dodging Drain Face.
The original programmer was going to be Nikson, known for his work on The Joy of Creation fangame series and Glowstick Entertainment games. Nikson replied to the post offering to continue work on the game if Carter ever decided to go back to it, saying that he loved the idea and the enemy design proposed for it.
Floodbound reveal:
https://twitter.com/kanethecarter/status/1689427287425302530
Full Floodbound development summary:
https://twitter.com/kanethecarter/status/1690527136119984129
Nikson programmer reveal:
https://twitter.com/kanethecarter/status/1689450445519941634
Nikson reply:
https://twitter.com/nikson_dev/status/1690635505363296257
https://twitter.com/kanethecarter/status/1689427287425302530
Full Floodbound development summary:
https://twitter.com/kanethecarter/status/1690527136119984129
Nikson programmer reveal:
https://twitter.com/kanethecarter/status/1689450445519941634
Nikson reply:
https://twitter.com/nikson_dev/status/1690635505363296257
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Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance was originally considered to have a multi-platform release, including a release on the PlayStation 3. According to Nippon Ichi Software president Sohei Niikawa, this was scrapped as this would have made the PS3 version the standard version of the game, whereas the development team wanted to "offer something that could only be done with the PlayStation 4.”
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A port of Bubsy 2 to the Sega Game Gear was planned and seemingly completed, but never released. In the surfaced screenshots of the game's prototype, it appears to be a fully colorized version of the Game Boy version (playing the Game Boy version of Bubsy 2 on a Super Game Boy will give the graphics a slight red tint).
Company: Cyberdreams
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When the company first started, their original first project was intended to be a side-scrolling action game for PC called "Evolver". However, the game was never actually finished, likely due to the company having very few staff members at the time (the company itself only consisted of president Patrick Ketchum, programmer John Krause, game designer Mike Dawson, and graphic artist Joby Otero).
Company: Cyberdreams
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"Reverence" was one of the last announced projects by Cyberdreams, but never made it past the Alpha phase before the company's closure. The game saw the player being chosen by the gods themselves to help determine the future of the human race, whom the gods believed to have grown too apathetic and unjust to live. It was intended to be a first-person shooter game, with the player wielding a variety of guns and spells as they traveled through four different realms to decide the fate of humanity. Each realm was modelled after a real life mythological god, those being Osiris (Egyptian god of the underworld), Kokyangwuti (Hopi goddess of life), Freyja (Norse goddess of love), and Manjursi (Tibetan god of wisdom). While the game itself was cancelled, a playable prototype was leaked in 2015.
subdirectory_arrow_right Cyberdreams (Company)
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During the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, Cyberdreams announced "Hunters of Ralk", a role-playing game designed by Gary Gygax, the co-creator of "Dungeons & Dragons". Not much is known about the game, other than that it was meant to be the start of a series and would have featured 3D combat in a first-person perspective and texture-mapped graphics. It was slated for Fall of that year for Windows platforms, but was never released.
subdirectory_arrow_right Cyberdreams (Company)
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"The Incredible Shrinking Character" was a cancelled action adventure game to be developed by Go-Go Interactive Studios and published by Cyberdreams for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and PC. Set in the year 1959, players would have assumed the role of a private investigator, hired to find Julie Caldwell (the daughter of a wealthy industrial family) after she had disappeared while visiting the castle of Dr. Warren Franklin. When the player arrives, however, the doctor springs a trap on them that causes them to start gradually shrinking. Thus, the player must not only save Julie (who is implied to be trapped in the castle's dungeon, due to the sound of a female screaming), but also find an antidote to their shrinking as they contend with otherwise harmless creatures (i.e. the doctor's house cat) that become more dangerous the smaller they get. The game would have included at least ten levels, with the player being smaller in each one, and would have included several size puzzles. The exact reason why the game was cancelled is unknown, though may have been in part due to Cyberdreams going defunct in 1997.
Franchise: Killer Instinct
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On the 19th of February 2024, designer Kevin Baylis revealed a pitch he made for Killer Instinct 3 for the Nintendo 64. It was meant to be a prequel featuring younger versions of the characters, where players could hone the characters' moves, then gaining more before moving on to "the next chapters of their lives". The game didn't make past the concept phase because the people at Rare thought that "the fighting game ‘fad’ was over".
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When Stellar Blade was first announced as "Project Eve", it was stated to be coming to the PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. However, during the September 2021 PlayStation Showcase, it was announced that the game would instead be exclusive to the PlayStation 5, after Sony Interactive Entertainment had agreed to publish the game.
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The cancelled Atari Jaguar game Tiny Toon Adventures: Plucky Duck in Hollywood Hijinks ran into trouble with its art direction. It originally used photorealistic backgrounds, uncharacteristic of the cartoon and described by a developer as "build and[sic] engine and insert your favorite licensed character here." Despite a complete reset being done to the game's art direction following this iteration, the art did not live up to Warner Bros.' standards for how the Tiny Toon characters and world should look, lacking color and brightness. After Warner Bros. provided model sheets with specific instructions for drawing the characters, the development team instead switched to taking photos of the TV show and converting those into sprites, which caused issues as the sprites would come out corrupted. Atari ultimately concluded that no artist at Telegames was able to create proper Tiny Toons art, requiring art duties to be swapped out to Digital Delirium, which also failed to deliver Warner Brothers-quality animation, which caused the game's development to start implementing pencil tests into their animation process, which slowed down the game's development significantly. Eventually, all of the art for the first 2 worlds was finished, however Telegames stated they did not need the art at that point, with the art (and its respective levels) not being implemented over a year later. Telegames laid out an offer where they would only release a milestone document if a fully laid-out stage map could be provided, something the developer who released this story believed was a stalling tactic, as they already had the art and mockup stage layouts. Shortly after this, the artist assigned to complete the level layouts was laid off, requiring Digital Delirium to be brought in-house, and some music was made for the game that was completely unfit for the source material.
subdirectory_arrow_right Next Level Games (Company)
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In 2011, Next Level Games began work on a game called "Clockwerk", that never made it to the prototype stage before its cancellation. The game was about a pair of elderly Hausmeisters named Otto and Herman, who take care of "The World Clock", a magical clock tower that governs the flow of time throughout the universe. On the day before their retirement, however, a group of gremlins attack and dismantle the clock tower's innards, forcing the grumpy pair to defeat the invaders and fix the inner workings before they can finally retire. Supposedly, it was pitched to multiple companies (including Sega and Nintendo), but was ultimately cancelled when the company they had partnered with felt that the gameplay was too similar to another game they were publishing.
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Ghostbusters is a modified version of an unreleased game called Car Wars. According to the game's developer David Crane in a 2010 interview, Car Wars was "a game about buying cars, tricking them out, and dueling them against other cars around a fictional city." After one month of development, Activision co-founder Gary Kitchen called and met with him to discuss making a game based on the then-upcoming Ghostbusters film to release on the same day as the film, and Crane immediately devised a way to change Car Wars into a Ghostbusters game with only minor changes and additions.
subdirectory_arrow_right Poncotsu Roman Daikatsugeki Bumpy Trot 2 (Game), Steambot Chronicles (Game), Irem Software Engineering Co. (Company), Granzella (Company), Zettai Zetsumei Toshi (Collection)
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In the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Irem Software Engineering was forced to cancel the majority of its video game projects, most notably Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories and a sequel to Steambot Chronicles titled "Poncotsu Roman Daikatsugeki Bumpy Trot 2". They then refocused their resources into the slot-machine and pachinko industry, which they were initially a part of prior to becoming a video game company. This lead numerous Irem designers (including producer Kazuma Kujo) to form a new company called Granzella to continue creating video games: notably, they acquired the IP rights to the Disaster Report series and revived Disaster Report 4. Additionally, while no longer involved in the development or release of new games, Irem is still involved in the games industry via licensing their IPs to other companies.
Irem cancellations and Granzella formation:
https://web.archive.org/web/20151118092116/http://www.1up.com/features/kazuma-kujo-interview-keeping-irem
Granzella acquires Disaster Report:
http://gematsu.com/2014/12/granzella-acquires-disaster-report-copyright-latest-entry-planned-fall-2015
Disaster Report 4 revival:
http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/28/9062733/disaster-report-new-game
Irem continued involvement:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/arcade-archives-image-fight-switch/
https://www.konami.com/games/pcemini/lineup/jp/en/
https://web.archive.org/web/20151118092116/http://www.1up.com/features/kazuma-kujo-interview-keeping-irem
Granzella acquires Disaster Report:
http://gematsu.com/2014/12/granzella-acquires-disaster-report-copyright-latest-entry-planned-fall-2015
Disaster Report 4 revival:
http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/28/9062733/disaster-report-new-game
Irem continued involvement:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/arcade-archives-image-fight-switch/
https://www.konami.com/games/pcemini/lineup/jp/en/
subdirectory_arrow_right The Last of Us (Franchise)
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At E3 2018, it was initially confirmed that The Last of Us Part II would feature a multiplayer mode, following the Factions online multiplayer mode featured in The Last of Us that received more uniformly positive praise from fans and critics compared to the main game. However, in September 2019, the same month the PlayStation 3 servers for the original Factions mode were shut down, it was revealed that Part II would solely focus on a single-player narrative, and that development on the multiplayer mode had been spun-off from the main game to continue work separately. Throughout 2020 and 2021, Naughty Dog increased job openings related to the multiplayer mode's development and continued seeking out additional staff to work on it, implying that it had increased in scope to a full game.At Summer Game Fest 2022, Neil Druckmann showed off the game's first piece of concept art and confirmed that they were working on it as its own game, revealing that the team's ambitious scope had caused it to be "as big" as the single-player modes. The game would feature its own storyline that would be told in a unique way compared to the previous two games, take place in a new location in the United States (presumably San Francisco based on the art featuring the South of Market neighborhood and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge), and feature brand new characters.
The development of the game, which was later revealed in 2023 to be named "The Last of Us Online", was led by co-game directors Anthony Newman and Vinit Agarwal, and narrative lead Joseph Pettinati. Starting with the Summer Game Fest appearance, Druckmann reiterated that more details on the game would be revealed in 2023, and shared a second piece of concept art in January of that year.
In May, it was revealed in a Bloomberg article that Sony had scaled back development on the game and moved many of its developers to other projects, with Naughty Dog putting out their own statement on Twitter shortly after the article's release which revealed that they "realized what's best for the game is to give it more time." As a result of Sony's more recent heavy investments into "games as a service" (GaaS) products in an attempt to centralize control over and make more money on its games after release, they requested Bungie, a studio which Sony had recently acquired in July 2022, to re-evaluate the game. Bungie questioned its ability to maintain player engagement for long periods of time, which was ultimately what caused Sony to intervene.
According to Naughty Dog in a December 2023 blog post, the entire time since the multiplayer mode was first being worked on for The Last of Us Part II in 2018, The Last of Us Online had still been in pre-production, with the multiplayer developers' vision changing and taking time to form into something they were more satisfied with. With Sony's GaaS investments affecting the game, if they wanted to put the game into full production, they would need to take all of their resources away from the single-player games they had become known for and switch to a fully live service model with the ability to put out long-term post-launch content updates.
After Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells retired in July, the company faced an internal restructuring, eventually leading to at least 25 contracted developers being laid off from Naughty Dog's staff in October, contributing to a wave of layoffs across the video game industry at the time. With a reduced, restructured workforce and other major upcoming single-player projects at the helm, Naughty Dog was inequipped to become a live service studio, and announced in December that they cancelled the development of The Last of Us Online after more than three years of work.
E3 2018 confirmation article:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-last-of-us-2-has-multiplayer-naughty-dog-confi/1100-6459784/
Multiplayer standalone game update articles:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/features/the-last-of-us-part-2-exclusive-interview-neil-druckmann-ellie/
https://www.vg247.com/the-last-of-us-part-2-wont-have-multiplayer-after-all-update
Naughty Dog tweet confirming continued development:
https://twitter.com/naughty_dog/status/1177392945458286595
Naughty Dog multiplayer job listings increase article and blog post:
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/celebrating_the_last_of_us_day_2021
https://www.ign.com/articles/naughty-dog-on-the-last-of-us-multiplayer-project-in-short-were-working-on-it
Summer Game Fest 2022 announcement and first piece of concept art:
https://www.polygon.com/23161755/the-last-of-us-part-2-tlou2-multiplayer-release
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-last-of-us-standalone-multiplayer-game-new-details-story-concept-art
https://www.gamesradar.com/the-last-of-us-is-getting-a-standalone-multiplayer-game/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-last-of-us-multiplayer-game-new-story-large-naughty-dog/
Second piece of concept art:
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/the_last_of_us_10th_anniversary_kickoff
Development scaling back article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-26/-last-of-us-multiplayer-video-game-faces-setbacks-at-sony
Naughty Dog co-president retirement and restructuring:
https://kotaku.com/naughty-dog-neil-druckmann-evan-wells-tlou-president-1850633642
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/neil_druckmann_naughty_dog_studio_leadership_team
October layoffs article:
https://kotaku.com/naughty-dog-ps5-playstation-sony-last-us-part-3-layoffs-1850893794
Naughty Dog statement on scaling back development:
https://twitter.com/Naughty_Dog/status/1662166716892479488
Cancellation articles and blog post:
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/an_update_on_the_last_of_us_online
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/14/24002141/naughty-dog-the-last-of-us-online-multiplayer-canceled
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-last-of-us-online-finally-cancelled-because-naughty-dog-thinks-it-will-severely-impact-development-on-future-single-player-games/
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-last-of-us-2-has-multiplayer-naughty-dog-confi/1100-6459784/
Multiplayer standalone game update articles:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/features/the-last-of-us-part-2-exclusive-interview-neil-druckmann-ellie/
https://www.vg247.com/the-last-of-us-part-2-wont-have-multiplayer-after-all-update
Naughty Dog tweet confirming continued development:
https://twitter.com/naughty_dog/status/1177392945458286595
Naughty Dog multiplayer job listings increase article and blog post:
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/celebrating_the_last_of_us_day_2021
https://www.ign.com/articles/naughty-dog-on-the-last-of-us-multiplayer-project-in-short-were-working-on-it
Summer Game Fest 2022 announcement and first piece of concept art:
https://www.polygon.com/23161755/the-last-of-us-part-2-tlou2-multiplayer-release
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-last-of-us-standalone-multiplayer-game-new-details-story-concept-art
https://www.gamesradar.com/the-last-of-us-is-getting-a-standalone-multiplayer-game/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-last-of-us-multiplayer-game-new-story-large-naughty-dog/
Second piece of concept art:
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/the_last_of_us_10th_anniversary_kickoff
Development scaling back article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-26/-last-of-us-multiplayer-video-game-faces-setbacks-at-sony
Naughty Dog co-president retirement and restructuring:
https://kotaku.com/naughty-dog-neil-druckmann-evan-wells-tlou-president-1850633642
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/neil_druckmann_naughty_dog_studio_leadership_team
October layoffs article:
https://kotaku.com/naughty-dog-ps5-playstation-sony-last-us-part-3-layoffs-1850893794
Naughty Dog statement on scaling back development:
https://twitter.com/Naughty_Dog/status/1662166716892479488
Cancellation articles and blog post:
https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/an_update_on_the_last_of_us_online
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/14/24002141/naughty-dog-the-last-of-us-online-multiplayer-canceled
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-last-of-us-online-finally-cancelled-because-naughty-dog-thinks-it-will-severely-impact-development-on-future-single-player-games/
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Atari Corporation wanted to license out the likeness of hockey player Mario Lemieux for a Lynx game that would've been titled "Super Mario Hockey" as a jab at Nintendo and their Super Mario franchise disguised as a reference to Lemieux's nickname. The game was never made, but eventually Lemieux's likeness would be licensed out to Sega for a 1991 hockey game.
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The game was originally planned to release on PC and it even had a completed port. However, this didn't happen. According to Patrick Deupree (one of the game's programmers), this was "due to powers beyond our control".
A fan-made recreation was released in 2008.
A fan-made recreation was released in 2008.