Video Game Prototypes That Changed During Development - Nintendo, Sonic, SpongeBob & More!

From conception to announcement to release,

video

game

s go through countless changes during

development

, like any medium, every

game

goes through tons of work before becoming what we know them as today, you have to release the game, create a mountain of conceptual art. do alpha beta prototype builds and even after a game is released you may still see some slight revisions. Game

development

has always been a fascinating topic for many and that's probably because when games are first shown off, they are often very different from how they look when they are released thanks to early trailers, press releases and even demonstrations.

Today we have a rare glimpse into the early stages of game development. I'd like to go over some notable examples of early versions of some of our favorite games, they may be beta

prototypes

. or even canceled releases most of the time, especially for older games, the only way we were able to see anything of these early versions was through magazines or events because they were so limited, many of these have been lost in the time, however, sometimes the first versions get leaked and sometimes even officially released and that's always incredibly exciting, you never know where one of these will turn up, take this Super Mario Brothers 2 prototype that was found at the garage sale , that's the dream, it's always a miracle when any of these get filed.

No matter the game, not all companies keep great backups of their unfinished work and even those that do nothing push them to release some of this. All of this makes

prototypes

or unfinished versions of games in general extremely interesting, so let's talk about it. Here's a look at some of the

more

interesting

video

game prototypes that change during development. Let's start when it comes to the first game in a franchise, that's where you can find a lot of initial concepts and ideas before you start developing the first game in a series. designs its world and everything it brings, fortunately for the most popular characters, its development is well documented given its historical nature.

We know a lot about the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, but in terms of the actual development of Sonic 1, much of it is still shrouded in mystery. The Sonic The Hedgehog franchise was first publicly shown at the 1990 Tokyo Toy Fair, which was held that year from June 7 to 10 in Japan. At the event there was a playable demo of what would become Sonic 1. These are screenshots of what was the first world view of Sonic the Hedgehog and, as you can immediately see, it looks totally different from the final game. This demo was made right at the beginning of the game's development, a year before its North American release.

This was a small-scale tech demo created by the Sonic team for the event to promote the game, but tragically, this fascinating moment of enormous importance in the series' history is almost completely undocumented. This is an unfortunate trend with the documentation of early versions of the game for many of them. Overall it's pretty poor, it makes sense why a company would keep all these unfinished versions once the game is finished, the final product is what will be sold, who's to say there will be anyone interested in these unfinished revisions when a game becomes iconic, even though people will want it? to know everything there is to know about it, but unfortunately with cases like Sonic 1 it seems that that is simply not possible outside of these screenshots, we have almost nothing from this demo.

Now you might be thinking, why doesn't Sega just release it? They probably still have backups for years. It was unknown that these screenshots even came from a playable demo. It looked so radically different from any other version of the game, but in an interview conducted by Game's Radar at Sonic Summer 2011, Yuchinaka confirmed it. That Sonic team produced a playable demo for the 1990 Tokyo Toy Show. He said that in 1990 the team created a demo for a Toy Show. There wasn't a Tokyo Game Show, so the biggest show to attend at the time was this Toy Show, so they used this one.

As a playable demo to show what Sonic would be like and show the breakneck speed that Sonic has, it actually has seven layers of background scrolling. A lot of effort was put into creating it, but in addition to confirming it, he also said that he made efforts to locate the demo, but was never successful in that same interview, he adds, when we created the Sonic mega collection we thought it would be a great addition to have the original prototype that we used, the first one shown in the world, but it is simply nowhere to be found. and it's such a shame that we can't find it like this the original demo of

sonic

1 is completely lost not even the people who made it can find it and this interview was from 2011 surely

more

efforts had been made to find it since mega collection but it's still there lost even now the rom just doesn't exist anymore and that's so sad naka claims even screenshots of the demo are very rare only a few magazines are known to have featured it there have been a lot of hoaxes about it throughout weather. years, but the genuine demo that was so ahead of its time, the one that advertised Sonic, is no longer around, it inspired the background of Green Hill Zone Act 2 and Sonic Mania, although there is a possibility that perhaps these assets are still in the Sonic 1. source code on Sega of Japan, but if they didn't keep a copy of this build, do they already have the source code?

There may not have been many source files for older games lost over the years, with famous examples even from other Sega games. It's hard to even imagine a scenario for how this could continue to exist. Maybe the people behind the Tokyo Toy Show have pictures of everything that was shown at their events. Sega must have gotten approval for the demo before it was shown at the event. What did they use for that? Video images, do they still exist? How many copies of this rom existed in the first place? If there were several cartridges made with it, only one and if someone else has a copy, why hasn't it been released yet?

It is never completely impossible. It appears somehow, but the odds are against this one and yet, just like Sonic 2, every time I see a pirated copy of Sonic 1 floating around, part of me wonders, maybe it could contain something special , maybe not even the demonstration, maybe some smuggler got it. I have a different initial version of the game, however, here's another thing: the Simon and Sonic 2 compilation was only stolen from that toy fair because there was a huge demand for Sonic at the time, but when this demo was shown, the series was new there. It was exciting, but why would anyone try to get an early copy?

Aside from the people involved, no one really cared about the series until it came out and as such there wasn't even much to cover about the game besides, well, this one is from Sega. new game, hopefully, it's good, that's probably why there isn't any video for this, it's incredibly unlikely that this version will ever come out, but that hope will always be there every year, every decade that passes, the possibility of it being found it feels more. and more unattainable discoveries, but hey, crazier have happened in the past, maybe one day dreams will come true, one of the most iconic games of all time and naturally it has one of the most iconic pre-releases of course , I'm talking about Super Mario 64.

Considering how revolutionary this game was, we can only imagine how intense its development was. Fortunately, many details have come to light in this regard. The most famous was that Luigi was planned to be a character controlled by a second player in Mario 64. The Plan 2 Player mode was one of the first things to be implemented as well, but unfortunately it didn't make the cut, this led to decades of speculation about where Was Luigi in Mario 64. In reality, he is not present anywhere in the final game data, but thanks to the well-known leak of 2020. of Nintendo assets that contained a copy of the game's source code, a model was found.

Luigi official scrapped with textures. These source files include things that are not included in the final game, so Luigi couldn't be found in the final build files, he just was. It wasn't compiled because it wasn't used, but it's true that it was made to be used in the game at one point. What's really shocking is that these leaks came to light in July 2020, 24 years and one month after the game's release in Japan. of the most wonderful and moving twists of all time. In fact, I was real 2401. I also found the source code. It seems that the working title of the game was Ultra 64.

Mario Brothers Brothers. Hey? Luigi was really meant to want to play a really important role in the game too. Thanks to these leaks we know that the game officially entered development on September 7, 1994. It has been said that Luigi was cut from the game around February 1996, which shows how late he was cut. It makes a lot of sense that there is a complete model and there is. It's beautiful, unfortunately these source files date back to the Chinese IQ version of Mario 64. and as such, they are dated 2003, so we don't have any Mario 64 data before IQ's involvement. These early assets are simply scraps that Nintendo provided to iq.

With everything else needed for the game, what this means is that even though these leaks have a lot of early assets like enemy levels and of course the amazing Luigi model, it doesn't have everything, we still don't have the demos and real builds of the game. game as they were shown in the pre-release media, I also think I should say this, it's not clear how all this data was leaked. I imagine the methods used weren't exactly legal, although there are a lot of really interesting and unavoidable things like Luigi for this video. I'd rather focus on Nintendo's official pre-release media, while it's amazing that this information was released, at least this shows that Nintendo clearly maintains excellent backups of its data, unlike other companies before the days of e3.

Nintendo showed off Mario 64 on its own. shinkai trade show 1995. shinkai was an event that ran from 1989 to 1996. before being rebranded as

nintendo

space world in 1997, in 2001

nintendo

abandoned its own trade show and began exhibiting at e3, but before all that , Mario 64 and the finished look of the Nintendo 64 was unveiled at the Shinkai 95 show and there was even a playable demo at the event before this event. Nintendo filed some patents regarding the 64. Included were these very creepy screenshots of Peach's Castle, obviously from a very early point in development. Sometimes these early screenshots can honestly look a little creepy for the 1995 demo.

The game was said to have about 50 complete games at this point and it shows that there are early textures. Peach's castle UI had a completely different layout at this point, even Mario's voice was different. These clips are actually samples taken from Warner Brothers' best-in-class spectral voice service and sound effects libraries, which is why certain lines sound completely different than others. They were probably always intended to be placeholders until the final voice clips were finished. I love this early mario art style. 64. everything is so vibrant and colorful that you can really see how primitive the shinkai show 95 demo of mario 64 is unfortunately it has never appeared nor has there been any early version of the game, which means images like this are all we have for To start, there are a lot of pre-release images of the game, but what else could be hidden in these early versions?

There's always this sad feeling when looking at these long-lost versions of games knowing that you may never be able to play them. People care deeply about these games, esp. like mario 64. the idea of ​​having access to bonus material as early content is incredibly tempting, obviously it's irrational to think that any company would release every piece of content created for their game, but i think there's something to be said for getting these demos that were once public are re-released if the company still has access to them, i.e. things like the 1995 mario 64 demo that was tested and prepared for public play, and yet if you didn't attend that event, You won't be able to play it, hopefully.

It's not like this forever as time goes on the demand for these early builds is only growing there is much speculation about what else could be hidden here if what we've seen looks so different imagine what else could ever be found. find a version ofmario 64 with luigi still playable, although it would be great to see these full versions someday, it's fun to speculate who knows, maybe wario is hiding in the files of this demo, there is no real evidence that points towards it, but there is the same point in against, although the genuine proof has not yet appeared.

Fans have banded together to modify the game back to what it used to look like. Many of the images you can find online probably come from these fan mods and not from reality. but that shows how accurate they are, it's honestly incredible how far the Mario 64 mods have come, the game is understood inside and out, the only thing left for fans to investigate would be the first versions of the game and, however unlikely what it seems like at the moment. I would say let's give it time. Nintendo clearly has very deep archives, so maybe one day we can explore these early castle walls before Mario 64.

Super Mario World also

changed

radically during development. The game entered development sometime around 1987 and was one of the Super Nintendo's first game productions that were fraught with obstacles. What you're looking at is the legendary 1989 version of Super Mario World, which is another white whale of game preservation. Many screenshots exist, all showing very different gameplay, but very little survives. Outside of that, the title screen here is completely different and shows a map of a mushroom-shaped island not seen in the final game. The logo is quite similar to the game's Japanese logo, only it's completely blue, similar to the Mario 3 logo in these early screenshots. come from magazines that previewed the game long before its release in this magazine, the game is known as Super Mario Brothers 4.

The overworld shows a better look at that mushroom island using a completely different design than the one seen in the final game. Many of the game's graphics at this point resemble those of Mario 3. Raccoon, Mario, and Super Leaf are even present in some of these screenshots. This power-up is not in the final game, as it was probably replaced by Cape Mario. Look how different Mario looks here, especially little Mario thanks to the same Nintendo leaks that gave us that. luigi model, we have these first complete sprites and much more from the development of mario world. However, these leaks were not the first time those first Mario sprites were found.

Many of the early Super Mario World sprites can be found on official Super Nintendo test cartridges, such as the Snes test program, as well as the SNSP agent cassette, interestingly, the old cassette features an apparently unlicensed version of the Disney song when you wish upon a star, sure this was never a commercially available product and was only used for testing purposes, but why did they do it? Pick this song, I mean, Fox was sued for a parody of the song featured on Family Guy, so I'm sure this would have raised some eyebrows if it was public knowledge when Nintendo was using these shows, but anyway, here's a look at one of the first sprites. sheet from around the time of this compilation originating from an official 2017 Nintendo interview conducted to promote the Super Nintendo classic.

This is what Yoshi looked like at this point in development and it's those Baby Yoshis if you think Yoshi's initial spreadsheet is weird. the previous ones, once again, from that Nintendo leak show an even more primitive reptilian look, it looks like the art style of this game was once played more on a prehistoric island, although they may look weird, those early Yoshi sprites look quite similar to that. Famous sketch drawn by Miyamoto during the days of the original Super Mario Brothers. Very good, unfortunately officially, at least the best view we have of the first versions of super mario world are press materials like these screenshots, but they are very interesting and mario-like. 64 Fans made a remake of the 1985 version, although it would be amazing to get the real version given how much information has been discovered over the years, although it is certainly possible now that this is a very interesting action story . 52 is an unlicensed multi-card release for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991.

As the name suggests, it includes 52 games, but they are all of surprisingly low quality and the game is considered one of the worst game items ever. launched. The games included range from extremely buggy to Unfair to unplayable. Their development has always been a mystery. The game was developed by a company called Active Enterprises and the company's head, Vince Perry, stumbled upon one of the many illegal multi-carts made in the heyday of the NES and Famicom. apparently it had 40 games packed into one cartridge, these multi-carts were quite common in the 80's and 90's and apparently that cartridge really inspired Perry, so he had the idea of ​​creating a cartridge like this, but with original games, which makes it legal. and so, the company began developing Action 52 with a whopping 4 developers, investors from all over the world and in a time of extreme crisis, the game was born and released without Nintendo's approval.

The games included were so bad that there was no way they could beat Nintendo's brand. quality seal so much for making an official multicart side note after the game was released, no one has been able to find Vince Perry, although people have tried Action 52 is one of the biggest bombs of the time, so people has tried to find the guy behind this. to find out more about his creation, as it turns out the guy is a complete mystery and all leads are fruitless, it's honestly a little creepy, you have to wonder what happened to the guy to make this whole thing even more ridiculous, as shown at the box the suggested retail price was 199 US dollars with inflation over 350 today plan to do action 52 the next big thing was afoot the developers really thought this was going to be a big hit there was even a Sega Genesis version Released in 1993 Action 52's flagship title was none other than Cheetah Men, a side-scrolling game that started the trio of Cheetah Men who were seriously hoping to become the next TMNT, prepared toy comics and more, all based on this game. really bad, unfortunately these guys wouldn't even be contenders. for the upcoming Street Sharks and the game was a huge flop, but did get an official animated commercial that aired on television.

I said here, buddy, shouldn't you go on a diet? You're talking to me? Hmm, maybe these guys would make these holes bigger. It could fit easier, you know what I'm saying, hey man, I'll help you, don't worry, no action. 52 is an absolutely crazy story in itself, but there's more to its legacy than just the initial release before the game proved itself. having been a colossal failure development of the sequel to Cheetah Man 2 had begun the game was canceled and never released but in 1996 a warehouse full of copies of the game was found it is believed that 1,500 copies of the game were produced who knows how many still exist today, although these cartridges were actually reused for probably unsold copies of action 52.

The two games are identical, except that Cheetah 2 has this small gold label, since the game was unfinished, it is unknown why it was did produce these cartridges, but given the low quantity manufactured and the absolutely crazy story behind them, they have become extremely rare collectors' items. Copies of Action 52 are already hard to find, but this one really makes it a centerpiece of the collection. Oddly enough, none of these games are as hard to find as the man behind them. everything, but maybe this is a mystery best left alone, I've surely heard of prototypes of unreleased games, but how about prototypes of unreleased versions of games?

In the mid-90s, a bootleg Sega Genesis Street Fighter 2 cartridge began appearing in several international markets, while Capcom released its own official port for the system in the form of Street Fighter 2 Special Champion Edition. This pirated version was unique. This so-called turbo bootleg is a surprisingly good port of Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition. So what was going on here? How was this fake? version so good and not just on other heroes of the world too well, this is what happened Capcom's Street Fighter 2, The World Warrior is among the most ported games of all time and, after its incredibly successful arcade release in 1991 , fans were eager to play the game at home due to its history Nintendo and Capcom were very close when Street Fighter became huge, so a port was quickly created for the Super Nintendo and released worldwide in 1992.

Nintendo It even made an exclusivity deal with Capcom, which meant the game couldn't be released anywhere other than the Super Nintendo which was developed this poorly. created internally by capcom and is of very good quality, it would sell 6.3 million units, making it one of the most popular games on the super nintendo, but after its debut on the home console, fans wondered if Sega would get some love for Street Fighter despite the Nintendo and Capcom deal around the summer of 1992. Sega was able to reach its own deal. View in March 1992. Capcom released the Champion Edition of Street Fighter 2.

Technically, this was a different arcade release, making it a different game that allowed a Sega port to be created. At the time, Capcom was unfamiliar with Sega hardware, so the port was outsourced to an outside company, much like their other Sega releases. After the deal was closed, the two companies were very secretive about Street Fighter 2. Getting to the genesis, rumors were flying. about a port that would be a foreign development that would be released soon in 1992, some rumors even appeared that a Sega CD port was being made, but the game was not officially announced until March 10, 1993, when Sega of America and Capcom USA held a press conference officially announcing their partnership there, they announced that the Champion Edition of Street Fighter 2 would be released for the Sega Genesis in June 1993 along with a new six-button controller perfect for fighting games.

Prototypes of the Genesis port were available at the press conference showing that the game was already quite advanced. Development journalists at the event praised the port and magazines reported that it was already close to 80 complete and that it was of great quality despite some glitches such as these black bars shown at the top of the game and that, however , were not present in the Super Nintendo version. Also in 1993, Capcom announced Street Fighter 2 Turbo Hyper Fighting, another revision beyond Champion Edition, which was already ready for release on the Super Nintendo. This version would be released in July 1993, shortly after Sega's now inferior version came out.

Turbo was to include all the bonuses of the Champion Edition along with faster gameplay which became highly sought after the circulation of Street Fighter 2 Rainbow Edition, a bootleg modification of the original arcade release that became popular thanks to its faster speed. and crazy new moves, it's a completely different story. although the point is that Nintendo was already going to get another, better version, so Sega had to play catch-up to make things worse shortly after it was publicly announced. Japan's Capcom wasn't too happy with the way this outsourced port for the Genesis was turning out. Capcom USA was willing to polish this version and release it, but Japan's Capcom decided to pull the plug, reboot it, and do it themselves, leading to Street Fighter 2 Special Champion Edition, a version of Champion Edition with similar features to Turbo being released. for the Sega Mega Drive on the Genesis in 1993.

This was a disaster. Sega was eager to get a port of one of the most popular games in the world, but even after getting a port, Capcom announces that an even better version is being made for the Nintendo system and also scrapped all the work that had been done. in the genesis port up to that point, although the champion special edition released in september 1993 was delayed and was a decent success, but the mystery regarding that original port continued before it was cancelled. The original port had a considerable amount. There is so much work done that, as mentioned, magazines have already begun to promote it and even review it showing many screenshots and details of this version of the game, some magazines even confused it with the new special edition of champions, there were promotional videos of the same. that was released, a cover was even made so that it would never come out, but although it was never officially released on the 2nd ofJune 1994, a curious Street Fighter 2 mega drive rom appeared online provided by the rom dump group, the head of this case appears to be very similar to how the Simon and Sonic 2 compilation came to circulate through from a pirated cartridge.

Here's a look at the title screen that clearly shows its pirate origins, but the rest of the game was surprisingly faithful. This Street Fighter 2 Turbo hack was a mystery for years how it was so good that it seemed totally original by not being a hack of any other existing fighting game for the system, of course this is because this is a modified version of that champion edition canceled for years, whether or not this contraband had links. There was debate about that canceled version. Why was the title screen different? There are differences between the magazine screenshots and this pirate.

It must be a really accurate fake. Yes, this bootleg is not identical to the ones shown in the promotional material above. Those black bars are nowhere. to be seen, but it's very similar, this bootleg almost certainly comes from the last point of development for that port before Japan's Capcom stepped in and decided to do it themselves. The game's graphics and many features align very closely with the announced original version, however, their connection would not be conclusively confirmed until much later, when the folks at Hidden Palace found and scrapped two prototypes of the original version. . The package included with those roms is an amazing article detailing this version of the game as well as solid proof that turbo bootleg is connected to this version, it will probably always remain a mystery how that pirated copy came into circulation and even with the prototypes genuine ones available now we will probably never know for sure, but this just goes to show that you never know. where a prototype could appear, sometimes the games you least expect have the most interesting development.

Would you believe me if I told you that SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the most narrated games that exist, despite being a fairly ordinary licensed game, it has an impactful experience? amount of documentation available online due to the leak of files from the entire development cycle, the company that developed this game Climax Studios closed some of its branches in 2008 and the assets of those branches were sold, including these two backup desktops that They included, oh you know. All assets created for Super Sponge, these discs have since been released online and include everything related to the game, including actual assets from the show sent by Nickelodeon as references to the game's developers.

Of course, there were also many prototype builds. For the advanced versions of the game for both Playstation and Game Boy, we will start with the introduction of Playstation games in the first version of the game. The intro is just the actual introduction of the show. The one from the June 2001 version is cut earlier but has different characteristics. clips from the show, the intro to the July compilations is definitely the best, with original title cards and misspelled character names, SpongeBob's name is misspelled and Mr. Krabs is referred to as a krusty crustacean, everything was cleaned up for the final releases, the introduction of the first builds of the Playstation version feature. 3D models for most characters.

I can't imagine why they would change them. The voice acting was also not done at this time, so some of the early versions have placeholders. Audio Instead, it's my best friend's birthday, Patrick, and a signed photo of his favorite superheroes. would be the best. It's my best friend, Patrick's, birthday and a signed photo of his favorite superheroes would be the best. Other things of interest in these first versions. Includes sketches used for the placeholder art. Unused levels and characters that were removed from the game. The game's source code features assets from the show, including backgrounds and episode scripts.

There are also these character model sheets. It's crazy to think that all of this came from a super sponge, literally anything. used in connection with this game has an online backup, however, fair warning contained in these source files are some surprisingly inappropriate artwork as well as files titled by someone with a real sailor's mouth, it's pretty clear that some of people at the climax were not 100% on board with making this game, its name is quite appropriate, although the advanced Game Boy versions, the early versions are also quite interesting. What you're looking at is a bill dated November 28, 2000.

It doesn't look anything like the final game, but it also looks pretty impressive for being. such an early gba project for reference this is what the final game looked like check this one out which tries out some wacky graphical effects this one is from january 8, 2001 aside from the many builds and concept art there are also some documents detailing how the team wanted the game to play some that directly reference other games like yoshi island there is even a list titled

spongebob

that details everything wrong with the game that needs fixing the files also contain emulators and roms of these games in case the team would need to reference them while developing them Yes, if you are interested in prototypes, I absolutely recommend that you take a look at what is available for SpongeBob SquarePants.

There are some amazing things and there you have it. Check out several cool video game prototypes and early versions, whether they're totally or largely lost. Archiving these game prototypes will always be some of the most interesting things to me. It's like we never know what will be archived next. It's so cool that even decades after a game is released, you never know when or how new information about the game will arrive. Honestly, we are very lucky for this, it is difficult enough to preserve some released games, preserving their initial content is a completely different story, but it is important, it is what keeps the preservationist hobby alive, that hope that one day you will be on earth , the next big discovery.

The content gives each game even more to discuss beyond the game itself and provides great insight into the development of the game as a whole. Just look at how some of these games

changed

over time. This is a very inspiring thing for those who want to get into the industry one day, but as great as it is, it is very frustrating when you have seen screenshots of some of these for years or decades for some of them, but you should know that it is incredibly unlikely that you will ever be able to experience them one day, we will find that demo from the Tokyo toy show. from

sonic

1. there's no way it's going to disappear forever, it must be out there somewhere.

This also applies to newer games, although early versions of them are not as common. I still hope that one day we can preserve things like the e3 2006 demo of Super Mario Galaxy, from the build of Mega Man x White City to the early versions of Super Smash Bros and much more. The mystery of the game prototypes will live on forever. It's impossible to save everything, but we can hope that game developers are taking the necessary steps to archive these important pieces of gaming history.