Happy New Year everyone! Today we have 178 prototypes to share with you for various cart based systems! Almost 30 of them are prototypes of unreleased games, some of which haven’t been seen before! Check them out here: https://hiddenpalace.org/News/New_Years_2022 !
Have a happy holiday everybody!
Mystical Ninja Goemon Zero (Aug 26, 2005 prototype)
Mystical Ninja Goemon Zero (Jun 22, 2005 prototype)
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Hello everyone! We have something very special to share with you today. Presenting, Working Designs’ (Lunar, Popful Mail, Alundra) long lost canceled English localization of Konami’s Bouken Jidai Katsugeki Goemon (冒険時代活劇ゴエモン), also known as Mystical Ninja Goemon Zero (or Mystical Ninja Goemon during development) for the Sony PlayStation 2! This game has A LOT of history behind it, and considering its localization was in development by Working Designs, there’s quite a story to tell.
This was in development for 3 years before being canceled in 2005 when the game failed the certification process at Sony for unknown reasons despite being almost finished. The cancellation was enough to bankrupt Working Designs, with the studio announcing its closure in December.
The development of this version of the game is relatively unknown given that it didn’t receive a lot of press. Only a few magazines and some industry people got to see the English version of the game. Because of this, prototypes of the game would be extremely hard to find.
A few months ago, we were able to obtain not one, but TWO prototypes. The latest build is perhaps the very last build shortly before WD’s closure. The prototype even came with a cover insert that was kindly restored by our good friends Frank Cifaldi and Hubz from VGHF!
As fans of Goemon and Working Designs, we hope everyone can enjoy this very important artifact from video game history. We hope wherever Goemon is that his next adventure is not far off. Until next time everyone, Ganbare!
(Photos by Sazpaimon)
Mortal Kombat (Prototype B)
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Hello everyone! Today we have a nice little release to share with you all - a relatively late prototype of the Sega Mega Drive port of Mortal Kombat! There’s quite a few interesting changes in this prototype despite being relatively late. What can you find?
Enjoy!
Project Deluge (Lot Page)
Project Deluge - Microsoft Xbox (List)
Project Deluge - Microsoft Xbox (Matched List)
Project Deluge - Sega Dreamcast (List)
Project Deluge - Sega Dreamcast (Matched List)
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Hello everyone! It’s that time again!
Continuing with our efforts with Project Deluge, today we present over 349 Microsoft Xbox prototypes and 135 Sega Dreamcast prototypes! From unreleased games to early builds, this lot continues to be fruitful.
Some Dreamcast highlights include - Debug enabled builds of Jet Grind Radio and Illbleed, a unreleased English localization of Shangai Dynasty, an early build of 4 Wheel Thunder called Offroad Thunder, an early prototype of Deep Fighter with preproduction FMV, and more! Xbox highlights include - prototypes of Jet Set Radio Future, Crazy Taxi 3, Toe Jam & Earl III, Gunvalkyrie, and more. Prototypes of unreleased games such as The Vatz, Made Man, and Hail to the Chimp.
Unreleased localization builds such as Dinosaur Hunting: Ushinawareta Daichi. As an extra treat, Laurent C. from Sega Dreamcast Info Preservation Games (https://en.sega-dreamcast-info-games-preservation.com/) has generously donated a prototype of ChuChu Rocket! and Sega GT as well!
Huge thanks to all of our project members on a job well done so far! The project isn’t even close to being finished yet! Stay tuned for more in the upcoming months!
https://hiddenpalace.org/News/Angels_with_Burning_Hearts:_Burning_Rangers_Prototype
Burning Rangers (Dec 1, 1997 prototype)
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Hey everyone! We got a new prototype to show you. This is an “alpha” build of Burning Rangers for the Sega Saturn! It has debugging features, unfinished levels, and even the cut 2 player mode within the debugger! Be sure to check it out.
Enjoy!
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (Jun 15, 1997 prototype)
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (Sep 29, 1997 prototype)
Crash Bandicoot: Warped (Aug 26, 1998 prototype)
Crash Bandicoot: Warped (Oct 9, 1998 prototype)
Crash Team Racing (Aug 14, 1999 prototype)
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Woah!
We decided to take a small break from Project Deluge and show you something different. Introducing five various prototypes from the PS1 Crash Bandicoot series! This release was put together by the Crash Landing team, which consists of Hwd45, psx-collector, GDias, Niko, madmarsrocks, superg, Iniche and an anonymous donor. These don’t originate from the Project Deluge and are separate releases entirely.
Each prototype was dumped using a Plextor PX-W5224TA using both DiscImageCreator and CloneCD to ensure that these can be DAT’d into Redump. A few of the prototypes utilized memory card dongle protection. For these games superg was able to utilize memory card files that originated from previous builds. Niko also created an xdelta patch for Crash Team Racing to by pass the need if even utilizing a special memory card file.
We’re still working on Project Deluge at the moment, but these as well as the previous Project Deluge release should tide you over for a little while. Stay tuned for more goodies in the not so distant future!
Project Deluge (Lot Page)
Project Deluge - PlayStation (List)
Project Deluge - PlayStation (Matched List)
Project Deluge - Sega Saturn (List)
Project Deluge - Sega Saturn (Matched List)
Project Deluge - Philips CD-i (List)
Project Deluge - Philips CD-i (Matched List)
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Hello everyone! Hopefully we didn’t make you wait too long this time around.
Continuing with our efforts with Project Deluge, today we present over 370 PlayStation 1 prototypes, 80 Sega Saturn prototypes, and 20 prototypes for the Philips CD-i! From unreleased games to early builds, this part of the lot provides the most varied amount of exciting content so far!
As a recap, Project Deluge is an ongoing project to archive and assess all of the items featured in a lot of video game development material that has been gathered over the course of many years. This has been made possible through the dedication of only one extremely kind individual, who has taken on the herculean task of dumping every single thing in the lot by themselves. Each item in the lot was assessed by a team of dedicated individuals for playability and integrity on both software (via emulation) and hardware when necessary. Each item was then lightly documented and given a general overview of some of the main interesting facts about the item in question.
As always, we would like to thank all the members of the Project Deluge team for helping us with this project so far. Without your help, it would’ve taken eons for anything to come about. We’d like to thank Jason Scott from the Internet Archive for giving us an opportunity to go through this journey and for providing the hosting for this ongoing project, and Iniche for working with the owner of all of these wonderful builds to make it all happen. Special thanks to Master Emerald for once again creating beautiful art for us to help make each of our releases something special (especially on short notice!). We’d like to thank drx and ehw for writing the scripts and helping get the project initially off the ground, and Sazpaimon for taking everything much further by expanding the capabilities of the script, running some of the builds on hardware, the streams, and so much more. And last but certainly not least, we’d like to thank all of our researchers (Zoda-Y13, GopherGirl, Xkeeper (TCRF), Rusty (TCRF), Shoemanbundy, Hwd45, SolidSnake11, DigitalWarrior, Nex, and Drac for taking the time to help us go through every single build in this lot so far.
This project is far from over and has only just begun! Stay tuned in the next couple of months for more!
Project Deluge (Lot Page)
Project Deluge - PlayStation 2 (List)
Project Deluge - PlayStation 2 (Matched List)
Project Deluge - Assets (List)
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A storm is brewing, capable of transforming the land with every downpour.
Introducing, one of the biggest endeavors that we have taken yet.
It’s been a while since our last release back on New Years day. In the months before and since that release, we have been working on something truly special - a project so massive it practically eclipses everything that we’ve tackled up until this point. The only thing comparable was back on February 23rd, 2008 (over ten years ago) where we released over one thousand prototypes for various Sega consoles from old QA department backups. Since then, there have been many releases that have come close to matching the amount of content that could be found in a single release. But up until now, including our own efforts, they have only focused on specific periods of gaming history or specific products, companies, etc. Until today.
Today we are introducing the first part of Project Deluge, an ongoing project to assess a gigantic lot of various video game prototypes, pre production assets, and archival material spanning multiple console generations. These aging items were miraculously rescued from being destroyed, thrown away, or sold through the herculean efforts of ‘’’one person’’’. This person not only took on the task of backing up everything in their possession ‘’’single handedly’, but was so overwhelmingly kind enough to let us look at and preserve each item in his collection with no strings attached. Yes that’s right, all of it. For nothing in return.
So for the first part of the lot, we would like to present to you over 700 unique prototype builds for the PlayStation 2! Since the list of builds is so massive, we had to relocate the list to its own page that you can access here! Compressed, this brings a total of about 860 gigabytes of data. For obvious reasons, we chose not to host the matched builds but we are keeping a public record of each one and any interesting properties that can be found in them in a table that you can check out here. Eventually, we will be populating the site with various other assets from the lot as well, so keep an eye on this page in the coming months.
We would like to thank all the members of the Project Deluge team for helping us with this project so far. Without your help, it would’ve taken eons for anything to come about. We’d like to thank Jason Scott from the Internet Archive for giving us an opportunity to go through this journey and for providing the hosting for this ongoing project, and Iniche for working with the owner of all of these wonderful builds to make it all happen. Special thanks to Master Emerald for once again creating beautiful art for us to help make each of our releases something special (especially on short notice!). We’d like to thank drx and ehw for writing the scripts and helping get the project initially off the ground, and Sazpaimon for taking everything much further by expanding the capabilities of the script, running some of the builds on hardware, the streams, and so much more. And last but certainly not least, we’d like to thank all of our researchers (Zoda-Y13, GopherGirl, Xkeeper (TCRF), Rusty (TCRF), Shoemanbundy, Hwd45, SolidSnake, DigitalWarrior, Nex, and Drac) for taking the time to help us go through every single build in this lot so far (and all those delectable sports prototypes).
Well, that’s it for now folks! As this lot is an actively on going project, we do not have a tentative release schedule. However, be prepared for the next part of the lot real soon. More is on the way, so hang on tight! Also be sure to be on the lookout on The Cutting Room Floor (TCRF) for some more detailed research of the items featured in the lot in the coming months ahead.
Until next time, have fun everyone!
Take a dive and watch the stream on our Twitch channel on March 20th at 2PM EST (11AM PDT). https://twitch.tv/hiddenpalace Don’t miss it.
https://hiddenpalace.org/News/Dreams_Come_True:_Sonic_1_(MD)_Prototype
Presenting, a prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 for the Sega Mega Drive. Courtesy of Buckaroo.
We couldn’t have done it without the cooperation of Xkeeper, Rusty, and the whole TCRF crew who have stuck with us for the whole ride. We’d also like to thank Sazpaimon (this is our wedding gift to you!), franz, ehw, the Hidden Palace crew and all of our contributors for helping the website grow. Without you guys, there is absolutely nothing we can’t do!
Have a happy holiday, a happy new years, a happy 30th for Sonic. Let’s see what the next year brings!
See you next game!
Sincerely yours,
Drx & ehw