Trivia Browser

Tagsarrow_right
Filter:
Platformsarrow_right
Filter:
Yearsarrow_right
Filter:
Genresarrow_right
Filter:
Collectionsarrow_right
Filter:
Franchisesarrow_right
Filter:
Companiesarrow_right
Filter:
Company: Kane Carter
▲
1
▼
Attachment 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.
sell
Artwork/Illustration, Cancelled Release, Character Design, Development, Early Idea, General, Pitch Bible/Proposal
person Violett calendar_month April 21, 2024
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
▲
3
▼
Attachment Ben Hurst, one of the writers for the 1993 "Sonic the Hedgehog" animated series, attempted to pitch a continuation of the show to Sega in 2002 as either a third season or a movie. He consulted DiC Entertainment, who produced the show (as well as two other Sonic cartoons, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Sonic Underground"), and was given the name of a Sega executive who wanted to talk with him more about the idea. Hurst then received a call from Ken Penders, at the time the head writer for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, who had been made aware of Hurst's interest in making a movie based on the series. Hurst offered to include Penders in the project, and told him his strategy for the pitch was to develop a satisfying storyline to conclude the show, and simultaneously giving Sega ideas for new games. This resulted in a long-standing controversy where Hurst claimed that Penders sabotaged his plan by telling Sega that he was trying to co-opt the franchise, resulting in Hurst's dismissal from the project. Over 13 years after Hurst's death, Penders would give his side of the story in a 2023 blog post, claiming that Hurst's joint proposal between the two would involve asking Sega to pay them to produce the series, and doubted that Sega would even schedule a meeting to let them pitch it if Sega funding the pitch was the premise, stating that "the owner of any IP is looking for a payday when it comes to using the rights for their properties."

In September 2003, Penders pitched his own concept for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, titled "Sonic Armageddon". Four pieces of concept art were produced, and even a homemade pitch video was made to show to Sega executives. From what is known about the pitch (which seemed to borrow elements from both the 1993 series and the Archie comics), it would have involved the planet Mobius being destroyed and changed the depiction of the roboticization procedure to something much more gruesome than what had been previously seen. Notably, several major characters (such as the Freedom Fighters sans Sonic, Tails and Sally) are not shown in either the pitch video or the concept art, and the characters that are shown are given major redesigns. A common belief is that DreamWorks Animation was Penders' choice to produce the film, but Penders would later state in 2019 that he had pitched the idea to Sega only, and that DreamWorks had no involvement. The film never materialized; Penders would later claim on separate occasions that the idea was dropped because of "massive corporate upheaval", as well as the development of the animated series "Sonic X" affecting talks regarding the film.
sell
Backstory/Lore, Cancelled Release, Character Design, Corporate Affairs, Development, Early Idea, General, Misconception, Multimedia Adaptation, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month April 6, 2024
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
X
X (1992)
▲
2
▼
Attachment X was originally pitched under the name Eclipse and was developed under the title Lunar Chase. The single-letter rename came at the request of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who contacted director Yoshio Sakamoto early in the morning after playing the game.

The Lunar Chase name was retained for a planned English localization of the game, which was ultimately scrapped due to fears from Nintendo of America that international players would find the game's presentation and design too complex for a handheld title. Creator and programmer Dylan Cuthbert additionally blamed the cancellation on a presumed lack of interest from retailers in the United States. A prototype of the English version would eventually surface in 2020 as part of the Gigaleak, a massive leak of internal server data from Nintendo. The Eclipse pitch, meanwhile, was released to the public by the Video Game History foundation three years later.
sell
Cancelled Release, Corporate Affairs, Development, Leak, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Regional Difference, Title, Version Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month March 26, 2024
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
Company: Next Level Games
▲
1
▼
During 2004, Next Level Games was working on a game based on the WWE franchise called "WWE Titans: Parts Unknown". Planned to release on the Playstation 2 and Xbox as a 1-vs-1 fighter, the game was planned to have a radically different direction from past WWE titles, featuring a new art style that focused on exaggerated character designs and cinematic locales. Settings for the game included urban environments (i.e. rooftops in a city) and an old castle located in the snowy wilderness. Additionally, one stage concept was labelled "Cena Stage", likely in reference to wrestler John Cena. This suggests that some individual wrestlers would have received arena dedicated to them.

While the game would have featured several established wrestlers, Next Level also considered adding original cast members made specifically for the game. One piece of artwork for the game shows that there were plans for anthropomorphic characters (such as crocodiles and bears) and sorcerers. Not much is known about the gameplay, though art for the game suggests that destructible environments were intended to be a key focus. For unknown reasons, the pitch was rejected by the game's publisher, THQ.
sell
Adaptation, Artwork/Illustration, Corporate Affairs, Development, General, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month February 20, 2024
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Franchise: Killer Instinct
▲
1
▼
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".
sell
Cancelled Release, Development, Early Idea, Pitch Bible/Proposal
person ZpaceJ0ck0 calendar_month February 22, 2024
comment Comment (3) | link Source
Company: Next Level Games
▲
1
▼
Next Level Games once had a project pitch for an action game called "Catalyst" that would have been released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. As the game was never officially announced, not much is known about it other than what is seen in the pitch video, which involves an unidentified man attacking a group of soldiers using a device called the "Catalyst" after they had betrayed him and kidnapped his daughter. The game was never released, likely due to not being able to find a publisher.
sell
Cancelled Release, General, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month February 19, 2024
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Yo! Noid 2
Yo! Noid 2 (2017)
▲
1
▼
One of the developers of Yo! Noid 2 also worked on STRAFE, a game featuring Totino's product placement. Through these food industry connections, said developer managed to contact Domino's Pizza and almost pitched the idea of having some kind of official collaboration. The developers ultimately did not go forward with, as the game's developers didn't feel they had enough energy to go through the hassle of making a pitch document. Despite the pitch not being made, the developers did compile a video of streamers talking about how the game made them hungry for Domino's for the purpose of the pitch.
sell
Corporate Affairs, Development, Fan Works, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Product Placement, Unreleased Content
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month February 7, 2024
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Clockwerk
Clockwerk (TBA)
subdirectory_arrow_right Next Level Games (Company)
▲
1
▼
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.
sell
Cancelled Release, Corporate Affairs, Development, General, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month January 30, 2024
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Bully
Bully (2006)
▲
1
▼
In June of 2020, an uncredited animator who worked on the game named Dennis Opel posted various development clips on his Twitter page. These clips were for a pitch to rework the game's combat system, which he worked on in the sidelines while the game was still in development. Some of his ideas included incorporating dodging and counter attacks; certain moves the player could perform being affected by the enemy's actions, stats, and distance from the player; etc. In the end, this pitch was never submitted to Rockstar.
sell
Development, Early Idea, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Unused Graphic
person ZpaceJ0ck0 calendar_month January 11, 2024
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
Sonic Underground
Sonic Underground (2000)
▲
3
▼
The story section of Sonic Underground's manual has numerous inconsistencies with the plot of the show it's based on, though are still featured in early production documents. These include:

• Robotnik at one point being referred to as "Sheriff Robotnik", likely a reference to the Sheriff of Nottingham from the legend of Robin Hood. He does not bare this title in the show itself; early leaks to the show's plot prior to release also reference his role as a sheriff, suggesting it was a scrapped concept from early on in development.
• The Oracle of Delphius being banished to the Frozen Wastes by Robotnik and passing away from unknown causes sometime after, telling Sonic how to reunite with his siblings in his dying breath. While the Oracle does take up residence in Ice Cap in the final show, he was not banished there, nor does he ever die.
• The Medallions being stated to be golden, but in the final show they bare a more silver coloration. Another detail stated in the manual but not in the final show is that they each possess three notes engraved into them.
• Robotnik's given motive for finding Queen Aleena is so that he can marry her and make her his consort, as he believes that by doing so he can become the rightful ruler of Mobius. While not his overall motive in the final show, the episode "Wedding Bell Blues" did use a similar premise for its plot.
• While not in early production documents, the game's manual states that it ends with Sonic, Manic and Sonia reuniting with their mother, which never actually happened in the original show, making it the only piece of Sonic Underground-related media where this goal is actually accomplished.
sell
Adaptation, Backstory/Lore, Development, Early Idea, General, Manual, Mistake, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Reference
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month December 15, 2023
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
Bug!
Bug! (1995)
▲
1
▼
A well-known claim relating to Bug! is that legendary film director Steven Spielberg endorsed the game as "the character that is going to do it for [the Sega] Saturn." This claim is somewhat dubious however, as both the 2009 IGN article the quote was popularized by and the internal pitch video for the game's sequel that the quote originated from cite the origin as being from his visit to the 1995 Consumer Electronics Show, which was in January, 5 months before Bug! would be revealed to the public at E3. Bug! creator David Warhol has stated that he was not there to actually see Spielberg approve of the game, but did know that he approved of the game.
sell
Celebrity, Development, General, Misconception, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Rumor, Unsolved Mystery
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month December 9, 2023
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
Twitter thread researching quote history:
https://twitter.com/PandaMoniumGR/status/1637489008950362117

IGN article the quote originated from:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/02/02/what-hath-sonic-wrought-vol-10

GameFan magazine Volume #3, Issue #7 (Page 52):
https://retrocdn.net/images/d/db/GameFan_US_0307.pdf
Vanquish
Vanquish (2010)
▲
1
▼
In a 2020 interview conducted by the YouTube channel Archipel with the game's creator Shinji Mikami, he talked about the development of Vanquish, which started after he left Capcom and joined PlatinumGames. While he claimed to not remember how he arrived at working on or coming up with the concept for Vanquish, he pitched 5 different project ideas beforehand to Sega and Platinum:

From the start, Mikami wanted to make an open-world game set in a universe similar to the film "Blade Runner", but due to budget, time and staffing constraints, he considered the project to be impossible to make. Regardless, Mikami drafted a design document that he formally pitched to Platinum as a coping mechanism in order to clear his head of the long-gestating idea and work on other projects, stating "I just couldn't switch my mind for a project that fit budget and resources before I gave form to this one. So I just presented it".

Afterwards he moved on to a completely different project; a cel-shaded game set in a universe akin to the works of Studio Ghibli entitled "The Witch and the Piglet". The game was about an evil witch who turned a prince into a piglet and cursed the accompanying village. The villagers would be friendly by day, but at night, they would turn into animals such as horses, pigs, and goats, and do "terrible things" every night, in turn revealing the villagers' evil sides. The main protagonist, a girl with "magical powers who could hover in the sky with an umbrella", had to defeat the witch and break the curse. Mikami believed the game was a mid-scale project that could be easily managed within a given budget and really wanted to make it happen, so he pitched it to Sega. However, Sega strongly declined the pitch, saying that they weren't looking for a game like The Witch and the Piglet.

Angered, Mikami moved on to another project designed exclusively for the Nintendo DS. The game was about a girl with psychic powers and an unknown serial killer who were confined in a hospital. The killer would murder people in the building one by one, and the girl had to figure out if the killer was a doctor, a nurse, or a patient. She used her powers to fight with the killer remotely, move things from a distance, take limited control of peoples' minds, and used a smartphone to send texts and chat during battles, all the while the killer would threaten to kill more people the closer she was to him. One of the central gameplay mechanics involved selecting floating Kanji on the Touchscreen to form two-word phrases such as "Drop Vase" or "Open Door", and watch the results on the hospital's surveillance cameras. Upon pitching it, Sega also rejected the game for the same reason as The Witch and the Piglet, stating the projects were too small and not what they were looking for.

Mikami then recounted an incident during the same meeting, where Sega's executives told him that they were looking for a "Taisaku", or a major project. In response, and angrier than before, he came up with a pitch on the spot called "Keiko and Taisaku", about two delinquent gang leaders, a boy and a girl dressed in high school uniforms, that fought each other, proclaiming "Here, you get Keiko and Taisaku, there's Taisaku in it so it works right?" Sega's executives silently ignored the pitch. Mikami recalled that after this incident came the back-and-forth talks that lead to him working on Vanquish.

Sometime in-between these events, Mikami also had an idea for a rhythm action game that he promptly scrapped after pitching it to Platinum, believing that the idea was not as fun as he had thought it was after presenting it.
sell
Development, Early Idea, General, Inspiration, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Real Life
person ProtoSnake calendar_month October 10, 2021
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Franchise: Phantasy Star
▲
1
▼
According to a 1993 World of Phantasy Star book interview with Miki Morimoto, she stated that the meaning of the game's title was like “a planet/star of fantasy” and that Yuji Naka was the one who originally named the game Phantasy Star. He started with just the word "Fantasy", and played around with it until he figured out what to name the game. He was also influenced by a song called "Nagisa no Fantasy" (Beachside Fantasy) by his favorite singer, an idol named Noriko Sakai.
sell
Celebrity, Development, Early Idea, General, Inspiration, Music, Pitch Bible/Proposal, Real Life, Title
person ProtoSnake calendar_month September 10, 2021
comment Comment (0) | link Source
Super Mario Spikers
Super Mario Spikers (TBA)
subdirectory_arrow_right Mario (Franchise)
▲
1
▼
Attachment After the launch of Mario Strikers Charged, Next Level Games had pitched to Nintendo a Mario volleyball game titled Super Mario Spikers. Referred to during development as simply Mario Volleyball, it was to be a mix of volleyball and wrestling mechanics, and was presented with hints of a TV game show. It was intended for the Wii and work began on it around the end of 2006. Development was canceled in 2007 after the pitch had failed with Nintendo. The game was financed as a reward from the studio's previous work on the Strikers games, and the volleyball mechanic was thought to have been reused for Mario Sports Mix.
sell
Cancelled Release, Development, Early Idea, Pitch Bible/Proposal
person Boyobmas calendar_month September 19, 2014
comment Comment (0) | Source
arrow_right
System Shock 2
System Shock 2 (1999)
▲
1
▼
System Shock 2, according to its pitch document, was originally titled "Junction Point". It was intended to expand upon the role-playing element of the original System Shock, which itself was intended to bring the gameplay of another of their games, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, into a science fiction setting.

The first System Shock was generally perceived to be a Doom clone, and the developers blamed this for its limited commercial success. With Junction Point, their goal was to add significant role-playing elements and a persistent storyline so as to distance the game from Doom.
sell
Development, Early Idea, Inspiration, Pitch Bible/Proposal
person Cavery210 calendar_month December 15, 2013
comment Comment (0) | link Source