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Collection: MySims
1
According to artist Chris Neuman's portfolio website, an MMO based on the MySims series (tentatively referred to as "MySims Online MMO") was in development in 2009, with Neuman having served as the lead artist on the project. Based on the art shown and the description provided, it would have had character customization, an art style that provided a more "vinyl" look for the series cast, assets converted from the various Wii games, new and returning locations (such as Gino's Pizzeria from MySims Agents), and different minigames such as one taking place on a dance floor. Additionally, one of the art pieces shared featured several characters from throughout the MySims series (specifically Madame Zoe, DJ Candy, Chef Gino, Skip Rogers, Zack and Sapphire), suggesting that pre-existing characters were planned to appear here.
Star Fox 64
subdirectory_arrow_right Star Fox (Franchise)
2
According to former Nintendo character designer Takaya Imamura, Wolf O'Donnell was inspired by his grandfather, who he described as being a "bad man".
Collection: MySims
1
In 2010, development began on a MySims game for the Nintendo 3DS titled "MySims Friends", being made by Behaviour Interactive, the developers behind MySims Racing and MySims SkyHeroes. It would have featured extensive customization options (most notably the ability to customize the environment around you) and would have been an online-only game, requiring features such as StreetPass and Nintendo connectivity. It was cancelled after EA decided to move the The Sims franchise into a new direction, one that did not include the MySims series. Years later, art director Xavier Garcia would release pieces of concept art for the game.
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month September 4, 2024
MySims Agents
1
Attachment A sequel to MySims Agents called MySims Agents 2 was planned, but was ultimately shelved in Fall 2009. Years later on May 12, 2023, designer Brian Kaiser shared an old completed story outline for the game on his Twitter account. Based on the outline, the plot would have revolved around the player investigating a series of strange events involving an unknown energy source (later revealed to be seeping through portals from the Nightmare Realm), all while contending with the new S.P.A. director Morgan (a reworked version of the scrapped character Vice Admiral Morgan from MySims Kingdom) and her advisors Dragomir and Svetlana (reused from MySims SkyHeroes), who has shut down several branches of the agency as part of "restructuring" and captured Walker after he began to investigate them. Several characters from the original game would have returned, with Roxie Road, Jenny, Dr. F, Buddy, and Vic Vector all being part of the player's team as they solve cases all over the globe. While full gameplay details are unknown (aside from a new grapple hook mechanic), some pieces of concept art have been released since, such as designs for Morgan's various monster forms.
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month September 1, 2024
Story outline thread on Twitter:
https://x.com/VonKaiser/status/1657038598888120327

Location concept art posted by artist Norman Felchle (likely for Skip Rogers' mansion, mentioned at the start of the outline):
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=216206145073383&;set=pb.100063556808091.-2207520000.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=216205668406764&;set=pb.100063556808091.-2207520000.

Morgan boss concept art:
https://beyondsims.com/2010/11/mysims-agents-2-canceled-boss-details-on-morgan/
Jak 3
subdirectory_arrow_right Jak II (Game), Naughty Dog (Company)
2
Attachment Naughty Dog's name was inspired by their first company mascot Morgan, a Labrador/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix born in 1989 who was the pet dog of co-founder Jason Rubin starting with the development of Rings of Power. During the development of Way of the Warrior, Morgan lived with both Rubin and co-founder Andy Gavin in poor living conditions and she was often fed some of their meals from the fast food chain McDonald's. While she first appeared in a game as a Special Thanks credit in Rings of Power, Morgan technically became part of the company when she was given her own photo ID card after Naughty Dog moved onto the Universal Interactive Studios premises for the development of Crash Bandicoot. She was credited as a member of Naughty Dog on their four Crash Bandicoot games and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. She died in 2002 at the age of 13 during the development of Jak II, and several tributes to her were put into Jak II and Jak 3.

Jak II's manual and end credits feature a standard In Memoriam dedication for Morgan, but there are two more hidden tributes in the game. There is a green neon sign spelling Morgan's name written in the Precurian language inside the Hip Hog Saloon located to the left from the door. Additionally, in the Power Station in New Haven City, a set of random scrolling Precurian messages can be found on the large computer monitor. Translating these to English will reveal the following:

• "Morgan I miss you"
• "Morgan"
• "Thirteen years hard time"
• "There will never be another"
• "Good dog"
• "I will always love you"

Another message can be found on computer screens you can view at eye-level, which reads "Morgan is still missed even after a year has passed". These computer screen messages are re-used on the monitors in both the Power Station and the Freedom League buildings in Jak 3. Since Morgan's death, Naughty Dog have credited more pets as members of their team and/or company mascots, with the first successor being a Labrador puppy named Osiris who first appeared in the credits of the first Jak and Daxter game alongside Morgan.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month September 1, 2024
Collection: MySims
2
In 2008, an animated series based on the MySims series was announced as part of a deal between Electronic Arts and the United Talent Agency to turn their games into motions pictures and television shows, alongside a film based on the The Sims series announced the year prior. However, while The Sims film has since received numerous updates on its development, the MySims series has not been acknowledged since, suggesting it was eventually cancelled.
Super Mario Sunshine
2
In a 2002 staff interview with Nintendo Dream, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that FLUDD was inspired by his memories of playing with water guns as a kid, an image that he recalled upon first using the analog L & R triggers on the GameCube's controller. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto further explained that the concept behind FLUDD was controversial among Nintendo's staff due to Mario not being widely associated with these kinds of tools, though Luigi's use of the Poltergust in Luigi's Mansion ultimately served as a precedent in the concept's favor.

In the same interview, Takashi Tezuka stated that Nintendo went to great lengths to keep FLUDD from resembling a firearm, both due to Koizumi finding a water gun "too simple" and due to concerns that guns (or anything that audiences may interpret as such) would be inappropriate for the franchise's public image. The "weird backpack thing" that FLUDD ultimately ended up as addressed both concerns at once, with Koizumi likening it to firefighting equipment and "a [plastic] bottle water rocket toy."
person VinchVolt calendar_month August 25, 2024
1
Attachment Both the NES and Famicom saw official releases in British Hong Kong, but the region received the NES first despite it being a later hardware revision of the Famicom. Because of this, the Hong Konger Famicom was itself marketed as an upgraded model despite the opposite being true. A switch was also added to the back of the system that toggles the Famicom's output between PAL 50Hz and PAL 60Hz outputs.
subdirectory_arrow_right Game Boy (Platform), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Platform)
2
Attachment Popular conceptions about Nintendo's release history in Europe claim that their hardware was never released in the former Eastern Bloc until the 21st century. Rather, these countries instead saw the proliferation of various clone consoles called "Famiclones", such as the Dendy (a Taiwanese-built bootleg that achieved widespread popularity in the Commonwealth of Independent States, made up of the ex-republics of the former Soviet Union) and the Pegasus (which became as popular in Poland as the Dendy did in Eastern Europe). However, while Famiclones did indeed dominate the Eastern European gaming market during the 1990s, Nintendo was not only aware of this, but actively attempted to halt the spread of bootlegs in these regions in favor of officially sanctioned products.

In 1994, Nintendo made a deal with Steepler, the Dendy's distributor in Eastern Europe, to permit continued sale of the Dendy in exchange for equal distribution of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy in the Commonwealth of Independent States; official Russian releases of these systems even included Dendy stickers on the packaging to reflect the arrangement. Meanwhile, in various other parts of the former Eastern Bloc, Nintendo made deals with other third-party distributors; among others, the NES, SNES, and Game Boy saw official releases in Poland, Hungary, and the former territories of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia during 1993–1994.
person VinchVolt calendar_month August 23, 2024
Caladrius Blaze
2
The title "Caladrius" was lifted from a legendary bird prominent in medieval European and Roman mythology that was thought to be a divine messenger of God. Caladrius would appear before those who were ill, and if there was a chance for recovery, it would fly away, carrying the illness with it. In a 2013 interview with the game's director Hitoshi Hoshino published in Shooting Gameside #7, he compared the design of the character ships to the bird's appearance, and added, "the title conveys that question: will there be any salvation or not?"
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
1
According to an Electronic Gaming Magazine interview (published in Issue #224, January 2008) with Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells and the game's director Amy Hennig, they were asked if they ever had plans for a different final boss battle after the interviewer expressed disappointment with it. Wells stated that the boss battle was designed to fit within the confines of the island and world they created, and that they could have made it more elaborate if they had a few extra weeks, but the overall direction remained consistent with their original plan. Hennig added that many games face the issue of jumping-the-shark at the end, as they need to escalate to a climax. She contrasted this with movies, which "get away with less" as they focus more on narrative and emotional experiences, and suggested that game design might benefit from shifting away from traditional boss battles to creating peaks in the overall experience.
Genshin Impact
subdirectory_arrow_right Identity V (Game)
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2
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month August 18, 2024
Bushido Blade
1
In a 1997 Dengeki PlayStation interview with the game's director Kunihiko Nakata, he explained that the core idea was to create a weapon-based fighting game centered around the concept of "ichigeki hissatsu" (one-hit takedowns) that would still feel fun. The goal was to make each hit feel decisive and impactful, giving players a sense of immediate victory when they land a strike that wins the match. This direction also influenced the choice to use swords as the primary means of battle in the game as they felt it made it easier for players to understand ichigeki hissatsu:

"I like fighting games with bare fists and staves and all, but I always felt it was weird when you'd take a bunch of damage in a match, and despite only having a sliver of life left, you could still fight with the same vigor. And that's why we wanted this to be a "one-hit kill" game. We could have accomplished that with just punching, but a cutting weapon is more visually convincing."
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit
1
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit was originally supposed to release on August 8, 2024, the day of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise's 10th anniversary. However, an error caused the game to be released one day early in Japan. As such, it was decided to release the game worldwide a day early as well, with the series' official Twitter account noting "It actually feels very fitting for a FNaF game to release EARLY!".
Drill Dozer
2
Drill Dozer marked the first time Ken Sugimori directed a game since Pulseman eleven years earlier in 1994. In a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview, he revealed that due to the increasing amount of content and collaboration required in making modern games and much of Game Freak's newer staff only having experience in the Pokémon series, he was prompted to place his full trust in the younger staff for most of the gameplay development as he realized he was not as young as he used to be. Sugimori scaled back his efforts to focus on drawing art for the game while character designs were done by Hironobu Yoshida. He also noted that Drill Dozer gave him an opportunity incorporate ten years worth of ideas from previous games that went unused due to memory constraints or deadlines, and felt they succeeded, which gave him a sense of relief.
City of Heroes
2
On April 15, 2019, it was discovered that a private server based on City of Heroes at the time of its shutdown had been running in secret for six years following the game's discontinuation. Three days later, the source code for this server was distributed, leading to the creation of a public server based on the code. Although this server was shut down by April 22 due to possible legal threats, multiple servers based on this code had since been set up. The most prominent of these offshoot servers was known as "Homecoming", who even went as far as to negotiate with NCsoft for the legal right to keep the server running. Years later, their efforts would pay off, as on January 4, 2024, it was announced that the team behind "Homecoming" had acquired a server license to run an official version of City of Heroes and its expansions, free to play and funded by donations.
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month August 4, 2024
Donkey Kong Country
1
Attachment In 2018, Donkey Kong Country designer Gregg Mayles posted a tweet off the heels of King K. Rool's reveal as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate featuring a naming sheet from the former game's development dated to March 8, 1994. This document contains several proposed names for various characters and the game itself, with Monkey Mayhem being listed as a working title. Other differences include the following:

• The names "Blonde Kong" and "Honey Kong" were suggested as alternate names for Candy Kong.
• King K. Rool was originally named "Kommander K. Rool".
• Rock Krock was originally named "Krocrock".
• Slippa was originally going to be called "Mr. Hister". This particular name appeared to be changed late in development, as an unused hint from Cranky Kong mentions Mr. Hister.
• Squidge was originally named "Mr. Squidge".
• Clambo was originally named "Ms. Clamity".
• Cranky Kong and Funky Kong's names were originally spelled "Crankey Kong" and "Funkey Kong".

Additionally, the naming sheet lists several proposed characters absent from the final game:

• An owl Animal Buddy named Hooter. In the replies to his tweet, Mayles stated that Hooter "was going to light the way with its night vision", and that it was eventually replaced by Squawks the parrot.
• A mole Animal Buddy named Miney, likely playing off of the counting rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe".
• A "Kremling Magician" named Kloak, who would later appear in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
• A "Statue Kremling" named Krumble.
• A "Green Kremling" named Klanger.
• A "Robot Kremling" named Krocbot.
• A Moray eel enemy named Mobo.
• A fireball enemy named Fizzle.
• A yeti/"Iceman" enemy named Frozone. In the replies to his tweet, Mayles expressed amusement at "Frozone" also being the name of a character from the 2004 American animated film The Incredibles, stating that "We never used or copyrighted the name, so anyone could have used it." Indeed, "Frozone" is one of several entries on the naming sheet that doesn't have a trademark symbol attached to it. Coincidentally, the Donkey Kong Country television series would feature a yeti character of its own, Eddie the Mean Old Yeti.
• Two fish enemies named Bloop and Gloop; the latter would later appear as an enemy in Donkey Kong Land.
• A "nasty beetle" enemy named Veedub, who would later appear in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest under the name Click-Clack.
person VinchVolt calendar_month August 2, 2024
Gregg Mayles' original tweet:
https://x.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1027946702270021638

Mayles' confirmation that Squawks replaced Hooter:
https://x.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1028581505566748674

Mayles' remark on the shared name "Frozone":
https://x.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1028884538381004802

The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Donkey_Kong_Country_(SNES)#Early_Naming_Sheet
Hi-Octane
2
According to developer Peter Molyneux in a 2019 interview, the different speed stats for the game's vehicles are entirely for show, and they all drive at the same speed. The lack of different vehicle speeds was due to time constraints stemming from a roughly six and a half week development period, but just seeing supposedly different speed stats when selecting a vehicle seemed to fool critics and players into thinking they were different at the time. Molyneux credits this concession for allowing Bullfrog Productions to focus more time into developing Dungeon Keeper, which would not release until nearly two years after Hi-Octane came out. It's rumored that early builds of Hi-Octane did have different vehicle speeds that were slowly worked on by the development team in their downtime as a side project. Molyneux claimed that this rumor was likely true, but that due to the same time constraints, they could not have made enough progress for the vehicle changes to be implemented into the final game.
Phantasy Star II
1
Attachment Sometime in 1987-88, Sega and the Japanese magazine "Beep!" held a "Story Recruitment Campaign" to let readers submit ideas to be considered for Phantasy Star II. This contest was held both to set a base for the start of development and to market the game to a wider audience on the name value of Phantasy Star, with the game being heavily advertised in Beep! thereafter. Despite the contest's name, Sega accepted any idea and gave out awards for scenario writing, illustrations, and game mechanics. Out of over 2000 entries, 29 were selected as winners and awarded with individually numbered "Associate Planner" certificates. They were also offered to meet with the game's developers for a planning meeting on March 20, 1988 at Sega's headquarters in Otorii, Tokyo, among other prizes. The events of the planning meeting and the top 7 winners were published in the June 1988 issue of Beep!, including a picture of the full roundtable. Producer/programmer Yuji Naka and artist Rieko Kodama were two of the developers in attendance.

Associate Planner No. 001, the Grand Prize winner, was Fumiko Sato. Of the 29 winners, three of them are known to have gone on to work in the video game industry and returned for work at Sega:

• No. 004 was 17-year old Masahiro Sakurai, who won the "Game System Award". Sakurai often recalled the contest without mentioning the game by name, claiming he came up with "something like the action-focused Active Time Battle system seen in JRPGs" before it existed. It's believed that this meeting was what prompted Sakurai to drop out of vocational school to pursue a full-time career in game design, using the award to advance his professional image until he was hired by HAL Laboratory after graduating high school in 1989. Sakurai became known for his work with them and Nintendo, creating the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series.

• No. 005 was Yukinobu Arikawa, who won the "Game System Special Award" for his entry titled "Those who inherit the legend". While it's not known if he attended the planning meeting, Arikawa would join Sega's AM2 team in 1990 and is still employed at Sega as of 2022. He became known for the comedic touches he adds to the games he works on, having worked as a game designer, writer, localizer and texture artist on different games in the Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Super Monkey Ball, Virtua Fighter, and Daytona USA series.

• No. 011 was middle schooler Keisuke Ōuchi, who described his proposal as being full of "middle school syndrome", but was unable to attend the planning meeting because he lived in the countryside at the time. Ōuchi worked on games as a character designer and graphics artist in various capacities, and created and directed the 1998 visual novel Ojou-sama Express, which similarly to Phantasy Star II held a long-term reader participation contest in the gaming magazine "Dengeki G's Magazine". He also works as a collectors' toy designer under the name Alan Moriguchi, specializing in mechs and robots.

It's unknown if or how any of the winners' ideas were used in the final game, as all of the developers used pseudonyms in the credits and no Associate Planners were credited.
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month July 31, 2024
Beep! - screenshots of March 1988 issue (in Japanese; it's believed that this issue is where the full list of winners were first published, but no full scan of the issue is available online):
https://retoge-mag.websa.jp/archives/215

Beep! - June 1988 issue (in Japanese; Page 86 in the magazine):
https://archive.org/details/beep-1988-06/page/86/mode/2up

Beep! - September 1989 issue translated developer interview:
https://shmuplations.com/psiirelease/

Masahiro Sakurai (No. 004) on Creating Games video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk8WsbCQXGc#t=194s

Sakurai translated magazine column on school/early work experience:
https://sourcegaming.info/2015/07/06/school-work-and-specialists-sakurais-famitsu-column-vol-3334/

Sakurai - The Guardian interview:
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/08/super-smash-bros-ultimate-masahiro-sakurai-35-years-gaming-history-nintendo

A conversation between gamers and game journalists about the future of computer games, held on August 15, 1989 at Dempa Publications, Inc. (19-year old Sakurai partook in this, and is credited with winning the Game System Award in the Phantasy Star II contest) [published in "CHALLENGE!! Personal Computer AVG & RPG 5 JP Book"] (Pages 341-355 in the book, Sakurai only appears on page 348 and did not participate in the rest of the conversation):
https://retrocdn.net/images/d/d5/CHALLENGE%21%21_Personal_Computer_AVG_%26_RPG_5_JP_Book.pdf

Yukinobu Arikawa (No. 005) career history:
https://segaretro.org/Yukinobu_Arikawa
https://www.mobygames.com/person/69425/yukinobu-arikawa/credits/

Keisuke Ōuchi (No. 011) tweets:
https://x.com/AlanMoriguchi/status/1320302751096553472
https://x.com/AlanMoriguchi/status/1321068321450553347

Alan Moriguchi (Ōuchi) revealing his identity in 2014:
https://x.com/AlanMoriguchi/status/520581151493070849

Ōuchi MobyGames page:
https://www.mobygames.com/person/456584/keisuke-ouchi/

Dengeki G's Magazine - August 1998 issue (Pages 49-61 in the magazine):
https://archive.org/details/dengeki-gs-magazine-013-august-1998/page/48/mode/2up

Japanese Wikipedia article on Ojou-sama Express with magazine citations (including the above issue):
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/お嬢様特急

Sega Associate Planner No. 017 tweet:
https://x.com/suginov/status/1321062605033664513

Sega Associate Planner No. 019 tweet:
https://x.com/unlucky_numbers/status/1539132578120486912

1988 contest materials were reportedly republished in the reprint mook " Beep(ビープ) 復刻版―特別付録 音楽CD2枚組 ":
https://www.amazon.co.jp/Beep-%E5%BE%A9%E5%88%BB%E7%89%88%E2%80%95%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5%E4%BB%98%E9%8C%B2-%E9%9F%B3%E6%A5%BDCD2%E6%9E%9A%E7%B5%84-Softbank-mook/dp/4797326239

Tweets that served as a starting point for researching this submission:
https://x.com/gosokkyu/status/1585114095329898496
https://x.com/gosokkyu/status/1705220228828045506
Zenless Zone Zero
1
Attachment The existence of a faction tentatively referred to as "Virtual Idols" was first leaked by an unknown party through illegal means of obtaining development data, including character design concept drafts. Rather than cover it up, however, the official Zenless Zone Zero bilibili account opted to reveal the group in a blog post and explain details about it. The idea first came about from students on the production team who had a fondness for idol culture and how they believe it can give people strength, giving descriptions on the individual members: "a lead singer who wants to ignite everyone's enthusiasm with her singing, an artist who is born to be the focus of the stage, and a creator with delicate emotions and great talent." They also expressed interest in making real virtual idols based on the group once the designs were finalized, and creating related projects such as character songs around them.
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month July 30, 2024
Bilibili blog post (Note: source is in Chinese):
https://www.bilibili.com/opus/931089295663431683?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

Pre-release livestream showing concept art for the Virtual Idols:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uACgiN-216s#t=495s
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