Did you know? There’s been dozens of unreleased games
that have since been recovered and preserved online. Video games we thought were lost forever have
come back in the strangest ways, sometimes decades after they were cancelled. We touched on this topic in May of 2022, but
there’s just so many fascinating stories about lost games that we had to come back
a second time. Today, we’ll look at four games, why they
were never released, how they got discovered, and where they are now. These are stories about cancelled games that
were released online by their creators, given away as gifts, or even stolen in a heist. Look for some exclusive information in this
video, as there’ll be plenty of it from the developers, collectors, and historians
we contacted who helped get these games online. Let’s start off with one of the most infamous
cancelled games in history: Star Fox 2. Star Fox 2 is a rare example of a cancelled
project that eventually got an official release. After years of various builds getting leaked
online, Nintendo announced the finished game would be bundled with their then-upcoming
Super NES Classic Edition. Like its predecessor, Star Fox 2 was co-developed
by Nintendo EAD in Japan and Britain’s Argonaut Software, who had formed a tight bond since
their connection in the early-90s. The company originally had a three-title deal
with Nintendo where they had to develop games using their high-tech Super FX chip. The original Star Fox was the first of these
games. Two British programmers from Argonaut - Giles
Goddard and Dylan Cuthbert - were sent back to Japan and split off with Goddard working
on Stunt Race FX, while Cuthbert led development on the sequel to Star Fox. The development of Star Fox 2 started right
after the first game was finished. According to leaked snippets of the game’s
source code, programming began on February 16th, 1993 - five days before Star Fox was
released in Japan. Cuthbert would serve as the lead programmer
on the project, with two Nintendo EAD coders working under him. It was a small team of talented people overseen
by Shigeru Miyamoto and director Katsuya Eguchi. Cuthbert recalls living in Kyoto during the
production of Star Fox 2, having limited contact with Argonaut or the outside world in general. Both technically and in design, Star Fox 2
was a much more complex game than the original. It was decided early on that the title should
use more powerful hardware. And with extra memory, the game could go beyond
the on-rails shooter and give the player the ability to soar in any direction. It took months of planning to decide what
Star Fox 2 would be. At first, it was literally up in the air. Eguchi wanted a more roguelike game set deep
in the darkest corners of space, heavily inspired by a Famicom game called Star Luster. While researching the game's overall feel,
Cuthbert tinkered with the Airwing's ability to transform and developed a 3D platforming
prototype. It was then decided this was the way to go. The sequel would be half strategic space shooter
and half low-ground dungeon crawler. Shigeru Miyamoto considered the original Star
Fox an “experimental platform,” so it was natural that the next game would feature
many new ideas that pushed the SNES to its limits. Star Fox 2’s story takes place right after
the events of the first game. The main antagonist, Andross, returns to invade
the army of Corneria, and it’s up to Team Star Fox to save the day - Falco, Fox, Peppy,
Slippy, and two fresh female companions. On their way, the group encounters many evil
entities throughout space. Most notably, they meet Team Star Wolf: the
evil counterpart to Team Star Fox. Star Fox 2 would include a plethora of new
characters. In addition to the wicked Star Wolf team,
there were two new playable heroes: Miyu, a courageous lynx, and Fay, a little white
poodle. There were plenty of other ideas for the updated
Star Fox team. Looking at leaked sprite sheets, we can see
designs for all sorts of creatures that could’ve made it into the game. There were gazelles, bison, bears, sheep,
lemurs, dogs, pigs, rabbits, robots, and, interestingly, African American women. Were this in the final product, it would’ve
been the first human character to appear in a Star Fox game and one of the earliest examples
of Black representation in a Nintendo title. The exact name of this character - if they
ever had one - is unknown, and Dylan Cuthbert has no memory of their creation. Star Fox 2 made its public debut at the Consumer
Electronics Show in January 1995. Nintendo spent most of its time at the show
promoting upcoming Super FX games, with Star Fox 2 as the top title. Coverage was mostly positive, with the game
making the front cover of several magazines. It was clear that people were ready for more
Star Fox. Star Fox 2 was finished by mid-1995 and was
planned for release in August. However, at the end of development, it became
apparent that 3D technology was advancing far quicker than anyone at Nintendo could’ve
imagined. Star Fox 2 would look obsolete only months
after its release. Nintendo didn’t want to risk this, and decided
to scrap the project last minute. In a 2015 talk with Nintendo Life, Cuthbert
recalls: "It was the summer of 1995, and the PlayStation and Saturn were suddenly doing
very well in Japan. I think that caught Nintendo off-guard. The decision was made because they didn't
want the old-gen 3D going up against the much better 3D of the next generation, side-by-side. The game was about 95 percent complete. Even after the decision was made [Argonaut]
went ahead and completed it, taking it to be fully QA'd through [Nintendo’s testing
subsidiary] Mario Club.” Nintendo decided to focus on titles for the
upcoming Nintendo 64, including a new Star Fox game which began production right after
Star Fox 2 was cancelled. You can see many elements of Star Fox 2 in
Star Fox 64, such as Team Star Wolf and all-range mode battles. Cuthbert would leave Argonaut for Sony, as
their contract with Nintendo was up. He couldn’t stay in Kyoto due to a non-poaching
agreement made after Giles Goddard quit Argonaut to work for Nintendo EAD. Both Nintendo and Cuthbert would keep final
copies of Star Fox 2 in their archives as a memento of a project they spent two years
on, only for nobody to see it. Star Fox 2 leaking to the internet was inevitable. At the CES show in 1995, an Arizonan man named
Shawn J. Freeman was arrested for attempting to steal a copy of Star Fox 2. Freeman, who was charged with felony petty
theft, allegedly planned to pirate the game. He was caught in the middle of the show floor
and tackled by Las Vegas police. With the rise of emulation in the late-90s,
there was more interest in finding lost games that were never released. Sometime in 1999, an early alpha leaked onto
ROM sites. This version contains numerous bugs and consists
of debug menus and a broken multiplayer mode - not the ideal way to play the holy grail
of lost Nintendo games. Another prototype leaked onto a German fan
translation site in August 2002. It was a Japanese build much further along
that was eventually discovered to be a near-final prototype dated June 1995. This version originated from an assembled
binary kept by an anonymous Argonaut developer. Cuthbert denies being the person who released
this ROM, and suspects they were stolen from his hard drive after he went to Sony. Whoever the culprit was, they brought Star
Fox 2 to the internet, and we thank them for it. The story was over. At least, it was until 2017 when Nintendo
announced the SNES Classic. The dedicated console would include twenty-one
pre-installed titles, one of which being the final, final build of Star Fox 2. Twenty years after it got cancelled, the game
was finally released. It even got a new box art drawn by Takaya
Imamura, Star Fox’s original character designer. The announcement shocked everyone, including
Dylan Cuthbert, who programmed the title over two decades ago. As Cuthbert told Games Industry.biz: “I
didn't know about it at all. [My company does not] have any work with Nintendo
right now, so there wouldn't have been an NDA-safe way of letting me know anyway. On the other hand, I got to have a big awesome
surprise like everyone else, so I'm quite happy about that. It's an absolutely awesome feeling. Incredible really. Perhaps a first in the games industry even." The decision to include Star Fox 2 in the
SNES Classic came from one of Nintendo’s producers, who thought it was a waste not
to release it in the world. It was known for years that Nintendo had a
master build of the ROM. It was even used when Dylan Cuthbert worked
on Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS, with them giving him the file for research. Nintendo has a dense archive, which can be
seen in the infamous 4chan “gigaleak”, where tons of material from the company’s
history, including Star Fox 2 ROMs and source code, were spread online in 2020. Star Fox 2 had a long journey getting online,
from an attempted robbery to an anonymous leak to an official release from Nintendo. But believe it or not, this isn’t the only
title to go through this pipeline -- another game was involved in an even crazier heist. This cancelled game that eventually got an
official release is Akka Arrh, an arcade title planned to be released by Atari in the early-80s. Before it was leaked through somewhat controversial
circumstances, Akka Arrh was considered a white whale among arcade collectors; a title
that would likely never be shared online. A cross between Atari’s Tempest and Missile
Command, the game is a space shooter where players use a trackball to defend their ship. Depending on the distance between you and
the enemies, the game constantly shifts between two screens of warfare. Akka Arrh was the work of three developers
at Atari: Mike Hally, Dave Ralston, and John Salwitz. Mike Hally was recruited out of college in
1977 to work in Atari’s pinball division, but would move to arcade game development. Dave Ralston joined the pinball division in
1979, their final year before closure, and would also jump to arcades. Because of their similar backgrounds, Hally
and Ralston collaborated on a project that merged elements of pinball and video games. Hally was on programming, and Ralston was
on art. The game would be known as Penetration -- a
hybrid game where players shoot a pinball through hoops to destroy space invaders in
corresponding rings on the screen. It was eventually renamed to Akka Arrh, likely
because no one would take a game called Penetration seriously. There are conflicting stories on the meaning
behind the title Akka Arrh. Many believe the name was a jab at Atari for
not giving their talent the credit they deserved. Akka Arrh could be an acronym for an "Also
Known As Another Ralston Hally” production. In interviews, John Salwitz has a similar,
slightly less messy answer. The name was an inside joke about another
employee at Atari, programmer Rich Adam. Adam previously worked on Missile Command,
among other things, and once signed a document with a fictitious name and added, “Also
Known as Rich Adam.” “Also Known as Rich Adam” could be shortened
to “A.K.A. R,” or Akka Arrh. Whatever the truth is, the name was unofficial. Were it to recieve and official release, the
game would have a different, more marketable title. Potential names included The Sentinel and
Target Outpost. This is around the time when John Salwitz
entered the picture. Hired by Atari in October 1981, Salwitz joined
at the end of the part-pinball, part-video game idea. The team found that the pinball action wasn’t
adding much, other than cost, and switched to traditional video gameplay. Here was the start of the Akka Arrh we can
play today. The trio worked on the game for about six
months before field testing. In early 1982, Atari sent a cabinet to a location
in Florida, where it was tested against a little-known game — you might have heard
of it — called Robotron: 2084. With its high-speed movement and addictive
gameplay, Robotron destroyed the competition. Akka Arrh only made about $30 after about
a week. It was clear who the winner was, and Atari
decided to cancel Akka Arrh. The game, while essentially finished, would
never be manufactured. Despite this poor first start, the three would
find success following the game’s cancellation. John Salwitz and David Ralston thought their
time at Atari was over. However, executive Dan Van Elderen told them:
“Great try for a bunch of rookies. What are you going to do next?” Ralston then pitched a game about a delivery
boy riding his bike down a street — an idea that eventually became Paperboy in 1985. The duo continued collaborating for years,
moving from Atari to Electronic Arts, and eventually starting their own company, Blue
Shift. As for Mike Hally, he stayed at Atari for
years, having a big hand in everything from 1983’s Star Wars to 1995’s Area 51. Now — only three Akka Arrh cabinets are
known to exist, all of which eventually ended up in the hands of private collectors.[7]
Each cabinet was rescued from Atari's warehouses or bought directly from the development team. Mike Hally recalls being paid about $3,000
for his copy. Although ROMs were never shared, several private
owners lent their cabinets out for free play at conventions, allowing the public to experience
something they couldn’t elsewhere. Despite this generosity, many were disappointed
that Akka Arrh had never made it online. But on April 15th, 2019, something unbelievable
happened. On the MAMEWorld forums, a place dedicated
to preserving and emulating arcade games, a prototype made it onto the internet. Akka Arrh was dumped by an anonymous donor
and shared with the masses. After thirty-seven years, the game could finally
be played by anyone at any time. But the story did not end there. Three days after the announcement, a user
going by the handle "atariscott" entered the forum with a controversial claim: Akka Arrh
was stolen and leaked online by an unscrupulous ROM thief. This person - whose identity is still unknown
- entered one of the collector’s homes disguised as a repairman. He was brought in to fix some of his broken
arcade cabinets. When the collector wasn’t looking, he ran
to the Akka Arrh machine, opened it up, and copied the ROMS without permission, then anonymously
uploaded the files. This comment from atariscott would be their
first and last comment on the MAMEWorld forum. The man behind the account is believed to
be Scott Evans, a well-known collector in the community who’d amassed dozens of rare,
unreleased arcade prototypes. At one point, he owned not one but two Akka
Arrh cabinets — both of which have likely been sold off. Following an investigation from ArsTechnica,
another anonymous high-end collector came out with the same story. It can be argued that this was the worst way
to go about video game preservation, as the ROM repair man stole data from the person
who saved the arcade game. Rather than forming an actual relationship
with the collector and building a path to public preservation, they probably just pissed
them off and made them double down. But with the game now on the internet, it
was reunited with the owners of the Atari license. They still owned the rights, meaning it could
be officially released. And in 2021, Akka Arrh was bundled on the
Arcade 1Up's Atari legacy cabinet alongside thirteen other titles. In 2022, it was a part of Atari 50, a curated
collection of more than 90 playable Atari games throughout its history. There’s a few other unreleased games in
Atari 50, and if you sort by date, you can see them grouped together since they don't
have a release date. Atari 50 came out in November 2022 for Switch,
Xbox, Playstation, and PC. On December 7th, 2022 — while we were writing
this script — Atari announced a reboot of Akka Arrh. A reimagining by legendary game designer Jeff
Minter, this would be a modern take on the 1982 title, with psychedelic elements seen
in Minter’s previous work. The game released on February 21st, 2023,
to positive reviews. Despite its controversial ROM release, Akka
Arrh would see a happy ending. We briefly mentioned how Akka Arrh was cancelled
because of the success of another arcade game, Robotron: 2084, but Robotron is also linked
to another lost title that was later found. However, before we get into it, we need to
explain a little about Robotron’s background. Released by Atari competitor Williams Electronics
in 1982, Robotron is one of the most iconic arcade titles of the golden age. The game is a frantic top-down arcade shooter
where the player runs around killing an onslaught of robots to save humanity, and its influence
is still felt to this day. Robotron was developed by Vid Kidz, a design
firm founded by ex-Williams employees who actually had a few unreleased games of their
own. Vid Kidz was started by programmers Eugene
Jarvis and Larry DeMar. Jarvis was another member of Atari’s pinball
division who leapt to Williams in 1979; DeMar was a computer science graduate working for
Bell Labs who left his job for the video game market in 1980. When the two started at Williams, the company
was just turning to arcade titles, and was described by Jarvis as “an abandoned factory
in complete isolation.” With such a small staff and little knowledge
of the technology, Williams offered the programmers plenty of creative freedom. A small team led by Jarvis created Williams’
first original arcade game. Months of work led to Defender, a scrolling
space shooter released in December 1980. Defender was a smash hit, selling 55,000 units
and dethroning Atari’s Asteroids as the top-earning arcade game in the United States. Defender’s success brought Williams’ business
way up, and Jarvis and DeMar's way down. Jarvis believed that, thanks to their game,
management was pushing dozens of people to design more hits like Defender. He thought that the quiet, enjoyable atmosphere
Williams once had was gone. This is when the duo left in 1981 to form
Vid Kidz, an independent company that could develop arcade games the way they wanted. Its “headquarters” were based in Jarvis’
condo in downtown Chicago. Williams wanted the two to stay and offered
to give them a $30,000 development kit if they got the rights to publish and manufacture
any future games. Vid Kidz’s first title, a Defender sequel
called Stargate, would be released by Williams in October 1981. Not long after, Jarvis and DeMar split off
to start new, original projects for Vid Kidz. Jarvis started what would eventually become
Robotron, while DeMar began work on a game called Conquest. Conquest was a multidirectional shooter set
in the dark void of space. You are the captain of a spaceship, stranded
in the center of a 2D universe. Surrounded by alien planets ready to attack,
your mission is to destroy them before they destroy you. The ship is equipped with a scanner that can
detect the remaining planets, and you can control the spaceship using a tiny wheel to
rotate and two buttons to thrust and fire. An example of this control scheme can be seen
in the 1981 arcade game Omega Race. Conquest was very much a bare-bones prototype. The scanner and score panels were fully functional,
but only represented as faint white dots. The spaceship was still using placeholder
graphics, with a design inspired by the ship in 1971’s Computer Space, the first commercially
available video game, which Vid Kidz had a cabinet of in their office. With only one development kit at their disposal
- and essentially one programmer doing all the work - Vid Kidz’s progress was sluggish. Jarvis would work on Robotron during the day;
DeMar would work on Conquest at night. After two straight months, the game was still
bare- bones. DeMar said in the 2020 book The Games That
Weren’t “There was very little game there at the time. I had only created the 2D scrolling world,
the ship control, the scanner, the ship's fireball shots, the collision detection and
explosions, and enemy racking for the end of a wave. There were many notable gaps to fill overall,
with a lack of player explosion when you died, and just a simple blank attract screen that
slowly cycled through colors." Conquest was put on hold after Vid Kidz found
out that a similar game was set to be published by Williams at the same time. Internally, Williams was working on Sinistar,
another multidirectional space shooter developed by some of the Defender team. Jarvis and DeMar were worried that Williams
would prioritize their own game over one made by an outside company. So Vid Kidz focused on Robotron and would
decide later whether or not to resume Conquest. They never did. The company would put out one more game for
Williams — the obscure 1983 title Blaster — before shutting its doors in 1984. Jarvis left to get his master's degree at
Stanford; DeMar would return to Williams, with Jarvis following him soon after. A quiet ending for one of the most unrecognized
arcade developers of the 80s. Enter Jeff Vavasour. An early expert in emulation, Vavasour was
a Canadian developer who made a name for himself designing home computer emulators for the
PC in the early-90s. In November of 1994, he was hired by Digital
Eclipse Software working on some of the first commercial emulators. Digital Eclipse was mostly doing Macintosh
work at the time, but was looking to branch out to the PC, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis. One of Vavasour’s first jobs at the company
was the SNES version of Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits. The game was a collection of arcade ports
from Williams’ golden age — including Vid Kidz’s Stargate and Robotron. During the project, Vavasour made friends
with Larry DeMar, then the head of Williams’ pinball division. DeMar sent Vavasour the source code to all
his games so he could render them as accurately as possible without emulation. The Vid Kidz library came with a special gift:
the partial code for Conquest, dated June 30th, 1982. Conquest did not make it into Arcade’s Greatest
Hits. Historical importance notwithstanding, it
wouldn't make sense commercially releasing an unfinished prototype. Games like Star Fox 2 and Akka Arrh have had
their final - or near-final - ROMs published; no such thing existed for Conquest. The source code was never shared, and stayed
in Vavasour’s pocket for decades. In 2009, Vavasour established Code Mystics,
a company specializing in retro game ports. Code Mystics has worked on dozens of titles,
with credits on everything from Rare Replay to the King of Fighters series. They even have a special thanks for Atari
50, which Digital Eclipse developed. At the end of 2020, they released something
that’d been in their archives for nearly 25 years. With the permission of Vid Kidz, Vavasour
compiled the Conquest source code and uploaded it on their site as a free-to-play browser
game. It runs smoothly on a custom Williams arcade
emulator, and is the first look at an arcade title that was close to being lost forever. Conquest can be played on any PC at any time,
anywhere. You can boot up the game right now in just
a few simple clicks -- check it out after this video. Finishing today’s video is something completely
different. Strap yourselves in: this is a strange one. Here is Drac’s Night Out, an unreleased
Nintendo Entertainment System game planned to be released by Parker Bros in 1991. At first glance, this seems like a fairly
average Nintendo game. You play as Dracula, the king of vampires,
who’s on a mission to find his beautiful bride, Mina, before sunrise. Dracula — or “Drac,” as the game likes
to call him — only has six hours to make it, and he constantly has to avoid angry mobs
and monsters trying to get in his way. The game consists of two scenes. The first scene is in Drac’s castle, where
you strategically sneak past enemies using a plethora of Rube Goldberg-style booby traps
to kill anyone in your way. The second scene has Drac out on the town,
where players must go in and out of strangers’ houses to find Mina’s location. If you can find her before the clock strikes
six, you win. Even by NES standards, Drac’s Night Out
is pretty simplistic. But what makes this game particularly interesting
is the bizarre, blatantly last-minute promotional tie-in. Were it to be released, Drac’s Night Out
would be the first video game featuring the Reebok Pump, a flashy line of inflatable shoes
released by Rebook in 1989. While Drac is out killing innocent civilians
and sucking people’s blood, he’s wearing some of the most stylish sneakers on the market. Good for him. It should be clear that the Rebook connection
wasn’t always there. Drac’s Night Out was the brainchild of two
men — Mark Lesser and Rex Bradford. Did You Know Gaming managed to get in touch
with both developers, who gave us plenty of insight into the game’s bizarre creation. Mark Lesser got his start in video games in
the early-70s, working on handheld games for companies like Mattel. In 1980, he was hired by Parker Bros., where
he’d work on Atari VCS titles like Frogger II and an unreleased Lord of the Rings game
that was entirely finished. It was here where Lesser met programmer Rex
Bradford, who was also working on the VCS and became good friends with him. Bradford was not at Parker Bros. for long,
as he left for Activision's short-lived office in Boston. When that division closed in the spring of
1984, he co-founded a company of his own with fellow Parker Bros/Activision programmer Charlie
Heath. Microsmiths was a tiny team of talented developers
based in the coastal town of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Mark Lesser came on about a year after Microsmiths
started, and most of their run in the 80s and early-90s was just the three of them,
plus freelancers. With a company run entirely by ex-employees,
Microsmiths had a close relationship with Parker Bros. Starting in 1990, Parker Bros.
began publishing games for the NES, with titles such as Heavy Shreddin' and, of course, Monopoly. Executives at the company had the original
idea to do a Dracula-based game, and commissioned Microsmiths to design it. Rex Bradford would come up with the castle
scenes, while Mark Lesser would do the other half with the town. Parker Bros. accepted the pitch, and development
began on Drac’s Night Out. Bradford and Lesser would code, while a freelancer
did the artwork. Microsmiths had no luxury of a hardware emulator
on NES. All they had was a RAM-based cartridge where
code could be inserted using a computer. Despite such limitations, Drac’s Night Out
was a memorable project for both developers. Lesser, who was in the industry for over 25
years, says Drac was one of his favorite games to work on, even with its sad demise. Late into production, Reebok hopped on board,
insisting that the Pump be added to the game to fulfill a licensing agreement with Parker
Bros. Microsmiths objected, but had no say in the final decision. In the end, they had to do it. They distributed Reebok Pump sneakers throughout
the castle. When Drac touched one, he ran at increased
speed for a while, much like a Super Star in Mario. It was a small change, but it was the best
they could do. Drac’s Night Out was in development for
about a year. It reached the golden master stage, and was
100% ready for release before being cancelled at the last minute. The exact reason for Drac’s cancellation
is unknown, but it is believed that Parker Bros. decided to exit from NES development
right as the game was finished. It may just be that their publication license
expired and they elected not to renew. Keep in mind that Parker Bros. had two other
NES games in development at the time — both of which were cancelled. Bradford and Lesser were given free pairs
of Reebok Pumps for their efforts in the game. Out of spite, Lesser never wore his Pumps. Regardless of no receipt, Bradford had a friend
return his pair to the mall and split the money with her. Microsmiths would never develop another NES
game, but continued doing titles for other systems like the Sega Genesis. They would close their doors in 1996. As Bradford recounts, “We did various other
projects and tried to do more original games, but the scope of game development quickly
got away from our small size, and we never rode the wave of building a big company. I went on to work at Looking Glass Studios
in the 90s, and Mark and Charlie went on to other things too. Mark did the Sega Genesis version of NHL ‘94
for Electronic Arts and later formed MBL Research, and I did a couple of projects with him again. [Microsmiths] was a very fun and unique time.” When Drac was cancelled, the developers were
able to take their work home. Mark Lesser and Rex Bradford kept their copies
of the final game, and eventually gave them out over time. Here is where Gideon Zhi enters the picture. If that name rings a bell, Zhi is one of the
most prolific ROM hack translators online. He’s done localizations for games like Cave
Story and Shin Megami Tensei. He even did one for Star Fox 2 when the near-final
build leaked in 2002. Zhi grew up in suburban Massachusetts, and
had a lifelong love of video games. The NES was a big thing for him when he was
in elementary school, and he found himself playing almost every day. Zhi’s parents were active in their town
and knew most of the neighbors, so when they found out that someone on their street — a
man named Rex Bradford — was working on a game for the system, they told him right
away. Zhi got to play Drac’s Night Out in varying
stages of development at Bradford’s house, working as a young playtester. Bradford would loan a near-final cartridge
to him and other neighborhood kids, and eventually, he ended up with it permanently after its
cancellation. It wasn’t until the late-90s, when Zhi started
getting deep into the early emulation scenes, that he became aware of what he had. In the early-00s, Zhi loaned his cartridge
to an NES ROM dumping group, where it was quickly preserved and shared online. Drac’s Night Out, a holy grail of the NES,
was saved by the neighbor of the person who created it. Zhi’s family is still in possession of the
cartridge which currently resides in a basement in Rhode Island. Another prototype exists in the hands of Jeremy
Smith. Fans of Did You Know Gaming may recognize
that name, as we mentioned him in the first Lost Games That Were Found video. An avid collector of unreleased NES games,
Smith bought his prototype years ago in an auction. The seller was someone in the industry whose
boss let them take a few Nintendo prototypes home from their office. Drac’s Night Out was the only unreleased
title in the auction. Smith bought it for the measly price of $200,
and it’s now one of the crown jewels of his collection. More recently, Smith purchased the original
box-art painting, which gives us a peak at what Drac would have looked like on a store
shelf. Look, he’s wearing sweatpants! While doing research for this video, Mark
Lesser, co-creator of Drac’s Night Out, sent us something we were not expecting. Lesser, who is now retired, had kept a copy
of Drac’s Night Out in his collection for over 30 years. If Lesser’s prototype is what the EPROMS
claim it to be, it’s the long-rumored master build. It should be noted that while the Gideon Zhi
prototype is beatable, we are unsure whether it is the 100% finished game. It contains several bugs during the town sequence
and lacks any form of credits. So there is a chance that this prototype could
be something new. Lesser was willing to get his cartridge preserved,
and Did You Know Gaming knew just who to contact. The Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit
organization we’ve discussed many times in our videos, has dealt with hundreds of
NES prototypes. Its founder, Frank Cifaldi, had a hand in
releasing most of the unreleased NES games we have today. If anyone could get the data off of Lesser’s
chips, it would be Cifaldi. We put Lesser in touch with Cifaldi, and the
conversation to get Drac’s Night Out — as well as any other game ephemera in his collection
— preserved is still ongoing as of this recording. Here’s hoping something new can be found. Drac’s Night Out is one of many unreleased
games that’s gone from forgotten to found. This video would not have been possible without
the hard-working historians, developers, and collectors who’ve saved these titles from
extinction. When video game preservation is done right,
it can tell some truly unique stories. Did you also know that fans have found a 64DD
port of Mario 64, as well as tons of other games? For more on that, check out the video on screen. Interested in video game preservation? Check out the Forest of Illusion YouTube channel,
or our website. Thanks for watching -- see you next time.
