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This is a thread about stuff that’s not in games. Post your favorites or sites where they talk about this stuff. Resources: The Cutting Room Floor - A website about this stuff. In wiki-style they document anything unused, cut, or changed like stuff from earlier versions of games that are absent later, hidden developer messages, regional differences. If you have an evening to kill give their Ocarina of Time page a read. Sonic Retro - Sonic fans are really into taking apart games and finding betas. ------------------- Tramplin’ Stu or “hinokuri” from Super Mario Sunshine scares the poo poo out of me.  This cut enemy is seen in a few early videos of the game. It walks slowly in a straight line towards the map’s 0,0 coordinates. It has a prominent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDVZSkalR-U He stops occasionally to open the top of his head revealing a third eye. If you shoot enough water into his head casing thing it explodes in a really lovely animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlilQvCg2z4&t=75s In his second form he is skinny and fast. This form, which is actually used in the game’s test level, makes a beeline straight for 0,0. If you shoot enough water at its top/third eye then it finally dies.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAoQAkxhivc&t=590s Both forms will go through walls and then fall if they run into any. There was probably intended to be a third form as well where its outer head is stone and needed to be broken open. It never got proper collision with anything other than the floor and Mario. Maybe it was planned to have a specific route, or just got cut before they could do more with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37UT2SOvUus It has a shitload of unused animations like jumping into water. Mario’s slow swimming with this thing around would be terrifying. I don’t know why but everything about this thing just weirds me out. The whole thing is just uncanny and it doesn't help that it’s big, has a third eye, the cloaca, and bad collision. Heran Bago fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 20:30
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Windy Valley from early versions of Sonic Adventure was a completely different level. It was totally redone in the final game. The level was also designed at a point where the game’s physics were completely different. The very wavy road seen here would not work and would play like rear end in the final build of the game, even if it did have a forced path on it like loops or corkscrews.  Hey look it’s Cyra’s avatar Aside from the inside-the-tornado section the two parts of the level are really big. The last is probably bigger than any other level and contains huge land masses with multiple paths. The layout is kind of confusing and meandering. There are many nooks and crannies where items could go but there aren’t any. There’s data for enemy layouts, rings, trampolines, and springs. It’s hard to tell what they were thinking when designing this level but it was clearly meant to be more than just a mockup. Why they tossed it out altogether is beyond me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA199EhVJ6s&t=13s Last year someone at Sonic Retro got a hold of the game’s autodemo, an early promotional disc that runs automated demos of parts of the game to promote both Sonic Adventure and the up-and-coming Dreamcast. It was picked apart fairly quickly and soon people had the full models of the long lost beta level. In Sonic hacking tradition it was restored and put into the final game with a few playability tweaks within weeks. ------------------- That’s all for now. Please share your favorites even if you’re just quoting something from tcrf, there’s so much stuff there and I haven’t read most of it. I have to mention the Windows executable for Pikmin that’s on the game disc. Someone here in the Retro Gaming thread was part of the group figuring out features in it. Also debug rooms in Squaresoft PS1 games are neat but I have almost no idea how they work or what they do.
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Nov 16, 2014 20:32
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The best poo poo is angry devs hiding messages in their code. http://tcrf.net/Erika_to_Satoru_no_Yume_Bouken "Mmm, that's a nostalgic song playing. Those were good times. Meanwhile, who the hell are these people with this project? I'm so glad it's over. You think it's nothing but good memories? Hell no! Let's use this space to give out some thanks. First off, Kaoru Ogura, who ran off with some guy in the middle of the project. Yes, you, you bastard. Don't show up at the office without showering after having sex 6 times the previous night. Next, Tatsuya Ōhashi. Yes, you, you bastard. Don't give me your flippant poo poo — coming in late on the day we ship the ROM like nothing's amiss. You can give me all the porn you want; I'm not forgetting that one. All that loving weight you put on. No wonder you paid out 18,000 yen and still got nothing but a kiss out of it. Kenji Takano, Namco debugger. You are a part-timer; don't dick around with the project planner. And finally, Kiyoharu Gotō, the biggest thorn to my side in this project. Yes, you, you bastard. Once I get a time machine, I’m sending you back to the Edo period. Go do your riddles over there. Ahh, that's a load off...wait, no it's not. Kiyoharu Gotō — yes, you, you bastard. Aaaagh, just disappear already. Come to think of it, some people were helpful to me, too. Mr. Okada, who took all the good stuff. I know all about your abnormal tendencies. Yamagishi, who swore off soaplands until the project was over. Go ahead, knock yourself out now. Iwata, who joined in midway and gave it all he had. Sorry I yelled at you. Keep hanging in there. Fujimura, Udopyu, you probably had it the worst of all. Thanks. I mean it. Gotō's the one to hate here. Also, Takayama, Kudō, Suzuki, Makki, Kaneko, Aihara, Sato (the angel of my heart), Iga. Thanks, everyone. Yoko-G, good work. This game is dedicated to your wife's birthday." http://tcrf.net/Category:Games_with_hidden_developer_messages best category
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Nov 16, 2014 20:39
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http://tcrf.net/LEGO_Ninjago:_Spinjitzu_Smash this game literally was a megaman battle network fan game at one point lol http://tcrf.net/Banjo-Tooie#Bottles.27_Revenge i can't believe rare removed this http://tcrf.net/GoldenEye_007_%28Nintendo_64%29#ZX_Spectrum_Emulator rare did some wacky stuff back then, while i'm at it PixoPoxo fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Nov 16, 2014 |
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Nov 16, 2014 22:21
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Megadyptes posted:The best poo poo is angry devs hiding messages in their code. Ganso Saiyuuki's one is my favorite. quote:Designer: Kaoru Nakajima
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Nov 16, 2014 22:45
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If you go digging far enough, there's a fully textured observatory area on a snowy peak hidden in the final map of Bioshock Infinite. Looks like a completed map, but I have absolutely no idea what they would have used it for. Bioshock Infinite ending spoilers, obviously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD3-ZnzZK_8
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Nov 16, 2014 22:51
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Stuff like this makes me kind of wonder what the co-workers of the people who leave these dirty messages think of them. Like, what's the correct way to deal with someone who left behind an offer to go down on a woman in the code of a Sonic game? Aside from laughing your rear end off at the craziness of it, that is.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:05
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I remembered Final Fantasy VII has a whole bunch on unused stuff. The Honey Bee Inn was originally going to be way bigger and even creepier/sleazier. There was a third, now unused, underwear key item you could get this way. It also included the only scene to use a song that instead goes unused in the final game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLhCX7D_sR4&t=28s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=058JQUM3t6s Unused song and Palmer scene at 3:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iEHsGeaDbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AozOlgCwSMA If you've played FFVII then its page on tcrf is worth a read. Highlights include hidden elements and one that's only used for Ultima Weapon, unused status effects, unused enemy skills, and this guy hidden by a background layer in a room that exists for no other purpose:  Archonex posted:Stuff like this makes me kind of wonder what the co-workers of the people who leave these dirty messages think of them. Finisher1 posted:If you go digging far enough, there's a fully textured observatory area on a snowy peak hidden in the final map of Bioshock Infinite. Looks like a completed map, but I have absolutely no idea what they would have used it for.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:25
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Neo Geo cartridges have tons of stuff like this. Like in Metal Slug 1 there's sprites for the characters strafing and all kinds of crazy stuff, entire unused bosses, etc. lots of good artwork. King of Fighters '96 is the most insane though because that particular KoF had new sprites and moves for every single character along with drastic changes to how the game plays. On the cartridge but unused for animations for the command moves characters wouldn't get until KoF '97 and '98, along with an extra super move for every character, many of which have unique animations and stuff.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:32
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I'm not sure it counts for this thread, but Resident Evil "1.5" is always the first thing that springs to my mind on the topic of cut/unused content (as I'm sure it does for anyone else who is a fan of the series). http://residentevil.wikia.com/Biohazard_1.5 I remember reading in gaming magazines at the time about Resident Evil 2, and I was so excited about it that I could barely contain myself. The game we got was amazing, but the early screenshots always haunted me. The police department in this version seemed more modern, as well as featuring a different character in place of Claire. I'm sure they scrapped it for a good reason, but it still haunts my youth as a, "what could have been?"
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Nov 16, 2014 23:37
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Twilight Princess has a million little things unused. Among them is a Black Golem creature http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-offxZURORE and a Goron made of Gorons you could fight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yfcdcfzb5M there's also spandex Waldo found within in the files 
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Nov 16, 2014 23:39
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Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission have a bunch of Wario assets on the cartridge also.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:57
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Neo Rasa posted:Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission have a bunch of Wario assets on the cartridge also. That's because they are based off of the Warioland engine, probably.
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Nov 16, 2014 23:59
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Yeah, Wario Land 4 uses the same engine.
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Nov 17, 2014 00:06
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http://tcrf.net/Myst_(Amiga) This one has a pretty interesting story by the coder about the making of the port. And its also blackmail material. Wonder if the guy got his money after all...
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Nov 17, 2014 00:17
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http://tcrf.net/Jelly_Belly:_Ballistic_Beans_%28Wii%29 
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Nov 17, 2014 03:41
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In Final Fantasy 3 for the Super Nintendo you can resurrect General Leo by fighting 50,000 battles in the dinosaur forest. You will encounter a special monster called "Ultimasaur" that you have to use the Steal command on to get the "Leo Trigger". Take the trigger to General Leos grave and he will come alive again and join your party!
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Nov 17, 2014 03:48
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quote:DATA\FRONTEND\SPLASH\WII has a bunch of separate .tga files that form into this when you put them together:
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Nov 17, 2014 08:52
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The Amiga games with angry messages for crackers are the bestquote:Line Of Fire was written by Richard Aplin for Creative Materials &
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Nov 17, 2014 09:26
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What a great idea for a thread! Shadowrun for the SNES had a hidden developer room. This is extremely cool because it can be accessed without using any game cheats or anything! And even more fascinating is that it wasn't discovered until, when asked in Retro Gamer magazine about 6 months ago, the developers revealed there was indeed a hidden area no one ever discovered. http://tcrf.net/Shadowrun quote:There is a cheat in the game, but I can't remember exactly how to do it. Basically, there is a flickering streetlight in the first street area after you wake up from the morgue. If you examine the Matchbox four times around the flickering light, you're teleported to a cheat room that contains a bunch of upgrades and gives access to all of the levels Even the devs forgot how to access it but they couldn't believe no one figured it out, ever. I always found that impressive because I assumed the TCRF.net people just combed through code to look for stuff. I know nothing about game code, though! I also particularly like when stuff is left out for seemingly no reason (perhaps by accident?): http://tcrf.net/Killer_Instinct_%28Game_Boy%29 TJ Combo's alternate stage (with the car/graffiti) complete with the music for that stage. Both the stage and music are inaccessible in the game for reasons no one can figure out. My guess was it was an oversight. This final one is all sorts of  http://tcrf.net/Front_Mission:_Gun_Hazard I remember finding this back in 1997 when I helped with an SNES website and everyone thought I was nuts; people who tried doing it when I said told me that it was probably hacked into the ROM by the group that ripped it or whatever. But nope, there's a racial tirade voicemail that's for some reason hidden in a Squaresoft game.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:14
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:http://tcrf.net/Front_Mission:_Gun_Hazard More than likely, they put it in after the end credits as a neat little touch, something to add to the gritty tone of the thing. Even after the game is over, there's still going to be violence. The fact that it's a weird racist tirade is probably a result of whoever slipped it in having enough knowledge of English to know it was a violent threat, but not enough to realize that it was racially motivated.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:19
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Endorph posted:Sampling is something video games do a lot, and Japanese games usually sample English clips. It tends to sound 'cooler' to a Japanese person than sampled Japanese would, and Japanese players would usually have enough knowledge of English to pick up on basic phrases/terms. As an example of something else weird being sampled, the final boss theme of Sonic Rush samples a Malcolm X speech. It's only even weirder because of how well it's hidden; when you rip the audio from the SNES ROM it just sounds like a long hi-pitched beep and it turns out you have to reverse the clip and then slow it down by like 16x. So they either went out of their way to hide it, or that is simply just some sort of compression technique perhaps.
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Nov 17, 2014 14:38
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Rutibex posted:In Final Fantasy 3 for the Super Nintendo you can resurrect General Leo by fighting 50,000 battles in the dinosaur forest. You will encounter a special monster called "Ultimasaur" that you have to use the Steal command on to get the "Leo Trigger". Take the trigger to General Leos grave and he will come alive again and join your party! Tengames fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 14:39
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Blam!
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Nov 17, 2014 15:00
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Uncle at Nintendo posted:It's only even weirder because of how well it's hidden; when you rip the audio from the SNES ROM it just sounds like a long hi-pitched beep and it turns out you have to reverse the clip and then slow it down by like 16x. So they either went out of their way to hide it, or that is simply just some sort of compression technique perhaps. Needing to slow it down is an audio quality thing to save space, and is seen in lots of GBA ROMs. The backwards thing isn't.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:24
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Speaking of GBA, I would love for tcrf.net to examine GBA ports of games. I noticed FFVI Advance doesn't have a page there, and I'd love to see differences between something like the Earthbound VC WiiU release, the GBA port, and the SNES version. Stuff like that. I know that's such an incredible task though, and I would wish that kind of workload on nobody. But it would be rad as hell.
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Nov 17, 2014 16:55
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I love learning about this kind of stuff. There's a website that has scans from a Japanese game magazine focusing on games that were changed during development or outright cancelled, and it has some interesting screenshots of Super Mario World. Featuring the old title screen:  The old map screen:  Old goombas:  The old Fire Flower design:  As well as the Tanooki Leaf:  Here's a full page scan that looks similar to the build above, but with a horrendous-looking Big Boo.  This version looks very similar to the final, with the exception of the Banzai Bill   Finally, there's a later version of the title screen with its full Japanese name (yes, it's actually called Super Mario Bros. 4: Super Mario World there).  Even once it was released they made a few changes to the US and European versions, most notably the title screen. The shadow is much further back from the letters, and the wood panelling looks slightly different.  
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Nov 17, 2014 18:59
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There's a picture from Nintendo Power that I cannot find right now in which Howard Phillips is playing that early prototype of Super Mario World (on an SNES that looked nothing like any SNES released anywhere). I can't find the picture right now but it proves that the prototype cart at least made it to the US. He was selling prototype carts on eBay a while back but sadly none of them were of that super-early version.
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Nov 17, 2014 19:18
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Agrias120 posted:I'm not sure it counts for this thread, but Resident Evil "1.5" is always the first thing that springs to my mind on the topic of cut/unused content (as I'm sure it does for anyone else who is a fan of the series). RE 1.5 is fascinating. Footage of Leon running around with Marvin and an early version of Annette (or Ada?), Elza teaming up with the gun store owner dude and Sherry, the design of the police station, it's amazing just how much was scrapped in favor of what we've got. The group that's working on rebuilding it apparently has a good idea of how the story was supposed to play out too. Kind of sad they haven't updated their videos in a while though.  https://www.youtube.com/user/MrBZork/videos
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Nov 17, 2014 19:29
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I think my favorite bit of Development Detritus Left Behind tends to be Pikmin. Once you get around the whole mini-DVD-with-proprietary-encryption poo poo, the GameCube discs had a standard ISO9660 filesystem on them; any GC disc image can be easily mounted on a PC. Because of this, there tends to be a lot of text files and other junk left behind. Pikmin, though, is the king of leaving things behind on the disc -- the game disc contains a complete dev build of the game, for Windows.  http://tcrf.net/Pikmin/Windows_Executable F-Zero GX is pretty notable for this too -- it has a nearly-complete port of the F-Zero AX arcade game.
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Nov 17, 2014 20:00
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My favorite page will always be Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 the game of a thousand licenses.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:02
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That loving Sned posted:Whole lot of Super Mario World going on. That reminds me that I've had these screens from an old gaming mag saved on my computer for years (they have, in fact, made the jump through several builds and HDD iterations):    
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Nov 17, 2014 21:08
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Dance Dance Revolution games had hidden stuff as well. There existed hidden stepcharts, some completed, that weren't selectable unless you pull off a glitch changing the difficulties to those that supposedly didn't exist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlhBcwmLohk One song not shown above just had one freeze note at the end for its hidden chart, seen in the attachment below. Note the timer and score. Another video of hidden stepcharts from a Japanese home version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoLg02Xyync They are hidden away because there is no difficulty number given to it, which makes them unable to be selected. Hack in any number and they are made selectable. In the old home versions, there were mods that can only be seen in challenge courses and not selectable: half-speed, quarter-speed, wave, and brake. Hacking in text at certain locations of an executable made them selectable for any song outside of the courses. I think the newer home versions made them available as unlockable bonuses. One of the European arcade versions was suppose to get an nSync song, but that got cut out, yet the artwork for it was still in the hardware. Yechezkel fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 21:57
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Agrias120 posted:That reminds me that I've had these screens from an old gaming mag saved on my computer for years (they have, in fact, made the jump through several builds and HDD iterations): Whoa I recognize these exact scans as coming from me, I used to resize everything to be 512px wide for reasons that never really made sense. This makes me want to scan them again, 10+ years later, knowing how to actually get good results...they're just from an issue of Nintendo Power, nothing special.
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Nov 17, 2014 22:29
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TheRedEye posted:Whoa I recognize these exact scans as coming from me, I used to resize everything to be 512px wide for reasons that never really made sense. "No pictures wider than 512 pixels on the web" used to be a common web design "rule", at first for accommodating people with 640x480 monitors (because you wanted to have room for a navigation frame on the side! or a simple static side menu!) and then later it was as part of making sure pictures wouldn't take up too much RAM. Tons of older sites did it, some even still around. There were also similar rules of 500 and 550 pixels wide that a lot of other sites did.
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Nov 17, 2014 22:38
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Nintendo Kid posted:"No pictures wider than 512 pixels on the web" used to be a common web design "rule", at first for accommodating people with 640x480 monitors (because you wanted to have room for a navigation frame on the side! or a simple static side menu!) and then later it was as part of making sure pictures wouldn't take up too much RAM. Actually my rationale was that the NES horizontal resolution was 256 pixels, so I'll double that (I was scanning a lot of screenshots of unreleased NES games at the time)
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Nov 17, 2014 22:50
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TheRedEye posted:Whoa I recognize these exact scans as coming from me, I used to resize everything to be 512px wide for reasons that never really made sense. I'm 100% sure I just saved these from an old SA thread years ago, so there's a good chance you posted them up and I snagged them thinking they were cool alpha/beta looks at SMW.
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Nov 17, 2014 22:59
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Some of the stuff left on retail disks is just shocking, two that spring to mind:quote:Beatmania APPEND 5th Mix Source Code quote:Present on the first 100,000 copies of the disc is the file ZZDUMMY.DAT, which is a QuickTime movie containing the uncensored version of the South Park pilot episode "Jesus vs. Santa". The episode was apparently sneaked onto the disc by someone at EA, and according to the metadata it was converted four days before being added to the disc.
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Nov 17, 2014 23:32
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I think Days of Thunder on NES has my favorite messages. http://tcrf.net/Days_of_Thunder_%28NES%29 Christmas Messages At the title screen, when "PRESS START TO PLAY" is displayed, hold A, press B 4 times, release A, hold A, press B one time, release A, hold A, press B 26 times, release A, hold A, press B 5 times, and release A. This cheat code stands for "DAZE", where the first set of Bs represent D, the second represent A, and so on. After A is pressed, a "GALERY" will appear. There are a total of nine screens, all of which contain quickly drawn pictures of the game developers. Pressing A will advance to the next one. It brings up pictures like this.  
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Nov 17, 2014 23:45
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Pokémon Puzzle Challenge, a Gameboy Color rebranding of the Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon games, contains an entire barebones Panel de Pon Gameboy mono game. This was only discovered a year or two ago. http://tcrf.net/Pok%C3%A9mon_Puzzle_Challenge quote:If using a non-GBC Game Boy, Panel de Pon GB can accessed from the GBC-only screen by pressing A (24x), B (24x). (You will hear a chime after pressing each button the required amount of times.) If on a Game Boy Color or newer, the GBC-only screen must first be triggered from the title screen by entering Up (2x), Right (4x), Down, Left (10x), Up (4x), Right, Down (6x), B. Once the screen is displayed, pressing A (24x), B (24x) will launch Panel de Pon GB.   This also has unused graphics where they were improving the Panel de Pon game with new characters, a suspend screen, and translating bits of it into English.    NaughtyHusky posted:Some of the stuff left on retail disks is just shocking, two that spring to mind: Heran Bago fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Nov 17, 2014 23:48
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