Unreleased Tengen PC Engine games.

[exodus]

A former Tengen employee put up a bunch of unreleased PC Engine ports, when they were evaluating the system. He has put up Magical Puzzle Popils, Marble Madness, Peter Pack-Rat, and Off the Wall.

Here are his credentials: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/jun-amanai/credits/developerId,195797/

Here are the games:

Especially unfortunate that marble madness didn't get released!

[Digi.k]

That off the wall game in his comments :

"Yes, you are right. Manufacturing cost of 8M-bit HuCard was too high, and volume-type controller seemed to be mandatory for this game. So we gave up."

I don't see anything there that suggests the game is 8mbits.  2-4Mbits perhaps, Well at least the audio for all those games are pleasing. Thanks for the compilation of links.

I am liking with what I am seeing with Marble Madness and peter pack rat.  The sound samples in that Peter Pack Rat port.  The fact  that they made this much progress and then not finish and have it released It's breaking my heart  !__!


I am assuming the "volume-type controller" is something like these:

[Necromancer]

Too bad these all got abandoned.  Peter Pack Rat and Popils look rather primitive (like Boxy Boy), but they all look like they'd be fun.

[esteban]

Paddle controller?

Also, LOOKS LIKE I NEED TO UPDATE THIS PAGE:

http://archives.tg-16.com/turbo_play_0005.htm#tengen

Even more heartbreaking now that I see all the abandoned games/Tengen projects for TG-16.

So sad

[SavagePencil]

Those are pretty darn accurate ports.  I like how very "Lynx-ian" the music sounded on Off The Wall.  Popils was good on the Game Gear's small screen, but here it just looks kind of chunky.

[xelement5x]

Marble Madnes returns!  I wonder if the proto will resurface again, I can imagine the Nolan's might be intersted in doing a limited release now that they've got the new custom Hus.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, "volume controller" is somebody's vernacular for a "paddle" or linear rotory pot. There was one made for PS1 that was actually called Volume Controller around the time of the original Namco Museum ports.

[Punch]

Oh my god.

[johnnykonami]

These are pretty cool to see, shame about them not coming out.  I don't know if any of them would have been on my childhood radar though, so maybe they made the right choice for the demographic.

[SavagePencil]

All but puzzle Popils would have been on my wish list.  The packrat game in particular looks like it was at an early stage of development... I can imagine a more polished version being great.

Peter Packrat was one of the early-/mid-80s Atari arcade games that ran on the same hardware as Temple of Doom and Marble Madness.  That clip looked at least passably accurate:

[csgx1]

Very interesting, thanks for posting the videos. 

A real shame none of those games were release.  They all look decent.

[Punch]

I like the whistling bgm in Peter Pack Rat even if it sounds a little bit off on the PC Engine. I had no idea these games existed until now, actually. Shame there are no roms of it.

gimme teh r0mz pls

[NightWolve]

Hm, interesting find.

[exodus]

The reason graphics/sound all feel off is because these were ports - different resolution than the famicom, different chip, so stuff is gonna sound weird. And I'm sure they would've smoothed some things out were these to go into production, but he stated they were tests. I am trying to get in touch with him for more info, but haven't gotten there yet.

[Digi.k]

I personally don't find the sound as "off" especially on the Peter Pack Rat game just lower samples that seem to be taken from the arcade game, but the synths sounds just invokes that distinct pc engine sound for me.