TGL’s exclusive interview with Unseen64.net

CommentNovember 28th, 2009 17:28

We felt that we’d like to sit down and mention a site that we have been fond of for years now. Unseen64.net is a gamers heaven: a pirate’s treasure if you will. Imagine owning some of the most sought after “scrapped” titles on the planet?

The Gaming Liberty: First off, tell us a little about yourself.

Unseen64: My real name is Luca, but I’m usually know online as “monokoma”. I’m an Italian gamer born in 1983, that loves obscure / niche games and is obsessed with titles that people will never be able to play. F rezero121 rom 2000 with the help of some friends, we have organized a website know as “Unseen 64”, to preserve info and some media with the differences from the early development of videogames and for those ones that have been cancelled. As some already know, all those games that are published every year are only a small part of the entire number of concepts that software houses start to develop in their studios. I work full-time work and have not enough free time for friends, games, hobbies and to update U64 too! So I usually go-on and i’m generally half-asleep because I never sleep as much as necessary. It’s hard to be a nerd.

TGL: Have you ever worked within the game industry?

U64: I applied to become a game-tester when I was a kid, but no luck! No, I never worked in the gaming industry, and seeing the current state of the market, it’s something that I would not look into it right now. Too many great development studios closed in the last 2 years because of economic crisis and increasing development costs. Original games are often a flop and it’s difficult to gain enough profit to keep up with this race if you are not one of the top tier publishers / studios.

TGL: What made you set up Unseen64? Did you see an opportunity or was it for your own enjoyment?

U64: When I was younger, my Italian friends and I were obsessed with the Nintendo 64 and we noticed that many of our favorite N64 games looked different from the old screenshots that we were looking at in magazines before their release (different graphics, removed places and characters, etc.). snap0127 In 1998 we played Zelda: Ocarina of Time and explored it for months, but it was clear that most of the places we had seen in the early screens were nowhere to be found in the final game. We started to save beta screenshots from Zelda 64 and all the other unseen N64 games, in which we were able to contemplate those differences and discuss them for hours. After some time we decided to open a little webpage where we could organize and host all of those screenshots [with beta and cancelled N64 games], also, to be able to share them online with other “geeks” that would have some interest in them. And that’s how “Unseen 64” was created. After years of collecting beta stuff, the archive has grown bigger and bigger. Over time we covered much more than JUST Nintendo 64 games, but we decided to use the original “Unseen 64” name, because we are in love with it!

TGL: How has the community grown since the website started?

U64: Initially U64 was an Italian project, the staff was composed by me and other Italian gamers. The articles were in Italian only and we didn’t even have a dedicated forum. In 2006 I finally opened a Youtube Channel ( http://www.youtube.com/user/monokoma ) in which I can share beta videos with everyone. Somehow thanks to Youtube, U64 became even more popular among gaming geeks, and in October 2007 I got in contact with “MAIcrosoft”, a gamer from Netherlands, that offered us hosting for Unseen 64 on his webserver and pay for a real domain name. We chatted with “MAIcrosoft” for some time, and he seemed reliable and crazy enough to start a good collaboration between Italy and Netherlands. We created a the site thanks to WordPress, opened a U64 Forum and decided to change the official U64 language from Italian to English. With English articles and daily-updates, the U64 community started to grow rapidly. Today we have people from all over the world in our staff, quite a few international people in our forum and even more visitors that follow the main site. It’s nice to see that there are so many people with our same obsession for unseen games!

TGL: Does the forum community on Unseen64 help in the process of tracking down info about the games you feature in your articles?

U64: Yes, often there are forum users that write topics about their “unseen-finds”, that later are posted in the main U64 site as new articles. Some of the older users in the forum slowly became part of the “U64 Family” and now they are in the main staff. It’s not always easy to find all the differences from the beta and the final version of a game, so the community is a great help!

TGL: For those who buy unreleased/beta and prototype games can they be expensive?

U64: Absolutely. As every other collector’s item, the cost depends on the “rarity” and “demand” of that particular beta game. So, for example, a beta version of Fifa 2009 could probably be bought for a relatively cheap amount, while the legendary (and unreleased) “Resident Evil 1.5” could be very expensive and it seems that Capcom still tries to hunt down who owns a copy of that. Companies tend to either destroy or hide in their private archived materials, so it’s often a black-market area.

TGL: Has anybody within the videogames industry contacted you with insider information about any unreleased games?

U64: Yes, sometimes we get emails from developers that want to share their work with the community, to preserve what they did for some unreleased projects. We respect their privacy and they can remain anonymous if they wish so. It can be a problem soemtimes to share their real names (as you can imagine). As I said before, sometimes companies are not happy if one of their employers distributes material(s) from a cancelled title. capcomartconcept01 But the purpose of the Unseen 64 Archive is not only for the curiosity about some games that we’ll never be able to play, it’s also for artistic and historic preservation. As we can see games as a form of art, it’s important to archive some documents of the existence of an unreleased project, to be sure that it will not be lost and forgotten. If you think about it, it would be sad to lose every piece of an un-finished painting by Picasso or Leonardo da Vinci. Developers, as artists,are just trying to preserve their artworks for the community of gamers that are able to appreciate their efforts. As a way to save their work/efforts, they send some screens or videos for the Unseen 64 archive.

TGL: Why do you think the idea of unreleased/BETA games appeals to gamers?

U64: People like beta and cancelled games for different reasons. Some want to see what their favorite game once looked like or how it was made. Beta builds can have features not in final versions that some would find entertaining or even better than what we (as gamers) got in the end. Maybe one of those cancelled games could have been our favorite game ever – if we had actually got to play it. In general, humans have a natural interest for things unknown, especially if related to their passions (in this case, games).

TGL: Is there any one particular unreleased game that you wish saw the light of day?

U64: There are a lot of promising games that were never published, but a couple of them have a special place in my heart for various reasons. As Chibi Robo for the GameCube is one of my favorite games ever, I’d love to play it’s original and unreleased version, when it was still a point and click adventure that was meant to be published by Bandai ( http://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/09/chibi-robo-gc-bandai-beta-version/ ). When Bandai rejected the project, Chibi Robo was doomed, but fortunately Nintendo took it under their wings. The game was changed into a platform / adventure and it became that clever game that made me fall head over heels for it!. Also, another semi-obscure cancelled project that had my full interest was “Desert Island” for the Nintendo 64DD (http://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/04/desert-island-64dd-unreleased/ ). It was an action / simulation / survival RPG in development by Imagineer in 1998, somehow similar to the released “Lost in Blue” series for the DS. The player had to survive on a bizarre desert island, observing and interacting with its flora and fauna. The main gameplay was supposed to be a mix of exploration, survival, and life simulation, in which we had to cultivate the land and raise animals in order to create a new civilization. The concept was fascinating, but sadly, Imagineer fell into financial problems and Desert Island 64 was canned.

TGL: And finally, in one sentence why should readers visit Unseen64?

U64: Because we give away free cookies (maybe)

Chibi Robo Beta [GameCube Bandai Point-and-Click Version]: