Lost Neo Geo Prototype FOUND, REVEALED & RELEASED : "DarkSeed"

Shou-sama said:

I am in contact with former Technos staff to acquire whatever the final code base of this game is.

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NOICE!!!!

Hey, NTM. I just came across this thread, via a mention of the proto find on Reddit. Thanks for your generosity! That's an amazing find, and your sharing it with the world is quite selfless.

It's really exciting to see something that almost no one knew even existed, and is yet in a near playable form. I'm looking forward to seeing what develops!

Shou-sama said:

I am in contact with former Technos staff to acquire whatever the final code base of this game is.

Click to expand...

And the saga continues...

I'm pretty confident, that the die hard fans here, will get every bit of information out there, and as playable as possible.

It's times like this I am glad I am a member of neo-geo.com

The home of the people who truly care about the Neo Geo, and preserving its history for future generations to enjoy.

That IS what the Neo Geo is all about!

Wow is all I can say! This is amazing!

Congrats NTM. There are a lot of good vibes in this thread and I agree; it is efforts like this that make this a great community. It is also stuff like this that makes you wonder how much more neo treasure is out there waiting to be discovered. Awesome man. Looking forward to seeing where else this goes over time.

Shou-sama said:

I am in contact with former Technos staff to acquire whatever the final code base of this game is.

Click to expand...

This is straight up getting interesting. Hope there's good news at the end.

If the contact to technos comes through I think that would be a good source for new information.

I feel there is not enough there to complete the game into something releasable and playable on what Brian has now. There is too much unknown about the planned final version of the game to do something well. To try such a thing I think would be almost impossible to pull off well and some might still compare the end result to the TOTC nightmare. It might be there are other builds out there in a more advanced state though which might be more workable.

My personal opinion at the moment regarding this is not to touch it at all. At least not until other avenues have been exhausted to try and find more data or information.

I'm leaning towards the conclusion what Brian actually has found may be the kit an artist used for character animation design only. While that might be a downer for some people, I personally feel it shows a unique insight into how an arcade development team worked on a game. Its not like the artists would keep getting new builds of the game as programmers added code. Artists just need the basics in the early stage so they can check their work as efficiently as possible. Its this reason which leads me to believe there may be other builds out there more complete and if there is more than one character artist involved, another dev board with other characters completed may exist. Talking to technos may shed light.

Shou-sama said:

I am in contact with former Technos staff to acquire whatever the final code base of this game is.

Click to expand...

Don't keep us waiting too long you sexy bastard.~

Shou-sama said:

I am in contact with former Technos staff to acquire whatever the final code base of this game is.

Click to expand...

Holy shit. I really wonder if digging around with former 3rd party SNK employee's might yield some proto results. Like going down a list of people. You know how that stuff goes, someone probably has some proto sitting in a pile of garage crap collecting dust. I am still waiting for the day where that very early Garou 2 comes to fruition and we get to see a video of what it was. Imagine how that'd change the history of things. What if Krauser had a relative or son or even daughter as a character in Garou 2? How cool the thought is. Some believed the entire thing was hoax, but who knows really?

Razoola said:

....
I'm leaning towards the conclusion what Brian actually has found may be the kit an artist used for character animation design only. While that might be a downer for some people, I personally feel it shows a unique insight into how an arcade development team worked on a game. Its not like the artists would keep getting new builds of the game as programmers added code. Artists just need the basics in the early stage so they can check their work as efficiently as possible. Its this reason which leads me to believe there may be other builds out there more complete and if there is more than one character artist involved, another dev board with other characters completed may exist. Talking to technos may shed light.

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I think this is very plausible. Especially since the backgrounds have so much detail to them. I feel like polishing the backgrounds would have come later in the development cycle, or at least after all the character sprites.

Regardless this is an awesome find and many thanks to NTM for sharing this with the public!

Head counter reminds me a lot to huitzil/Phobos from vampire saviour, could it be the same artist? Maybe someone knows if that person was working for technos at that time?

Shou-sama said:

I am in contact with former Technos staff to acquire whatever the final code base of this game is.

Click to expand...

Great news & possibilities here. With this hot stuff one could even revitalize GameGo!

Nice job.

So NTM, do you consider this found as a posterior release or "beta" version of VFG ?

This is my first real time to really reflect on this weekend. I've been crazy busy working this convention and only had limited time to post a couple of quick sentences here.

It was just a phenomenal room to be in. To see the staffers i knew, the pce guys, other forum guys, and of course the neo guys all in one place looking on in awe as it all unfolded was something special. Being in a room with bartre, jag-master, niko, mr b, psygnosis8, shadowkn55, demirichris, catmato, and that chinese kid while turfy masterfully spun off the tale of this game was just crazy. Not only to have all of the neo folk in one room, but to share in the event. For me the very best part of the whole presentation was the collective gasp that the room made when turfy moved out of the menus and the character select screen first popped up. I thought about doing a video but there was a few other cameras out there and I just wanted to take it all in. I wanted to watch it with my own eyes and not through a screen (no offense to those that did record it- i've seen a few vids- great job guys!).

This was something special to behold. I am thrilled and honored to be a witness to it all. Thanks so much turfy for making it happen. You really did something special last night.

amazing find ! Congrats NTM.

This is really interesting and I love the elegant way that NTM have handled the whole situation. I'll be following this thread closely

Wow! This are really news that are worth to read!
Nice to see the Neo Geo world still got some secrets to uncover.

Whoa, what an amazing find and what an awesome collaborative job to get this up and running! Thanks for making this happen NTM!

I actually love the unfinished characters, it really gives an insight of how these games were made. Never thought they would work first on the outline and animations, before giving more detail to the sprites. The game looks pretty impressive graphic wise for the time!

[OCEAN] said:

I actually love the unfinished characters, it really gives an insight of how these games were made. Never thought they would work first on the outline and animations, before giving more detail to the sprites.

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It's interesting that some incomplete character sprites have shading during their attacks, but not while idle.

As others have said; thank you, Brian. *Now* I know why you asked if I was attending MGC-and mentioned something special would be happening.

This is just stupendous.

On first blush, I thought this might be some sort of early build of what would become Dark Awake/Chaos Breaker.

As rad as unearthing this proto is, my favorite part of this thread is seeing so many OGs come back to post and read.

Strong work!!

This is just overwhelming.

Thank you NTM.

really awesome work NTM!!

Just getting around to watching some videos.

Even though uncolored, Headcounter, the transforming statue dude looks like a lot of fun.

Rot WAVES!!!!!



HELLO LURKERS!

xROTx

PS. Man... so much forum traffic... come to chat...

Simply amazing NTM! I still find it bewilderingly awesome that there's STILL games out there to be found. Hopefully the Technos contact yields good results.