The Warlocks of the Fates Prototype.

Alkanan

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<img src="http://alkanan.250x.com/proto.jpg" alt=" - " />

That's what the NGF release of the game looked like...along with Crossed Swords 2.
 

buster_broon

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@ Alkanan

i hope you realise that in that photo if he had to open the box up inside would be 2 discs marked teh romzzzz

ngf skills at producing inserts is very good - but i doubt they managed to finish a proto

especially since playmore only took 1 from them when they took all their stuff and to be honest i bet it was just that empty box he is holding wink
 

RabbitTroop

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Alkanan:
<img src="http://alkanan.250x.com/proto.jpg" alt=" - " />

That's what the NGF release of the game looked like...along with Crossed Swords 2.
Cross Swords 2 is bigger than 70 megs in cart form... :cool: Actually, without music the game is about 64 megs..

-Nick
 

Alkanan

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All i did was post up the pic of the carts that makismo sent me, so don't ask me any questions because i don't know anything about it.
 

tsukaesugi

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Alkanan:
All i did was post up the pic of the carts that makismo sent me, so don't ask me any questions because i don't know anything about it.
Thanks anyway for posting them. And thanks to Mak for sending out the photo in the first place.

I tend to agree with buster_broon: if those boxes contained playable games, then someone who had played one of them would have probably posted something about it on this BBS at some point.
 

Makismo

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The picture is not showing anymore. Perhaps there is something wrong at your end. Anyway, the games are made from EPROMs. Those are copies of actual prototype games. The real prototype games use very strange chips. There are some picturs over at the NGF exchange of what the inside of a prototype game looks like. :)

EDIT: Here is a picture of Warlocks of the Fates. I got this from <a href="http://www.neogeofreak.com." target="_blank">www.neogeofreak.com.</a>

<img src="http://www.neogeofreak.com/carts/aes/english/Warlocks.jpg" alt=" - " />

Here is a picture of the inside of an Ironclad prototype game. Take a look at the flash cards:

<img src="http://www.ngfusa.com/proto/ICproto1.jpg" alt=" - " />

I read about Neo pool Master. The game is only 18 megs total. It is even smaller than Puzzeled but biger than Digger Man. V-Liner may be smaller but I am not sure.

<small>[ February 22, 2003, 08:49 AM: Message edited by: Makismo ]</small>
 

Makismo

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Here is a picture of a Last Odyssey prototype:

<img src="http://ngfusa.com/proto/LOproto1.jpg" alt=" - " />


Here is a picture of the Neo Pool Master prototype:

<img src="http://ngfusa.com/proto/NPMproto2.jpg" alt=" - " />

This is what Dion had to say about these games:

As you can see, my proto carts have custom SNK flash cards than the Ironclad proto Chris has, which used industry standard cards. And all the protos we have use EPROMs for the S1 and M1 chips (because there is no such thing as a real ROM program, all programs are on a computer and are either burned to Mask ROMs or EPROM chips). The cards are all the same in terms of technical aspects, but the custom SNK cards are just nice as a collectors treasure, or Extreme Super Freak item. But I'm sure everyone would be happy with either. Plus those custom proto MVS boards are a super unique idea and very amazing. Just pop in the cards as you're programming to test the play at a show or convention.

An interesting note is that Neo Pool Master is a very small sized game (only 18 megs, much smaller than League Bowling which is 26 megs). The custom SNK Program cards are only 8 megabytes each (equivalent of holding 64 megabits each - the NeoGeo term when referring to meg counts is megabit), but obviously they are not completely used. Less than 8 "NeoGeo" megs are used on each card from the Neo Pool Master compared to the Ironclad cards that are each 16 megabytes (128 megs each). And as you can see, the game is by Saurus, not "Nazca" as other fan site master lists wrongly have it listed as. The game is from 1997 and would have been a great welcome to the NeoGeo sports line up, especially if you're a pool/billiard fan. It's a really fun game if you like pool, but the shots are kind of tricky to master.

If anyone can translate the Japanese writing it would very helpful in trying to find out more information on this game. Maybe it's the Japanese name or something.

Last Odyssey is from 1995 by Monolith. It's one of the better lost games that for some reason was never released. Last Odyssey has great sound and lots of intermission and animated pop up screens during play. Very similar to Alien Crush and Devil's Crush on the TurboGrafx/PC Engine. And incredible game that should have at least been released on the CD system. My thought it that SNK didn't feel comfortable releasing a "video pinball" game to compete against REAL pinball machines. I agree with their reasoning but SNK released a lot of crappy games that don't come close to the fun of Neo Pool Master or Last Odyssey.
I hope that helps a little. :)
 

kernow

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Great pictures.. regardless of where they came from, thanks :)
 

tsukaesugi

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Dion (via Makismo):
If anyone can translate the Japanese writing it would very helpful in trying to find out more information on this game. Maybe it's the Japanese name or something.
I can't make it out very well, but it seems to say

ネオジオXXXXXX

(neo geo somethingsomething)

It doesn't look like it says 'neo geo pool master', but whatever it is, it's a word, not a sentence, so it's probably a title. I'd have to see a better picture.
 

tsukaesugi

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buster_broon:
wouldnt surprised me if they were a photo shop mock up
They could very well be.

I am inclined to believe that they are real however. It seems that Dion likes to get his hands on anything remotely Neo/ Snk related; not just the games and promotional items, but things like the jacket the part-time workers wore at the NeoLand in Tokyo, printing plates etc. It wouldn't surprise me if he actually did get his hands on a prototype or two.

The questions, however, are:

1) are they complete games

2) are they well designed, without any major problems

My guess is probably not, otherwise they would have been released already.
 

RabbitTroop

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First of all those dev carts were such a good idea. The C, V, and P roms could all be downloaded onto memory cards. The dip switches are actually switches, not soldier points... man, you wonder why they didn't just do it this way for released carts... it would have made repairing and upgrading the carts so easy, instead of the soldiered EPROM fixes they do from time to time (then again, also would have made rampant bootleging easier to.. oh well).

Anyway, I would love to get my hands on one of those dev carts, I don't even care if it just had some lame released game on it, they are such a cool design :) Thanks for the picts Mak... I am not inclined to believe these were real (thanks to the seizure document saying they only grabbed one proto), but the dev carts were still quite a find by Dion.

You know the truth of the matter is, if he didn't always try to lie, he could have one great collection of unique things to share and showboat... but he choose the scamming route... ah well,

-Nick

<small>[ February 22, 2003, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: nruva ]</small>
 

Makismo

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I don't know if these games are complete or not but I know that Digger Man was never finished. I think Dion told me once that Last Odyssey was finished but wasn't released because SNK thought that a pinball game was a bad idea. There is supposed to be a prototype section on their site so that may answer a few questions. I will see if I can get some more information.
 

tsukaesugi

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Makismo:
I don't know if these games are complete or not but I know that Digger Man was never finished. I think Dion told me once that Last Odyssey was finished but wasn't released because SNK thought that a pinball game was a bad idea. There is supposed to be a prototype section on their site so that may answer a few questions. I will see if I can get some more information.
Do you have Digger Man? I think I saw you mention somewhere that you do...

If you do:

a) how much did it cost?

b) is it in the homecart format or MVS?

c) how does it play (especially considering it isn't finished)?
 

Makismo

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tsukaesugi:
Makismo:
I don't know if these games are complete or not but I know that Digger Man was never finished. I think Dion told me once that Last Odyssey was finished but wasn't released because SNK thought that a pinball game was a bad idea. There is supposed to be a prototype section on their site so that may answer a few questions. I will see if I can get some more information.
Do you have Digger Man? I think I saw you mention somewhere that you do...

If you do:

a) how much did it cost?

b) is it in the homecart format or MVS?

c) how does it play (especially considering it isn't finished)?
Jeff Kurtz had one for sale a long time ago. He said that it was 11 megs. NGF has one for sale right now. I was told that it would be $150. The game is available on MVS. In fact, one is being sold on eBay right now. It may still be there if you check. I haven't played it myself but the graphics are really bad. It was said to have been done by Face. It was supposed to be their first product but they didn't like the game so they canned it. Their first game was Gururin and it wasn't very good. They then decided to make Zupapa but they didn't like it either. It finally came out in 2001. There first hit (and only hit since they went out of business before Zupapa was released) was Money Puzzle Idol Exchanger.

Digger Man is a puzzle game and you collect jewels and there are various traps that can get in your way. It is a very hard game to play. I have seen the game in action but it looks to have Nintendo graphics so I stayed away. :)
 

Makismo

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I asked Dion about those games. I asked him:

Are Warlocks of the Fates, Last Odyssey, Neo Pool Master, Ironclad, and Crossed Swords 2 finished games? Also, are they fully playable or are they so unfinished that they are not playable?

This is what Dion told me:

Yes, those games are complete and fully finished. The game play is very good with everything feeling perfectly timed. The music along with the graphics are also of top notch production.
Here is the Digger Man auction - <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3209037072&category=3945" target="_blank">linky</a>

Here is some more information about the prototype games from Dion:

The games were not "cancelled."
The only reason they never got released was because they were from third party companied who didn't have enough money to have a full production made. SNK (at the time) only handled the distribution of the games. Companies paid a licensing fee to have the games distributed by SNK, and at the same time they paid SNK fees for each game, but in the end the third party company makes the money from the game. Sometimes third party companies sell their game to the first party, but other times they just give the licensing fees based on number produced.
I hope that helps you guys out. :)
 

FeelGood

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Saurus was not a third party but a second party. Publishing the home cart/MVS versions of Ironclad would not have been an issue for Saurus under that condition.

Seriously, other than Stakes Winner G1, how many other Saurus games went to non-SNK hardware?
 

Alkanan

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Alright, i rehosted the pic, for some reason it was gone from my server so go take a look again.
 

SuperGun

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Joe McCabe
[/qb]
Billy Pitt is the owner of the site, but he ripped off most of those pics from my old site. I scanned them from a Neo Geo Freak mag, I believe one of the NGF mags had the movelists or character info in it. :) [/QB][/QUOTE]

Joe, are you ok?
If this was sarcasm then it wasn't clear enough to me.

Joe has it backwards gentlemen...
MY site went up first.
HIS site went up second, and "ripped off" MY pics.

Anyone with even the SLIGHTEST doubts, don't bother taking my word or Joe's word for it. Simply ask Shawn, Nick, Keith, or any of the moderators of this website.

I received 2 or 3 pics from Joe (horribly scanned I might add) of which I may have used for some of the games. And this was LONG after my site went up, and WITH my asking him for permission. When Joe's site went up, he simply stole ALL my pics for all the other titles and placed them on his new site withOUT even asking me and/or giving credit to me.
I contacted him and expressed to him my "disappointment". He was...lukewarm...in the way he handled it all. In other words...neither side of the coin...not sympathetic or sorry...and not an asshole...but simply...indifferent.
I swallowed my pride and kept it simple and considered it all water under the bridge.
We maintain(ed) a cooperative & civil relationship since then.
But to say what he said above...that's just insulting. Common Joe, don't do that. It is really just inappropriate. I simply must draw the line here.

Billy
 

Xian Xi

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I still can't believe this game was $1k back then, fucking ridiculous.
 

mmsadda

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Before I realized this thread was ancient, I was all like
flash.gif
 
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