X'treme Roller

Build of Another Cancelled and Unreleased N64 Game Recently Discovered

You may not know this yet, but we are obsessed with preserving the early software and development history of games for the Nintendo 64. I have spent a large, nontrivial part of my adult life trying to ensure that every design doc, early build, or scrap of source code still in existence is carefully preserved and archived for history as best that it can be, and I have spent lots of time, money, focus, and energy working towards this goal.

The intention and purpose of this site is to share as much as we can, and hopefully find and attract people who have more.

More than two decades have passed since these titles were under development, and in the terms of software and game development, that is an eternity. Hard drives have failed. Dev units have been scrapped. Studios have closed their doors, been bought out, or moved offices multiple times (often losing or throwing away old dev materials each time). Old data backups have been corrupted or gone missing, and the list goes on.

Liquidation sales have occurred [which may have actually worked out marginally favorably for preservation in some cases]. Early previews that were sent to magazines have surfaced, been auctioned, or shown up in strange locations. Employees and collectors have traded materials over time and, although it hasn't happened much yet for the focus of this site, some incredible companies and developers have open sourced or publicly shared some of their work on the largest and safest distributed database in the world- the public internet. We have begun seeing an increase in the number and size of archives of older console development materials being posted to Archive.org and github [like the source code to nearly every classic Midway arcade game and 78+ Atari 2600 games... kind of a dream come true, isn't it?!]. The recent streak of good fortune in video game preservation gives me great hope for the future of uncovering past relics of Nintendo 64 video game development in the present.

But don't always work out perfectly. It's not entirely uncommon for irreplaceable data and artifacts fall on the cusp of destruction, only to be saved or discovered out of pure luck.

Sometimes dev items mysteriously show up at computer recycling centers in Canada, where they are miraculously identified and auctioned online...

If that one seems a little specific, that's because it is!
Today's featured article is about a mysterious N64 cartridge that showed up on Ebay in mid 2019.

Fortunately, I caught the listing almost immediately.
I had never heard of the game, so I had to research quickly.

I was instantly transported back two decades in time. I found an article for X'Treme Roller on an ancient N64 fan site, Nintendo64Ever, and an old AngelFire page (complete with mock box art) created by a fan excited for the game. One of my favorite sites, NESWorld.com also listed the game in it's Nintendo 64 unreleased game list, so I knew that, while it seemed that little was known about this N64 game, it was not completely unknown or forgotten.

I learned from the listing and research that the game was ultimately released for PSX, but it was only the Nintendo 64 release that had been cancelled. The reason of cancellation is still unknown, although the large production cost of cartridges coupled with the console nearing its end of life are likely to blame.

The listing itself contained a relatively good amount of photos, also.

It did not take me long to realize that I had to purchase this game.

The cartridge itself is in very good condition- it does not contain any stickers or writing beyond the standard NUS sticker containing the 256 cartridge size.

To be sure, this is a very early demo build

If you press the L button you will be teleported and drop into one of two locations in one large map (or possibly a couple of separate maps), very similar to the early Turok big map demo that surfaced in the source code that was found several years back. You can skate through the various surroundings and press another button to change your character at any time. A friend told me it may not be difficult to collide with certain geometry (say, the edge of a ramp) to get out of bounds to explore uncharted territory not intended to be inhabited by your skater. No sound or music had been implemented at the time of this build, unfortunately.

There may be hope for more...

In doing some additional research to put together this article, I noticed a Twitter post that I had not previously seen before

Excellent question! But the reply was even better...

It looks like there is hope for some additional materials to have surfaced [Maybe]!

I reached out to the Microids Twitter account in regards to the thread, and they politely informed me of some sad news- "I'm sorry but the old team is gone and lots of files and information too".

I tried my luck with AstralAlgorithm, as well, but no luck at the time of this writing.

You are still in some luck, though, because you should have the opportunity to load up the build that we do have into your favorite emulator or flash cartridge very soon!

Do you know someone who worked on or might have additional information, data or files related to the development of this (or another) N64 game?

We would LOVE to hear from you! Please reach out and provide any info that you can- we will keep this page updated if any new information or data comes in.

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A note to collectors

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We know you love N64 development cartridges- we do too! Please make sure all of the data on your cartridges is safely backed up. The electronic chips holding data on these development cartridges were not intended for long term storage and will not hold their data forever [lost data may render your cartridge unplayable and the game build completely lost]. We have already seen it happen to some.

If you have backed up the ROM from your cartridge, it may be possible to re-flash the same build to keep it going good as new for another 20-40 years!

If you need help getting a safe backup of your dev carts, we can help. We have been working with RetroStage.net to develop one of the cheapest and EASIEST ways to save the data off of N64 prototypes on modern computers with just a couple of mouse clicks. More on that soon, but the N64 Pro RetroBlaster Dumper is available for purchase now!