New Year, New Game... or not. With the dawn of a brand new year, we took a look through our Master List to update release dates and check to see whether these games are actually still in active development. We do our best to cover announced cancellations, as we just did this week with Skytorn and Nightkeep, but more often than not, we find that developers simply go silent as the development process stalls out.Below is a list of games that will most likely never see the light of day, along with our original comments and links to Twitter or (sometimes nonexistent) home pages and devlogs. In each instance, there have been no new updates from the developer for more than a year. In some cases, the games were successfully Kickstarted and backers have been offered refunds. There is still some small hope that these games will one day return, but for now, they have dropped off our radar.
CoinOp Story
Developer KaMiZoTo harnesses his nostalgia for classic arcade cabinets to create CoinOp Story, the tale of an old arcade cabinet who must collect Jamma cards to save the world. In the not-so-distant future, all of the world’s arcade cabinets have been tossed into a garbage heap, but a generic cabinet gets struck by lightning and comes to life. With the help of his friend, a floating calculator named Professor Delta, he must seek out various arcade cabinets – designed after their real-world counterparts – and collect their Jamma cards. Each card he collects grants him new abilities, allowing him to reach previously inaccessible areas in an open Metroidvania world. For instance, the game begins with his discovery of the Donkey Kong cabinet, which gives him legs and the ability to jump. Later, after defeating a boss, he finds an Operation Wolf cabinet and gains the ability to shoot. The villain of the tale is another generic cabinet who has been loaded with illegal bootleg cards, which drove him mad. The developer plans to have around 30 arcade cabinets to unlock, along with their associated abilities.
Copy Girl
Copy Girl, from Henrique "7Soul" Lazarini and Matt "Tokinsom" Gruber, is an action-platformer in the style of the Mega Man series. Copy Girl starts out with a basic pellet-shooter, but she is able to acquire eight more weapon types - complete with a palette swap for her outfit - and each weapon has unique properties that help her to strategically deal with her enemies and several boss creatures. The art is done in an 8-bit NES style with a reduced color palette, and features a number of classic 2D gaming environments, including factories with conveyor belts, underwater areas, and lands of floating platforms.
Delver’s Drop
Developer Pixelscopic is creating a game that combines the dungeon-based stylings of A Link to the Past with roguelike permadeath, loot hunting, and randomized environments. Delver’s Drop features a poor fellow named Delver who must descend into “The Drop” to secure his freedom… or fail and become one of the monstrous Undelver Wights. These Undelver Wights become your enemies the next time you enter The Drop, possessing the items and skills you had at the time of your death. The game features physics-based logic puzzles, boss battles, and cooperative play, and allows the player to grow his character and upgrade character classes, which include fighters, magic users, and rogues.
The End of the World
Developer Izanami GameWorks brings you The End of the World, an overhead car combat game that is less Bump 'n' Jump and more Bump 'n' Murder. In this game, your spend your time ramming other vehicles into oblivion, as well as firing machine guns with wild abandon, and taking on huge shmup-style bosses in the form of limo-riding jerks and huge mutant beasts made of eyeballs and tentacles that chase you through the streets. Smash through ambulances to get more health, cut a swath through busloads of baddies, and even blow off your enemies' heads, all the while racking up a huge combo of endless wreckage.
Infernax
Berzerk Studio wants to take you back to the 80's with Infernax, a retro metroidvania with horrific enemies that are far more gruesome than anything that would have actually been released on the NES. Players must trek across an open world, fighting monsters, gaining experience points to increase their stats, and acquiring new weapons, spells, and abilities. Players also earn money that they can use to buy better armor, as well as health and magic restoratives.
Jack the Reaper
Jack the Reaper (devlog), from developer Dream’s Bell, begins when the moon crashes into the earth. As it turns out, the moon is where all of the world’s souls go when they die, and this recent event has caused them to return to life on Earth. It is up to Jack to restore order by re-killing these creatures and returning their souls to the Afterworld. This action-platformer is inspired by the Kirby series, wherein enemies’ abilities can be used against them – and even combined ala Kirby 64 and Gunstar Heroes – for a number of interesting possibilities. By killing enemies and absorbing their souls, you gain their abilities, including a number of different projectile types, like boomerangs and energy shots, as well as other powerups like increased speed and a shield.
Legend of Iya
Developer Andrew Bado is an industry veteran, having worked on numerous major studio releases, including a number of cult favorites like Phantom Dust, Raze’s Hell, and Psychonauts, as well as several 2D titles including Blowout, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Monster Tale, and NG:Dev Team’s Turrican-esque actioner, Gunlord. Legend of Iya is a Metroidvania title set in a lush, detailed world, featuring gorgeous sprite art and loads of animations. The game centers on the exploits of a 12 year old girl who finds herself transported to a magical fantasy world populated with strange creatures, bio-mechanical beasts, and huge bosses. The game offers melee based combat, as well as numerous upgrades and new abilities which will help her defeat enemies and reach new areas.
Luminesca
Luminesca is an underwater exploration game from developer Matt Glanville. The player controls a small creature called Lum through various dark and shadowy environments, using light to solve puzzles and open up new pathways.
Midora
Midora, from developer Epic Minds, stars a young white-haired girl named Snow who – per fantasy game conventions – sets out on a simple errand and finds herself embroiled in a conflict that spans the world. This is a top-down action adventure title inspired by the likes of The Legend of Zelda and Secret of Mana, featuring sword-based combat, as well as shields and bombs. The player adventures across a colorful world map and into the depths of a dozen dungeons to solve puzzles and fight large boss creatures, with over 200 items to discover along the way, as well as a crafting and enchantment system.
ReVen
ReVen, from Varia Games, is heavily inspired by Metroid (as is the name of the studio), featuring a lone android who sets down on the surface of a colorful world whose depths hold mysterious alien ruins and terrifying creatures. As an android, the player is able to divert energy to his various functions, enhancing weapon power, armor, sensors, and movement in real time. This can be used to take down powerful enemies, navigate the game world, or search for secrets and hidden upgrades. New skills can be added to your repertoire by mining for resources on the planet and choosing new traits to construct based on your play style, allowing to hone your skills more toward heavy firepower, exploration, or a mix of both.
Temporus
Temporus is being developed by Firebelly Studios, which promises to deliver a healthy dose of shmuppery and on-foot platforming action in a time travelling sci-fi adventure. In addition to blasting away enemies, you must also research new technologies and manage your resources as you set out to find fuel for your ship and food for your body. You are able to land your ship at various docking points and exit your ship to explore. You can even walk around the interior of your own ship to change weapon settings and make repairs. The developer compares the gameplay to that of Air Fortress and Blaster Master, both of which featured on-foot and in-vehicle segments.
Waldir’s Inferno
Waldir’s Inferno, under development by Jani Peltonen (a.k.a. Argamix) , promises top-down beat ‘em up action with procedurally generated levels and RPG elements. The game stars a sword-wielding badass who hacks and slashes his way through numerous chunky and spritely foes, leaving sprays of pixelated blood in his wake. You can also grab a number of subweapons to up your carnage per second and dodge enemy attacks to keep yourself around a bit longer. Rather than simply increasing your stats, new items grant you new abilities (a similar method was used in Risk of Rain), which adds gameplay variety as players attempt to fight their way through a 30-60 minute dungeon slashing experience… or die trying.
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