Video game history and its preservation are important, and one of the biggest problems is lost media. If you’re not familiar, in video games, lost media is any game that hasn’t been dumped from its original format into another. This leaves them all but lost and unplayable; lost media includes games that were developed and unreleased, developed only partially, or made and released but lost because they weren’t backed up in some way. Examples of lost media include games you’ll never get to play, as recovering or completing them seems unlikely.
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1) Kid Kirby
Kid Kirby was a game that DMA Design, Ltd. (now Rockstar North) would have developed for the Super Nintendo. It would have featured an infant Kirby and required the Super NES Mouse to play. It was planned as a platformer with some Angry Birds-esque mechanics, using the mouse to drag Kirby through its levels. Several of the game’s assets, including maps of some of its levels, renders of Kid Kirby, and other characters, have made it to the Internet. Unfortunately, no ROMs have been made available, nor were any dumped online (as far as anyone knows). Some additional assets surfaced in 2022, but not enough to compile a playable game.
2) Return of Donkey Kong
Return of Donkey Kong was a planned but canceled Nintendo Entertainment System game first announced in the Official Nintendo Player’s Guide in 1987. It was mentioned in several publications after that, and several advertisements made it seem as if the player could play as Donkey Kong. This would have been several years before the release of Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo. The last mention of Return of Donkey Kong was in May 1988, in an issue of Computer Entertainer, which noted that the game would be released later that year. Unfortunately, that’s it — the game never manifested outside of numerous mentions and advertisements.
3) Sonic Riders
There is a game called Sonic Riders that was released, but the lost-media version was a Game Boy Advance port that never fully materialized. Backbone Entertainment developed it with the intent of releasing the port at the same time as its console ports to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Sega didn’t like the 2D graphics in an otherwise 3D game, and meeting the deadline to accommodate its demands proved impossible. While there aren’t any stills or footage of the game, several animations have surfaced online, and there’s plenty of evidence of its existence, but it’s never been dumped and appears to be lost media at this point.
4) Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers
Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers is a puzzle game developed by Rare for the Game Boy Advance. The company had worked on the Donkey Kong franchise in the past, and it developed Coconut Crackers as a 3D puzzle game with an isometric view. In it, DK would drop coconuts filled with paint to make squares and rectangles. A playable demo of the game was released, and some folks got their hands on it to test it out. Unfortunately, after Microsoft bought Rare Ltd., the company canceled Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers and reworked and reskinned it into It’s Mr. Pants. Unfortunately, even the playable demo of Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers hasn’t been dumped.
5) Beavis and Butt-Head
A 1996 arcade game for Beavis and Butt-Head was canceled, but unlike most lost media, some cabinets did make it out into the wild. The cabinet was built with 3DO hardware, and the game was inspired by the TV series. Four of the planned six levels were completed, but the game performed poorly in testing, so it was canceled. Also, Midway bought Atari around the same time and killed off a bunch of in-development games, including Beavis and Butt-Head. Twelve prototype arcade machines were sold at auction, and over the years, some folks have reported running into them. Unfortunately, no ROMs have been dumped, so the only way to play it is to locate a cab and feed it a quarter, hoping it still works.
Have you ever stumbled upon a rare game or lost media in the wild? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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