Mr. Eight-Three-One | A Gaspocket Adventure: Aliens Ate My Cookies Demo (Cancelled Humongous Entertainment Game) @MrEightThreeOne | Uploaded 8 years ago | Updated 17 hours ago
Now here's something I haven't seen yet -- a demo to an unreleased HE game! I was scouring the Humongous Entertainment Alumni page on Facebook, and former dev David Day Evans was kind enough to share this long lost treasure! And better yet, this was much unlike anything we had seen from them before.
To share what I know, the game starred a character named Miss Hap (referred to as Jessie in this demo, but most alumni say her name was going to be Hap in the final product), and the game was about her investigating rumors of alien visitations. The demo has you essentially going around taking pictures, so nothing terribly exciting from a gameplay standpoint. What particularly makes this game unique, though, is the fact that it is not hand drawn; it's a prerendered 3D adventure game! I'm not keen on CGI myself and I will always prefer the hand-drawn games, but it's still very interesting they had planned to adopt this look. And besides that, we hadn't gotten a new character since 1997 with Spy Fox and Backyard Sports when this demo was released, so that was another missed opportunity.
The demo doesn't seem to be terribly representative of what would have been the final product. There's a pretty distinct lack of click points, the animation is somewhat rough around the edges, the demo has a tendency to crash, and I think the voice acting is a little subpar, but of course I shouldn't assume too much because, well, we'll never know if this was anything like the final or not. Regardless if it was or not, it's a dang shame this game never came to fruition. The concept is creative and it has that Humongous touch to it, and seeing the previews brought back memories of just wondering how cool the real game would be if I had it after finishing the demo. And it's even more somber to think that, unlike the other demos, I'll never find out how cool the rest of the game will be.
So why was this game canned, you ask? Unfortunately the higher-ups at Infogrames disapproved of the game, fearing one with a female protagonist wouldn't sell. Pretty saddening to me, because the game had a lot of potential to be really good and it's so frustrating that executive meddling forced it to go. Infogrames pulled a lot of stunts like this, from what I hear, and they looked to be a major reason Humongous struggled so much in their later years. No wonder Ron Gilbert left the company after they couldn't get the rights back.
Enjoy this rare foray, nevertheless! I'm not entirely sure if I'm allowed to share this yet so I will leave the link hidden away from view for the time being.
This game is (C) 2001 Humongous Entertainment and Tommo Inc, I suppose. Absolutely no infringement intended.
Now here's something I haven't seen yet -- a demo to an unreleased HE game! I was scouring the Humongous Entertainment Alumni page on Facebook, and former dev David Day Evans was kind enough to share this long lost treasure! And better yet, this was much unlike anything we had seen from them before.
To share what I know, the game starred a character named Miss Hap (referred to as Jessie in this demo, but most alumni say her name was going to be Hap in the final product), and the game was about her investigating rumors of alien visitations. The demo has you essentially going around taking pictures, so nothing terribly exciting from a gameplay standpoint. What particularly makes this game unique, though, is the fact that it is not hand drawn; it's a prerendered 3D adventure game! I'm not keen on CGI myself and I will always prefer the hand-drawn games, but it's still very interesting they had planned to adopt this look. And besides that, we hadn't gotten a new character since 1997 with Spy Fox and Backyard Sports when this demo was released, so that was another missed opportunity.
The demo doesn't seem to be terribly representative of what would have been the final product. There's a pretty distinct lack of click points, the animation is somewhat rough around the edges, the demo has a tendency to crash, and I think the voice acting is a little subpar, but of course I shouldn't assume too much because, well, we'll never know if this was anything like the final or not. Regardless if it was or not, it's a dang shame this game never came to fruition. The concept is creative and it has that Humongous touch to it, and seeing the previews brought back memories of just wondering how cool the real game would be if I had it after finishing the demo. And it's even more somber to think that, unlike the other demos, I'll never find out how cool the rest of the game will be.
So why was this game canned, you ask? Unfortunately the higher-ups at Infogrames disapproved of the game, fearing one with a female protagonist wouldn't sell. Pretty saddening to me, because the game had a lot of potential to be really good and it's so frustrating that executive meddling forced it to go. Infogrames pulled a lot of stunts like this, from what I hear, and they looked to be a major reason Humongous struggled so much in their later years. No wonder Ron Gilbert left the company after they couldn't get the rights back.
Enjoy this rare foray, nevertheless! I'm not entirely sure if I'm allowed to share this yet so I will leave the link hidden away from view for the time being.
This game is (C) 2001 Humongous Entertainment and Tommo Inc, I suppose. Absolutely no infringement intended.
