Just released a prototype I think people here will enjoy. It's a mid-way proto of Aladdin for Genesis. Download on this page It's not 100% that this is from CES. They possibly just were lazy to remove that text while continuing development after the fact. If anyone finds anything interesting, let us know!
Sorry, looks like the link rendered wrong, check the main post again. Download's at the top of the Hidden Palace page for it.
Wow, there's so many things that were changed after this build! Thanks for releasing it! /> Off the top of my head, here's some differences: -There seem to be some leftovers from before Disney started handling them the scanned drawings. The lives counter, the sword spitting man, the Genie tokens, the checkpoints and the Genie ventriloquist doll have a similar style to Global Gladiators and The Jungle Book. -I think I remember that unused music from fiddling with the Amiga music files, it's certainly familiar. -> It's from The Jungle Book -Most levels just have a different layout. -Two different kinds of diamonds, big ones give you 3 diamonds. Also, the diamond icon in the hud looks like none of them. -The kill-all-enemies black lamp does a brief animation before exploding. -The Royal guards are a Royal pain in the ass. -Iago is a completely different enemy he sits there until you get close and then he gives chase! He only shows his usual death animation if you hit him with an apple. -The first two bosses are swapped around. -The Captain boss is on top of a set of steps and there's nothing filling the gap where his legs should be. -The thief boss doesn't have his own arena, you battle him in the last stretch of the level. -The prison level is really too crowded. Sometimes less is more. -The ghost enemies were later rescanned and redrawn. They're pink and non-translucent here, and a bit smaller. -The old skeleton enemies looked way too creepy. It was a good thing they made them actually funny in the final version. -The prisoner enemies aren't too great, I can see why they were removed. -There's one optional statue in the Cave of Wonders, and they can only be destroyed using 11 apples. -Cave of Wonders boss has 4 teleporters and never flies from one to another. -No goddess statue enemies in Cave of Wonders. -The Escape from the cave level has some really rough graphics that become even rougher as you advance through it. If somebody was wondering what was being worked on in the level graphics department when this thing was compiled, it was this. -Second bonus level still doesn't have enemies or items. -The Inside the lamp level is a completely different, really annoying thing. I'm so glad it was changed, although they could have kept that cool Goofy hat. -The Sultan's Palace actually shows the entry to Jafar's Headquarters at the end of the level. -Spitting fishes and jug-throwing arms had just been scanned and imported. -Iago boss just keeps running and randomly plays the hit animation for a random time. Can't be hit. -Jafar shows both forms side to side. They just stand and play their animations but can be killed. I must say, they really did improve everything for the final version and made some good decisions in regards to removing or completely changing stuff that other teams would have considered "good enough", to make a superior game. Having this build as reference along with the final version may be useful for learning a thing or two on video game design.
"Arabic He-Haw" is totally "Jungle Jazz" from The Jungle Book. Would explain why it's in the NES port, anyway...
Really cool to see some of the sketched animations before they were converted to pixel art. Also man this version is even cheaper than the original, glad they re-balanced the final game. Definitely one of more interesting mega drive prototypes in quite some time.
By the way, it seems like they had implemented speech for the Genie's "Made you look!" sentence after the Game Over screen but had removed the sample by this build and replaced it with a silent word balloon by the final version. Probably something to do with Robin Williams' contract with Disney.
This is not from Summer CES 1993. It's a newer build, would you believe: http://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File%3AMeanMachinesSega10UK.pdf&page=24 http://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File%3AEGM_US_PreviewGuide_1994.pdf&page=20 Back in the days when Genie was the life bar too. And that makes sense, really. Aside from the fact this is dated the 27th June (when SCES was between the 3rd and 6th), it's not really in a demonstratable state - it's pointlessly hard, the graphics are half baked, and you can access the level select with the start button. From what little I have in front of me, it looks like the "real" Summer CES 1993 build probably just had Aladdin jumping around in a few empty stages - nothing playable.
I didn't even know the Jungle Book was ON the Mega Drive. Must look into that... Fantastic job to all involved! This game is a personal favourite of mine so I look forward to giving this a play through and checking out the differences.
And now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxEgQzkVLq0&t=6m4s some prototype footage from Summer CES 1993. Let it sink in. Spoilers: all trade shows are under-documented. Here's that SegaSonic Arcade prototype we've had for ages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIsYIp3wknY&t=2m31s (I've started with really early Daytona USA footage because that's more interesting. See also: Sonic Spinball.) Update your records. And ours.
The footage shown in that video was captured directly from the actual hardware. It seems to me that it's not from CES but rather meant to be shown around the time that CES took place. The noticeable differences between that "CES sneak preview" and this build are: -Items and enemies in the preview seem to either not exist at all (doubtful) or are deactivated so that people won't get to see the ugly pencil tests of the enemies that were being worked on for the CES. Every object is present in the prototype dump, finished or otherwise. -Life meter was changed from a Genie meter to the final lamp. The old one seems to have been even more in line with the "snake meter" in their Jungle Book builds before Eurocom changed it. -Lives icon changed from regular Aladdin to Prince Ali (but still drawn in pixel art style) -Changed the background at Sultan's Palace to the final one. Since we don't know how far they were regarding implementation and clean-up of the objects and enemies, there's still the possibility of them being able to develop this build in time for CES after the video was filmed and edited, but we won't know for sure until some actual CES footage appears or a very detailed hands-on article is found... Disregard, see below. It was their previous project, which they had to put on hold in favor of Aladdin. Then, when they were supposed to go back and finish it, they left to form Shiny and Virgin hired Eurocom to finish it. That's why the graphics in The Jungle Book look more like Global Gladiators than Aladdin, and also why the level design feels like a step backwards. The Shiny guys seemed to learn a lot about level design between this Aladdin prototype and the final version. You can read more about this game's story here. There was a Blue Sky version of the Genesis game at one point, even! EDIT: Also, here's a topic I made about it some time ago.
Well as I said, it's dated three weeks after Summer CES 1993 ended, although I suppose we can't completely rule out the possibilty Virgin Games didn't have calendars. This later prototype turns up in SCES coverage but I don't think it reflects the true situation: http://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File%3ASegaPro_DE_11.pdf&page=13 The German edition of Sega Pro, published nearly three months after Summer CES in late August 1993.
I retract my statement about Sega Pro - those screenshots appear to have come from Sega themselves as they're turning up in quite a few magazines. This is actually a mirror image of the situation with Sonic 2 - really early proto turns up at Summer CES, slightly later one (Wai) is gets used by the press and Sega themselves to hype the game up a bit around July/August time.
A small difference on the music part of Jafar Palace, the prototype sounds slightly slower than the final (and it even sounds SLOWER with the euro region code on) Also I did some small save state experiment This one is when I load the beta save state on the final. It load part of the beta contents and the background was flashing different palettes (almost seizure like style) And this is when I load the final game save state into the beta game and here is the strange results. Yeah this is the results everyone. I will do this for EVERY level back and forth between the beta and the final ver.