Current Events > Three GBA game prototypes have been released

(+) Yeah! (+)

The following is a largely unfinished port of Demons Crest for the Game Boy Advance by Rival Dreams. This demo was previously unknown to the internet, but appears to be a faithful port of the Super Nintendo original. Unfortunately it seems to be in a rather buggy state. When attempting to play it unaltered, the game will crash after pressing start at the title screen. With some hacking, you can progress further to a semi-functional rendition of the first stage. As such, a patched version is also included within this release.

The port was pitched to Capcom but never ended up materializing into a full product. Something worth noting is that the ROMs header is DARKEDEN, which may be indicative of the game being used as a base for this demo.

Monday Oct. 24th, 2022 - Game Boy Advance - togemet2
The following is a short demo of Dark Eden for the Game Boy Advance by Rival Dreams. As one of the developers, Kynan Pearson, stated, they were highly influenced by Symphony of the Night and Metroid. You journey around a castle collecting four different power ups: the run, the wall jump, the fire sword, and the super jump. Its a short and sweet demo that can be completed in one sitting. The controls are a bit slippery, but thats to be expected from an early demo. Upon looking at the title screen, the build here appears to be slightly earlier from the one covered in the Time Extension article; it lacks copyright information and has more refined character art and logo.

The project was canned when the three developers for the project couldnt find a publisher to fund the project.

The following is a demo of Sea Boy for the Game Boy Advance by Rival Dreams. While Dark Edens direction was led by Jools Watsham and Kynan Pearson, Sea Boys direction was led by Ian Dunlop. Ians other projects, such as Walker for the Amiga, would fit right at home with the likes of Dark Eden. Unlike that game, Sea Boy sports a cartoony atmosphere similar to Yoshis Island and Plok. Being new to fatherhood, Ian developed an affinity for these style of games. The protagonist is even based on his own son.

Sea Boy in appearance looks simple enough, however, in reality its a very rare breed of game: its a puzzle physics platformer. The object of the game is as follows: relocate fish to the striped section of the stage. The game starts simple enough and slowly introduces more concepts, adding layers to the gameplay. In one level, it merely involves moving fish, the next, you must leverage the concept of water displacement. Then theres man-eating fish, and so on.

Like with the Dark Eden build we also published, this build of Sea Boy is earlier than the one covered in the Time Extension article. For starters, the Fishionary evidently has placeholder fish: each fish has a stock photo of Nemo from Finding Nemo. Additionally, the lava island lacks graphics. Regardless of its completion, Sea Boy is teeming with passion and personality. The game design is multilayered and the water physics is impressive for the Game Boy Advance. Its a shame this game was never picked up. Thankfully, the public can now enjoy it for the first time!