Sound Fantasy
| Sound Fantasy | |
|---|---|
 Cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Nintendo |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Toshio Iwai |
| Platform(s) | Super NES/Super Famicom |
| Release date(s) | Cancelled |
| Genre(s) | Music game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Distribution | Cartridge |
Sound Fantasy (サウンドファンタジー Saundofantajī), titled Sound Factory during development,[1] is an unreleased video game for the Super NES/Super Famicom.
History
Interactive media artist Toshio Iwai had built the installation art piece Music Insects, which he created during his time as an Artist in Residence at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Iwai's friend at Nintendo approached him, to convert his Music Insects concept into a video game in 1993. The resulting Super NES game Sound Fantasy was completed in 1994.[2] Sound Fantasy was intended to be bundled with the SNES Mouse and mouse pad, and it would arrive in a larger game box to hold its contents similar to Super NES games like Mario Paint and EarthBound. A trademark for the game was filed by Nintendo of America on January 13, 1994 and abandoned on January 24, 1999.[3] However, the finished product was never brought to market by Nintendo for unknown reasons.
Sound Fantasy contains eccentric concepts and untested game mechanics. Music games, especially on home consoles, were not popular in the early 1990s, and it wouldn't be until much later in the decade that they gained mainstream attention.
Toshio Iwai was eventually approached by Maxis, where his gameplay elements inspired by Music Insects were finally published in the form of the 1996 PC game SimTunes.[2]
In April 2005, to celebrate the Japanese launch of Toshio Iwai's latest work, Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo opened an exhibit at Tokyo's Harajuku Station to focus on the new game and on Iwai himself. Nintendo made available for perusal the box art and manual for Sound Fantasy, but the "lost game" was not made playable there.
In August 2010, during Gunpei Yokoi's Harajuku exhibit called "The Man Called 'The God of Games'"', Toshio Iwai hosted his own presentation called "The Genes of Gunpei Yokoi Inside of Me", where he displayed his works that were inspired by Gunpei Yokoi: the Tenori-on musical instrument and the Sound Fantasy music game. Iwai brought the game cartridge and played it.[4][5]
A Prototype version of the game leaked online on April, 2015.[6]
Gameplay
The Sound Fantasy prototype contains four different games in one cartridge.[4][5]
Pix Quartet
Inspired by Toshio Iwai's Music Insects, there are four insects of different colors, where the player can select different insect to each represent a different instrument. They crawl all over the screen, where the player can draw. Insects that crawl over a colored pixel make a note. Each color represents a different note for each insects. Sample Demos can be loaded to demonstrate the capabilities of this game.
Beat Hopper
This game contains three different modes: A-type, B-type and Training. A-type is a rhythm game in the style of Q-bert, where an insect on a pogo must make every block disappear after stepping on it as many times needed. Each block makes its own sound and the order does not matter. The player can improvise a song with each block. B-type requires the player to follow a path of blocks that appears every time the player touches one. The player must make as many steps as he can without losing three lives.
Ice Sweeper
This game indicates two modes: A-type and B-type. This game is a Breakout clone with a few new twists added after a few stages, such as four bats controlled by a single player.
Star Fly
This game is inspired by music boxes, where the player can set a sequence of stars in the sky, to compose a song. A higher star corresponds to a higher musical note. The player may set the speed and the tone.
See also
- Toshio Iwai, creator of Sound Fantasy
- SimTunes, the PC game that Sound Fantasy 's Pix Quartet was converted into
- Electroplankton, Iwai's most recent creation, for the Nintendo DS
References
- ↑ Electronic Gaming Magazine, November 1993, page 86; "International Outlook" look at Sound Factory with six screenshots.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wired 5.05: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Geek (May 1997) Retrieved July 29, 2006
- ↑ "Status Search SN 74479386". Retrieved August 27, 2014.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Winterhalter, Ryan. "Gunpei Yokoi Exhibit Report and Photo Gallery from 1UP.com". Retrieved April 2, 2015.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Unreleased SNES game by Toshio Iwai (Electroplankton) in a rare public showing! - IGN Video. IGN. Retrieved April 2, 2015.
- ↑ http://www.siliconera.com/2015/04/10/vaporware-snes-music-creation-tool-sound-fantasy-released-publicly/