Toejam and Earl 3 for the Dreamcast -- Some info!

about 3 weeks ago I poked around Youtube and found an interesting video showing Toejam and Earl 3 for the Dreamcast.

if you want to see it its at this address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4pmWNmrlRQ

I saw the video and my jaw hit the floor. I had to know more about it because Toejam and Earl was one of my favorite games for the Genesis as I was growing up.
I started doing some research on the game and found the website for Toejam and earl company located at TJandE.com. After a few e-mails I got one back from none other than Greg Johnson, one of the creators of the series. Here's the e-mail I got from him...

"Hi Joseph,

Apologies for not getting back to you right away. I'm sorry to say that we
never quite finished the Dreamcast Version so I don't have anything that I
could sell or give you. Recently I found one of our old Dreamcase
development burns and tried it on my Dreamcast and that didn't even work
(you need a Dreamcast Dev kit to make it run). Otherwise I'd send you
that - anyway I think I tossed it.

The Dreamcast Version was cool - in fact it was very like the Original TJ&E
with the stacked levels, and withOUT all of the gates and keys and bosses
and mini-games and hub structure that Visual Concepts (Sega) made us put
into the Xbox version of the game. We had also built a 2 or 3 player
multi-player mode so that people on different dreamcasts could play
together. We had that working quite well and it was lots of fun, but we
scrapped it when we ported to the Xbox because we didn't have enough time to
re-implement it. sigh.

Anyway sorry about that. I'd love to be able to hook you up - but no can do.

Have a good one!

--Greg (designer of the series)"

I made sure i got permission before posting all of this. I just thought all of you out there can cry along with me for another game that looked FREAKING AWESOME, which NONE of us will be able to get our greasy little mitts on to play.


-Joseph Villa

This looks like the T&J that was released for Xbox. There have been many Dreamcast games that have been canceled, but the only one I know that was leaked was Half Life (complete with insane loading.)

I saw this video long time ago. It's sad to see the Dreamcast version was canceled.

"I found one of our old Dreamcase
development burns and tried it on my Dreamcast and that didn't even work
(you need a Dreamcast Dev kit to make it run). "

Ask him again! Insist that the dc-scene will make it work. Some members here have dev kits and released a few things (although not entirely legal)



and thanks for givin me an idea, im gonna write all the devs whose games were cancelled and ask for beta/anything :D

Thanks a lot for sharing your information and the reply you got, J_Villa1983. That's really nice :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SSaxdude

This looks like the T&J that was released for Xbox.

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No, the T&E released for Xbox looks like this one for Dreamcast - because it's more or less the original ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SSaxdude

There have been many Dreamcast games that have been canceled, but the only one I know that was leaked was Half Life (complete with insane loading.)

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There also was Propeller Arena. A really great game. Sadly we cannot provide you with much more information or even links, because it'd be against the forum rules.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kohan69

and thanks for givin me an idea, im gonna write all the devs whose games were cancelled and ask for beta/anything :D

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Yeah, that is a good idea I think. However, you might wanna do so in a nice way. Please do not send them emails like this: "hi, plz gimme beta of your game for dc, k thx." - I remember that GOAT Store's Dan Loosen mentioned that he's in talks with some companies to release their cancelled games for Dreamcast via GOAT Publishing. Spamming their inbox with emails such as I outlined would render the efforts others put into these ideas useless and definitly minimize all chances of ever seeing cancelled games of the Propeller Arena or Half-Life format released commercially.

So, do some investigation and research about the game you've asking them for. Show your actual interest. Use proper grammar and please check your spelling!

Also remember that it'd be important to write emails to the actual developers involved, not to the publishing companies.

Other than that I don't see any reason why it would be a bad idea to show them your interest in a Dreamcast version or beta of works that they've put so much blood, sweat and tears into.

Well I told him that I was going to be getting a Katana devkit in the near future but I didn't want to pry or overstep my bounds. He was already being a nice guy for giving me some information which he really didnt have to answer. He told me he threw the dev copy out and that was that.

So.. as far as asking him again.. I'm not going to and I hope you all respect that and not contact him to demand a copy of the beta.

As far as other games.. I had already contacted Lionhead about Black and White on the dreamcast and I got nothing back from that... so far. It took me 2 e-mails to get Greg from TJandE so it may take more trys to get ahold of anybody from other companies. Remember these people are busy!! they have alot of things going on all at once.. be polite!

There were many other games out there that were about 80% or more complete for the DC. So look for them and you may be lucky. I guess when I was asking about the betas I was more looking along the lines of a release or getting someone to pick up the rights to release it, rather than a dev copy to be released as a torrent. I would like to see more money changing hands in the dreamcast scene so that people will feel confident in releasing new titles to make a decent profit so that others will develop high quality titles as well. Doing this will bring press and then more people to share the fun with.


-JV

thanks for stating the obvious Christuserloeser
due to anonymity of being a forum member, I understand your need to state that. I'll try me best to restrain myself from writing a letter in 1337$\*34|<

:)

No problem J_Villa1983, but "I think I tossed it." is not a 100% not acquirable, imho

the problem with publishing any of these games now, its that they would need a licence from sega, as they would have been developed with katana, the offical SDK.

still the email was pretty cool

>>No problem J_Villa1983, but "I think I tossed it." is >>not a 100% not acquirable, imho


yeah it does make one ask what happened to all the other dev builds because USUALLY there are more than 1 dev build. but its his ass on the line if it did get out there so, i'm going to take his word for it.

-JV

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kohan69

thanks for stating the obvious Christuserloeser

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Glad you think it's obvious. Good thing with posting on public forums is that others interested could read what one wrote too :)

I'd really love to see a finished but unreleased Dreamcast game published officially and commercially via the GOAT Store. ^^