A look at Zoonami’s cancelled GameCube project “Game Zero”
In the early 2000s, Zoonami (Zendoku, Bonsai Barber) was developing an sandbox action platformer for the GameCube. Sadly, it never made it to market. Very little about the project was known, but that’s changed now through a new report on Unseen64.
Here’s what we know:
– Cancelled because it was too complex for its time because of technical and marketing reasons
– Set in destructable voxel levels
– Could mine rocks and terrains
– Gain items and resources to build new structures
– Destruction and building of voxels in Game Zero were too RAM-intensive to be suitable for consoles or PCs hardware at the time
– Zoonami did not want to continue working on something that was not keeping pace with their plans
– The console gaming market was also one of their concerns, since popular gameswere in contrast with the sandbox, open-ended gameplay design planned for Game Zero
– In 3 years Zoonami did many experiments and created a playable prototype
– Game Zero’s protagonist would have been a female character
– The game was set in a fantasy alien planet inhabited by strange yellow creatures
– Explore different areas of the planet using vehicles and laser guns
– Cartoony graphic style created with simple voxel geometries
Screenshots of Game Zero are in the gallery below. There’s more on the title over at the source link.
Thanks to Jake for the tip.
