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What happened to the Galidor game?


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You may not be familiar with it, but in 2003 (supposedly), a Galidor game for PC/PS2/GameCube (supposedly) was released. If you're wondering what it's like, its own lead designer called it "Possibly the worst game ever made" in a gameplay video description. There's also a GBA game but it was by a different studio and is unrelated to all this.

 

While looking for more info on the canceled PS1 version of LEGO Stunt Rally for PS1 - which was being developed by Asylum Software, who also made the PC/Console Galidor game - I found this article:

 

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/asylum-entertainment-clears-up-closure-rumours

 

Quote

Contrary to earlier reports, development studio Asylum Entertainment has not been forced to shut down and work continues on several projects - although the cancellation of a Lego project has caused some layoffs.

A number of people claiming to be ex-staff from the company had contacted us this morning stating that the studio as a whole had been put into liquidation - a claim flatly denied by the company this afternoon.

"We are still busy developing games and generating brand franchises - and will be doing so into the fore-see able future," Asylum's Nick Holden told gi.biz. "Whilst it is never good that a finished game is cancelled by a publisher, it does not mean that we are closing our doors. Unfortunately, it has meant that we have had to part company with some staff that were working on the LEGO project, but this was unavoidable."

The studio is still on track to release survival horror title Curse: The Eye of Isis later this year, with another product based around a wholly-owned intellectual property, Kid Ninja, due in 2004.

 

As I started reading I was thinking it was about the cancellation of LEGO Stunt Rally for PS1, which was supposed to be released in March 2001 (the PC game was September 2000)... Then I noticed this article is from September 3rd, 2003.

 

Wat?

 

I then had the following conversation with Pereki:

 

[10:06 AM] Terrev: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/asylum-entertainment-clears-up-closure-rumours

[10:06 AM] Terrev: Hang on

[10:06 AM] Terrev: That's from 2003

[10:06 AM] Pereki: Yes

[10:06 AM] Pereki: The galidor pc game was cancelled

[10:07 AM] Pereki: Then got put out in it's incomplete state by people who obtained rights to Lego games later on

[10:07 AM] Terrev: wwwwwwwwhat

[10:07 AM] Pereki: That's the best I can figure, anyway

[10:07 AM] Pereki: Never seen an actual 2003 release copy

[10:08 AM] Pereki: Just the one in the TT four games pack and another 2006ish one that I have from a publisher I don't recall

 

(Note: Around 2007-08, TT Games Publishing re-released older LEGO games in various 2 and 4 packs, distributed by ValuSoft, including a LEGO Creator/Drome Racers/Galidor/LEGOLAND pack in 2008, which is what's being referred to in that last line. It had Galidor and LEGO Creator on the same disc, and the other two games on their own discs.)

 

Google then led me to the resume of Leigh Christian, who worked at Intelligent Games from 1997 until 1999, when he moved to Asylum Entertainment, where he remained until 2003. This is pretty interesting as Intelligent Games was the developer of LEGO Stunt Rally for PC and the original developer of the PS1 version, but then the job for the PS1 version was transferred to Asylum Entertainment due to IG not having the manpower/resources to tackle both versions at once. Of course, the PS1 version was then canceled entirely.

 

It seems reasonable to assume he moved from IG to Asylum along with Stunt Rally PS1, but there's no mention of him working on Stunt Rally while at Asylum in his resume - so who knows. He's listed as an "Additional Artist" in the PC credits and has the game listed as "Lego Racers" in his resume under the Intelligent Games section - given that Stunt Rally was originally called LEGO Moto, and the game actually called LEGO Racers was released right in the middle of Moto/Stunt Rally's development, it's easy to see how you could get names confused (who knows, maybe he moved on to other work at Asylum before the Moto/Stunt Rally name change and wasn't entirely aware of what happened to it, or something - just a guess).

 

But here's the really interesting bit: The only thing he has listed for his time at Asylum Entertainment, 1999-2003, is "Galidor (unfinished)". Unfinished.

 

More conversation with Pereki:

 

[10:11 AM] Terrev: This guy worked at both IG and Asylum

[10:11 AM] Terrev: And lists Galidor as unfinished

[10:11 AM] Pereki: welp

[10:11 AM] Terrev: What the hell lol

 

[10:15 AM] Pereki: well

[10:16 AM] Pereki: we know the console versions for sure never made it out

[10:16 AM] Terrev: 56 listings for the galidor game on ebay

[10:16 AM] Terrev: All but 3 are gba

[10:17 AM] Pereki: yeeeeep

[10:17 AM] Terrev: And the 3 that aren't are PC in the four pack with other lego games

 

(Note: I was on mobile and only viewing listings in the US, there's more besides the TT Games 4-pack currently available on eBay but from other countries, not to mention other sites like Amazon... The takeaway here is that 53 out of 56 current listings in the US are for the unrelated GBA game, the 3 for PC are in TT's 2008 bundle)

 

[10:18 AM] Pereki: Also

[10:18 AM] Pereki: The copy I got

[10:18 AM] Pereki: From another publisher

[10:18 AM] Pereki: Advertised an independent galidor release

[10:19 AM] Terrev: ???

[10:19 AM] Pereki: But my actual copy was in a two pack with bionicle the game

[10:19 AM] Pereki: Iirc

[10:19 AM] Terrev: How deep does this rabbit hole go

[10:20 AM] Pereki: here we go

[10:20 AM] Pereki: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/gameseek.images/products/380/lego_bionicle_lego_galidor_pc.jpg

[10:20 AM] Pereki: Focus is publisher

 

[10:26 AM] Pereki: https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/lego/images/e/e1/Galidor_video_game_PC.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111025081214

[10:26 AM] Terrev: Hmm

[10:27 AM] Pereki: http://img.brickowl.com/files/image_cache/larger/lego-pc-cd-rom-game-galidor-defenders-of-the-outer-dimension-25.jpg

[10:28 AM] Pereki: Ok so it's a real thing

[10:29 AM] Terrev: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?G=DCG902790#T=S&O={}

[10:30 AM] Terrev: 2005 listed here

 

So... I went digging through online listings. Here's all the releases of the PC Galidor game I could find (as far as I've seen the PS2 and GameCube versions were never released at all).

  • The 2008 TT Games 4-pack mentioned earlier
  • This other 4-pack with a hilarious choice of games, from 2006, which also had TT's involvement
  • This big box of 10 games which is from 2007 according to the Amazon listing (there were some listings for the games from this pack in their individual sleeves too, in case you want a better look at the simplistic packaging)
  • The Bionicle the Game/Galidor combo released by Focus, in 2006 according to Amazon. It also seems they may have released the game individually, probably around the same time, but I can't find any real photos of the box, just what seems to be a scan of the cover (same as you can see on the Bionicle combo).
  • And the earliest release that I've found, and the only one not to be in a combo (aside from the possible individual Focus release)... This release by Dice, from 2005.

 

TL;DR: Asylum Entertainment had a LEGO project canceled in 2003 and people working on it lost their jobs. The only known LEGO project they had at the time was Galidor for PC/PS1/GameCube; their PS1 port of LEGO Stunt Rally had also been canceled but that was 2 years prior. A developer who worked on Galidor lists it as "unfinished" on their resume. There's no evidence of the game being released in 2003 as planned, or the PS2 and GameCube versions ever being released. However, the PC version was mysteriously released in 2005, 2 years after the cancelation and layoffs, and the game was included in several LEGO game bundles/packs in the following years. Galidor for PC essentially seems to be a zombie, resurrected to haunt game shelves years after its death.

 

My question now - besides why/how the hell this all happened - is if the game was fixed up in any way for its releases from 2005 onwards. Asylum Entertainment was still around, so they could have in theory... But did they, or did LEGO release a blatantly unfinished, previously canceled game? The game's splash screen still says 2003 from what I've seen in videos. It'd be easy to tell by looking at file modification dates, but I don't own the game myself.

 

Update - @Tweesee has the individual Focus release - the folders on the disc are from late March 2004, the files are a mix of things from 2002 to 2004, and the copyright date on the back of the box is "2003-2004". So that makes it the earliest release of the game, though still quite a while after the cancellation article.

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According to the case of the PC game that I have, which was distributed by Disc Multimedia, the game was released 2005.

 

For some strange reason, it is also one of the few LEGO games from that era that was not dubbed or translated into other languages when it was localized. The other one that comes to mind is that Bionicle game.  

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Oh geese I don't know how to do this but these are the file dates listed:

48Sa3zj.png

Most of the final files such as support and the manual are listed as being from 2004 but the setup.skin is from 2002

 

Edit:

 

This is from the 2003-2004 copy of the game (Focus Release):

LZnufAW.jpg

 

Edit 2: A date found

unknown.png

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So the game reached version 1.0 on June 23, 2003. The cancellation/layoffs article is from September 3rd, 2003. But then LEGO/the publisher changed their minds, apparently, and released the PC version in 2004 (in March at the earliest), while the PS2/GameCube versions remained canceled. The guy who lists it on his resume as "unfinished" had moved on from Asylum Entertainment by 2004 (for all we know he could have been one of the people who lost their jobs there when it was canceled), so it's possible that he never knew it was eventually released... What a weird story.

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This other 4-pack with a hilarious choice of games, from 2006, which also had TT's involvement

Rather amusingly these are arguably all of Lego's worst games in one box - Galidor, the disasterous Friends, and two "games" for <5-year olds? Evidently someone decided no-one would buy any of these so they lumped them all into one... and it still wouldn't sell well. :P

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