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Retro Nintendo cancelled game Space X (Arcade, 1981)

Recently a video of the mysterious and virtually unknown videogame Space X resurfaced online.
The footage was originally filmed by NHK during the 19th Amusement Machine Show in 1981 and represent the only visual source that testimony the existence of the game.
Space X was a shoot'em up for arcades in the works from Nintendo which was ultimately cancelled for unspecified reasons.
The game was being developed within R&D2 department and the sound effects were done by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka.
It's a very obscure piece of Nintendo's videogame history.





All credits to Onionsoft:


Close if pyu pyu pyu.
 
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Space themed shoot-em-ups were certainly common in this era. Even Nintendo had just done “Radar Scope” in 1980. I guess these shmups worked well with the limited technology at the time; lots of action without too much to put on the screen.
 
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Wow, that's really neat! Hadn't heard of this one before. Not much footage, but I love the sound effects!

I wouldn't be surprised if Radar Scope's failure played a big role in its cancellation.
 
Cool find. It's an interesting take on a shooter, but I don't know if it's a great idea as is. Your shots going so far to the left and right would make your sense if the field was wide enough that you might want to reach there.
 
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I love this kind of stuff! Thank you so much for sharing.

There's so much about the early gaming days at Nintendo that are a little bit lost to time and sometimes feels like legend or myth. Like all those light gun games they did pre Donkey Kong.
 
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The background in the video reminds me of Cube Quest, which combined very early polygonal graphics with FMV backgrounds running off a laserdisc.


This seems to be using proper 2D sprites, however.
 


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