"Top-Secret" Documents

[zmeston]

While cleanin' out my home office for the first time in too long, I found a couple of design documents for Black Fire, the decidedly mediocre Saturn shooter, that were faxed to me by a friend at Sega in January of 1994 (sigh). It's kind of neat to read through the proposals and see what the game was meant to be, as opposed to what it became.

Anyhoo, I have a few other ancient documents of this nature -- internal bug-report sheets on Bubsy 3D, a memo from Nintendo to Data East about objectionable content in Shadowrun for the SNES, etc. Does anyone here care about these things? I've scanned them for posterity, but I was wondering if anyone else wanted a peek (a la "The Smoking Gun" website).

-- Z.

[DarkSoul]

I'd love to see them, just out of curiosity if nothing else..

[Kid Fenris]

I think I remember that Shadowrun document from your website, though I can't recall what exactly got Nintendo's knickers in a proverbial wad. It'd be great to see it again.

[Sothy]

BIG SHANK IN THE EYE HOLE

[maxlords]

Yeah...that sounds kinda interesting..especially ones for shmups!

[digitalpress]

Yeah, let's see 'em Zach!

I've got some old Atari documents of a similar nature. I'll do a one-for-one online "swap" with you, whaddaya think?

[NvrMore]

Count me in, I'd love to see them. Especially the Shadowrun no-no's.

[Li Wang]

Yeah, I'm really interested in the Shadowrun memo. I've always wanted to know more about what got cut from the game since I noticed differences in magazine screenshots back in the day.

[Dahne]

The only people who'd want to see stuff like that are obsessed weirdos.

Count me in. :-D

[digitalpress]

I have secured said secret documents from Zach.

Counterintelligence informs us that a massive influx of pedestrian traffic is due at this location at approximately 9pm EDT tonight.

As such, said documents should be posted several hours prior or 12+ hours tantamount to traffic anomaly.

Bottom line: if I can get to this before 7pm tonight I'll let you know, otherwise they'll be online tomorrow. Pretty cool stuff!

[digitalpress]

Three sets of top secret documents are now online. In case you're one of those infidels who drop directly into the forums without passing the main page, you may have missed the link:

http://www.digitpress.com/archives/zmeston/

Zach has sent about a dozen more sets in the last 24 hours, too - so check back in and get the skinny on the seamy underbelly of this so-called video game industry. Or something.

(thanks, Zach)

[AB Positive]

*secretly wonders how he can scam a contract to get a next-gen debug unit*

[nesman85]

awesome! i love stuff like this. i've got documents kinda like these for about 20 electronic arts games, some of them were sent with review copys and tell all the bugs and unfinished stuff in that particular version. if i ever get a scanner i might scan some of 'em :)

[zmeston]

awesome! i love stuff like this. i've got documents kinda like these for about 20 electronic arts games, some of them were sent with review copys and tell all the bugs and unfinished stuff in that particular version. if i ever get a scanner i might scan some of 'em :)

I say, share 'em if you got 'em. If those EA documents are from the company's early-'80s genesis, they'd be particularly fascinating reading.

-- Z.