ProfessorBrickkeeper Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 As some of you may remember, back in 2009, prior to the merge of multiple games into LEGO Battles, one of the games features on the boxes was LEGO Racers: The Video Game. This evening, while I was scavenging around the wastelands that are the internet, I came across the Behance portfolio of Donald Robertson, who had posted a collection of concept models and art from the game. (The full collection can be seen HERE.) Spoiler After some more research and poking around his profile, it was discovered that he worked at Firebrand Games at the time, a company which specialized in racing games for the Nintendo DS. From here, someone managed to locate his website, which housed not only copies of the images and videos linked above, but early, in-game screenshots from the game, which we have never seen before. Spoiler All in all, seeing as this is all stuff nobody has seen before, I thought it was important to bring this to people's attention. (Also, while people were following up on this tuff in the RRU Skype chat, somebody found http://project0.wix.com/comes-to-life, which belongs to Sergey Grey, on of the leads on the scrapped LEGO Racers game, who coincidentally ended up moving over to NetDevil later that year, to work on LEGO Universe.) Lind Whisperer, Fluffy Cupcake, CaptainGolem and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lol username Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 I love how this stuff has been around for two years and nobody ever noticed it. Hah. Good, a long standing mystery finally resolved. BTW, for those who haven't seen it, here's the ad that was on set boxes. Until now, it was the only thing we knew about this. So tl;dr for this topic: Firebrand Games was working on "LEGO Racers: The Video Game", it was for Nintendo DS, and was never released. le717, Lair and Lind Whisperer 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quisoves Potoo Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Wow. Good work, Prof! The revelation that this was being made for the DS, combined with the fact that the interlinked Space, Castle, and Pirates games were consolidated into Battles, suggests that something caused LEGO to reappraise the market for either DS games or games based-off non-licensed themes. Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tcm0 Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 But the resolution is way too high for the DS' screen. It's 256x192 (x2) and not 640x456. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lol username Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 But the resolution is way too high for the DS' screen. It's 256x192 (x2) and not 640x456. Who says it's running on an actual DS...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Cupcake Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Good find, good find. Now someone needs to email one or both of the guys for additional info. As some of you may remember, back in 2009 No recollection of this at all. =P Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lol username Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Good find, good find. Now someone needs to email one or both of the guys for additional info. As some of you may remember, back in 2009 No recollection of this at all. =P I'm pretty sure ProfessorBrickkeeper is already trying to contact them - unless I'm mistaken, nobody else needs to, it'd just be redundant and bother them. (Hey, remember that time a bunch of people on BZPower started emailing developers of that canceled Bionicle game and drove them away? Yeah, let's not have that happen here. If anything we should just compile questions here in this topic, and then just have one person - presumably Prof - send them.) Lind Whisperer, MaelstromIslander, le717 and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Cupcake Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 (Hey, remember that time a bunch of people on BZPower started emailing developers) No recollection of this at all. =P Applies to this too. =P I know nothing of BZPower. Anyhow, I of course wouldn't do it if someone else was. Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaelstromIslander Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 I'm pretty sure ProfessorBrickkeeper is already trying to contact them - unless I'm mistaken, nobody else needs to, it'd just be redundant and bother them. Well, if he is, he'll hopefully ask if Rocket Racer would have returned (Its a longshot, and LEGO Racers 1 & 2 were long ago, but hey...) Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfessorBrickkeeper Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 I'm pretty sure ProfessorBrickkeeper is already trying to contact them - unless I'm mistaken, nobody else needs to, it'd just be redundant and bother them. Well, if he is, he'll hopefully ask if Rocket Racer would have returned (Its a longshot, and LEGO Racers 1 & 2 were long ago, but hey...) No. aidenpons, MaelstromIslander and Lind Whisperer 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emily Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 (Hey, remember that time a bunch of people on BZPower started emailing developers of that canceled Bionicle game and drove them away? Yeah, let's not have that happen here. If anything we should just compile questions here in this topic, and then just have one person - presumably Prof - send them.) This didn't just happen once. It happened again. and again. and again. Ultimately it happened to someone who literally had the game and was willing to put it online thanks, bionicle fans Lind Whisperer, aidenpons, lol username and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Cupcake Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 How long ago did that event happen anyhow? The BZPower spam. Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aokpisz Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 I just assumed this was another of those 'hi i found this box advertisement which says LEGO racers game what happened to that' posts. Boy, I'm glad it wasn't. Cool stuff. Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emily Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 How long ago did that event happen anyhow? The BZPower spam. 2010-2012ish Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Cupcake Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Okay, thank you. Lind Whisperer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lol username Posted February 27, 2018 Share Posted February 27, 2018 I was looking at these screenshots again, and got to thinking... Man, even besides the resolution thing, and despite the dev plainly stating "This was for Nintendo DS"... This does not look like a DS game. Just look at any other LEGO DS game. There's no comparison. It does, however, look more like a Wii game. And the screenshots are 640x456... I know little about the Wii, but a quick google search revealed this: https://gbatemp.net/threads/vwii-mode-overscan-issue.340460/#post-4515450 Quote The Wii's full graphical output is about 672x480, of which only 640x456 are active in most games. So. Perhaps a DS version existed too, but this stuff we've seen is almost certainly of a Wii game. Unfortunately, when the developer who posted these renders and screenshots was asked about them some years back, he didn't answer, and removed both the Blogspot and Behance posts. The contents were archived, so nothing was lost, but it's clear he doesn't want to be contacted about it. Honestly though, I'm not interested in trying to hunt down more info on it. Looking at the screenshots we have, what Firebrand's other games are like, and comparing that to the original LEGO Racers games... I just can't see it following in their footsteps. Also, I'm not sure the Firebrand guy who went on to work on LU at NetDevil was involved in this game. Firebrand has four studios (Glasgow, Scotland, Florida, and Louisiana), and the person who posted the screenshots was in the UK (presumably the Glasgow studio). The person who went on to NetDevil was in Florida. And as far as I know, there's no official source anywhere saying he worked on LEGO Racers The Video Game, it was just assumed. emily 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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