Vib-Ribbon (lost original Mercedes-Benz version of PlayStation rhythm game; 1999)

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Vib-Ribbon Mercedes Benz Project.webp

A screenshot of the aborted Mercedes Benz version shared from a Retro Gamer magazine

Status: Lost

Vib-Ribbon is a PlayStation rhythm game made by NanaOn. The game received very good reviews with criticism of the game’s brutal difficulty and spawned two other sequels.

Though during the games development, they were originally partnered by Mercedes to create a game advertising the Mercedes-Benz A-Class car.

Background

Mercedes was partnered up and commissioned a game to NanaOn on an advertisement for the Mercedes-Benz A-Class Car.[1][2][3] NanaOn and his team began to make a prototype which featured a polygonal car pulsing down a road in the time of the music, and its headlights blinking like eyes.[3] Though during production, the team experienced technical hurdles, one team member states:

"No matter how hard we tried, the connection between music and gameplay always seemed to end up ambiguous. We struggled so hard to get over this hurdle, and that was even before we began to think about how to reduce load times, create interest and variety in the game courses, and introduce special setpieces to appear based on specific intricacies in the music."[3][1]

During NanaOn’s problems, Mercedes had their own problem as the Class A car failed the final stage of development. Mercedes experienced public shame after it failed the Elk (or moose) test which was serious and needed a redesign.[2][1] As a result, Mercedes dropped the project though development continued as a stand-alone game, becoming Vib-Ribbon[1]

Availability

During an article by Retro Gamer magazines, NanaOn shared a single picture of the Mercedes Benz version which showed the car being on an outer ring of a planet in space[1][4]

As of December 2023, no footage or gameplay of the version has been released, and will possibly be unlikely to do so.

See Also

Reference

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Vib-Ribbon article which includes a small talk about the Mercedes-Benz project
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Vib-Ribbon iceberg chart docs which include an explanation to the Mercedes-Benz Project
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 The making of Vib-Ribbon which includes an explanation about the Mercedes-Benz Project
  4. ↑ an archive of the Retro Gamer magazine which includes the photo from the Mercedes Benz project
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