Coolsville (lost build of cancelled PC adventure game; 1994-1998)

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Coolsville beatnik.jpg

A screenshot of the cancelled game, from a magazine..

Status: Lost

Coolsville was a PC adventure game that was meant to be released in fall of 1994, developed by Music Pen and distributed by Mediavision. It was cancelled after the latter company sunk down.

Plot

The game is set in Coolsville, a city populated with anthropomorphic cartoon animals who are into jazz music.

Coolsville is led by a council of six gurus who reunite each year for a concert known as "The Great Gig"; this concert gives energy to the city for a year.

One of the gurus has been abducted, and the player character is set on a quest to find him, picking up musicians to form a band along the way.

Staff

  • Brian Gaidry: art director.
  • TRUE: character design, backgrounds, animations and other illustrations.
  • Jared Faber: musical composer.
  • Mo Riza: project champion and interactive art director.
  • Michael Foran: animator and designer.
  • Jean Pierre Dillard: animator.

Legacy

The only visual signs of its existence that have ever been made public are a few screenshots, as shown in several magazines that were published before the game was cancelled. These screenshots seem to imply that the game may also have had music-creating gameplay, as well as classic point-and-click adventure.

No prototype, demo or concrete version of the game has ever surfaced to this day. Artist T R U E also showed two high-quality screenshots on his webpage.

Music Pen developed educational games, most of them being The Magic School Bus licensees.

Music Pen trademarked the COOLSVILLE name as a trademark in 1996, which possibly means that they were expecting to resume development and eventually release the game. However, it was abandoned two years later without a statement of use.

References

http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=1476 A French website about this game's cancelled status

http://www.trueart.biz/music_pen_cd_rom_game_character_design_coolsville_1.html Artist T R U E about his work on the game.

http://www.trademarkia.com/coolsville-75065508.html Trademark status