Turok Advance in 3D: The Game Boy Advance Build That Lost to a 2D Game
Before the Game Boy Advance got its shipped Turok game in 2002, at least one developer tried something far more ambitious: a full 3D, first-person take on the dinosaur hunter, running on a handheld with no 3D hardware. That experiment survives as an unreleased prototype catalogued by the Hidden Palace preservation wiki.
At a glance
- Based on: the Turok licence (a 3D prototype of Turok Advance)
- Created by: Andre "AEG" Burger (VIS-Games), working at Similis Software
- Released: never; developed in 2001-2002 and made public as a dump on 23 February 2009
- Genre: First-person shooter (prototype)
- What sets it apart: an abandoned 3D approach to a game that shipped as 2D
What the build shows
The prototype is clearly an early technical demo rather than a game:
- Pressing the B button summons an enemy. Rendering and movement freeze while the creature grows out of fog-like distance, and the stationary, pre-rendered enemy can be killed with four shots.
- A key podium recreated from Turok 64 is present but does nothing.
- Animated collectibles borrowed from Turok 64 add to a counter in the corner of the screen.
- The floor texture repeats across an endless empty plain, and trees have no collision.
- Showing the map border slows the engine slightly.
The darker version
Hidden Palace describes this build as nearly identical to a "Bright" version but with darker graphics, and links both as related prototypes. The 3D version was dropped in favour of the 2D Turok game that was released.
Why it matters
It is a snapshot of a licence holder testing how far 3D could be pushed on 2001-era GBA hardware, and it was donated to the preservation community by a collector known as breezer.