In the second half, we talk about demo discs, and how they can actually be a valuable resource for video game preservation, and can be full prototypes in their own right. Hwd talks about how a cheat code in the demo of Crash Bash in Spyro 3 turns the game into a two-for-one deal!
In recognition of the 18th anniversary of our 2008 release of the Sega ROM archive, we talk about how the release came to be, some of the surprises that came from it, and our favorite fun facts from the release.
Episode 2 of our podcast is now out! Bo sits down with drx, Nic, Saz, and Hwd45 to talk about some of our greatest hits.
Thanks to everyone for the warm reception of our first episode, we hope that we can continue to entertain in the future!
hiddenpalace.substack.com/p/hidden-pal...
I wish there was a Hidden Palace Informalities account or something of that nature because I spent several minutes laughing at this
The first show is an experiment, so let us know what you think, what you liked and didn't like, and any ideas you have for what we should cover in future episodes.
In the second half, Bo tells his own preservation story: tracking down a Burning Rangers prototype for the Sega Saturn, what it revealed (including a cut multiplayer mode) and how late-stage builds and demos can reshape what we know about a game's development history.
We trace the roots of how we each got into prototype hunting, from magazine screenshots and playground rumors to ROM hacking and reverse engineering. We share some war stories about fundraising and securing prototypes, and what unfinished versions reveal about how games are made.
First episode of a new show about video game preservation: Bo sits down with Saz, Nic and drx to discuss how Hidden Palace grew from a Sonic-obsessed corner of the early internet into a community archive of prototypes and development history.
hiddenpalace.substack.com/p/hidden-pal...
As an added bonus, two pitch demos from New Level Software for a proposed Spider-Man game have also been included.
Hello again! Presenting, another contribution from our friend Billscat-socks: Multiple builds of the long-thought lost Beavis and Butt-Head Do Hollywood!
hiddenpalace.org/News/Beavis_...
As part of SNES Central's 25th anniversary, I just published a prototype of The Brainies, which appears to be transitional between the US and PAL releases. Many thanks to @hiddenpalace.org for sending this my way! snescentral.com/review.php?i...
It features many cut creatures, features, debug editors and overlays, a planet editor, a cut flora editor, an animation viewer, a model viewer, and much more cut content that is sure to make the Spore modding community busy in 2026. 😎
Have fun!
Happy New Year everyone! Presenting, a really awesome prototype of Spore! Dated a full six months before the final release, this has been famed for its lengthy development and the many iterations it went.
hiddenpalace.org/Spore_(Feb_1...
Enjoy!
Apologies for taking so long with some of these as we knew people were waiting for them. Things were taking a long time as some of the discs proved to be a lot more trouble than we thought. Check out the article to find out how everything came together!
Merry Christmas! It's that special time of year again where we celebrate the holidays with yet another yuletide collection of prototypes! This time we have a couple of Sonic prototypes just for you courtesy of Santa and @lastminutecontinue.com!
hiddenpalace.org/News/One_Bad...
Enjoy!🎄🦔
We'd also like to thank MrPinball64 for acquiring these prototypes and letting us release them, as well as Billscat-socks for doing all of the documentation and playing them on our Twitch.
Enjoy, everyone! And for those in the northern hemisphere, enjoy your summer!
In addition, we have two very early builds of Justice League: Chronicles and a prototype of Freekstyle
Hello again! Presenting: A nearly complete build of Animaniacs: Hollywood Hypnotics for the Game Boy Advance, a game that was thought to have been lost until now!
Hello everyone! Join us tomorrow, at 2PM EST (7:00 PM UTC) at twitch.tv/hiddenpalace/ for a special presentation from @kneesnap.bsky.social
and @hellfire.tv
detailing a massive 85GB treasure trove treasure trove of Frogger 2 prototypes and development materials!
Thank you so much to all contributors, as well as togemet2, iniche, Nic for helping with this release.
Happy NES Year!
And finally, as a bonus, the fine folks at CodeBound
released the source code to the NES and Game Boy versions of The Lion King, as well as a few working Game Boy builds spanning multiple months.
But that's not all!
Presenting, a previously unreleased game – a pitch for a NES game called Scanner. Thanks to @frankcifaldi.bsky.social for providing this one!
(I've lost count how much good stuff Frank has contributed just this past year)
Happy NES year! Today we bring you a collection of close to 100 new prototype builds from Armageddon Potato, including NES, SNES, Game Boy and some Sega Genesis goodies!
Hello again! For the second day of NESMas, we bring you a collection of prototypes amassed by the Nolan Brothers, who have graciously donated the majority of their collection for preservation. Enjoy!
See you on January 1st for our last NESMas stream!
hiddenpalace.org/News/NESMas_...
But that's not all! Frank Cifaldi has graciously contributed several prototypes in this release, including an unreleased Capcom shooter Titan Warriors, a sequel to their first game Vulgus, and an unreleased localization of Chester Field by Vic Tokai
As a bonus, Josh Hamblin has added a couple of Sega Genesis prototypes to the batch. A later prototype of the unreleased Beyond Zero Tolerance, and an unreleased early port of the DOS RTS game Dominus. Thank you so much for these contributions!
Merry (S)NESMas, everyone! Presenting a collection of NES and SNES prototypes, courtesy of @frankcifaldi.bsky.social of @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social, Josh Hamblin of SideQuest Games, and Josh Byerly
Tune in tomorrow for our second wave of releases!
hiddenpalace.org/News/NESMas_...
