The work of a video game archivist is a noble task to take on, especially if they decide to make archived content accessible to the public.
Usually, this is done through personal blogs that compile all their findings or through posts on The Internet Archive, which in this day and age is one of the most important tools we have for preserving digital media and making it accessible for future generations.
First reported by Exputer, video game archivist Dom A.K.A VGDensetsu has been preserving the works of video game artists for a number of years now on his personal blog. This archiving work has allowed many video game designers to have their work noted as theirs, something that has been difficult to do due to the messy history of individual game developers/designers not getting due credit.
On January 2nd, VGDensetsu decided to drop an 11GB folder of photos, screenshots, scans of articles, design documents, concept art, and videos collected over “a dozen years”. These files include designs for unreleased consoles and games, in-development footage, concept art, and more.
VGDensetsu states that the data has been accumulated from a number of sources, some of which no longer exist:
The vast majority of these documents, screenshots and photos are not from me. The article scans, for example, come from sites, communities or individuals such as Abandonware-magazines, Gaming Alexandria, Retromags, RetroCDN, Japanese Magazine Scans as well as countless sites, forums and Twitter accounts (Unseen 64, Lost Levels, Assembler Games, Nintendo Ages, Atari Age, @Akamid83, etc.).
Regarding the design documents, some of them were posted on Twitter by accounts that have since been closed.
In regards to why VGDensetsu bulk-dropped his collection, he states on the Internet Archive page that “contrary to what the saying goes, the internet forgets a lot of things.”
So what lies within this 11GB folder? Well, as somebody that decided to download it, I can tell ya: there’s a lot. If you’d like to go through the whole thing yourself, it’s available to download for free here. There’s far too much to put everything here, but here are a few highlights I found in my quick dig:
Leisure Suit Larry for the N-Gage
Moon 2 concept art
American McGee’s Oz development footage and concept art
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 in-development builds
Fable Legends concept art
Halo for the PlayStation 2
Streets of Rage remake (Sega Genesis) concept art and gameplay footage
Pac-Man Adventures concept art by Don Bluth
Dragon’s Crown for Wii concept art
Mother for GameCube in-development footage
If you’d like to further support VGDensetsu’s work, we’ve got a link to his Patreon where he regularly updates patrons on new findings and archived content. Check it out!
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