The Long Lost Demo That Sold 3D to Nintendo Has Been Found and Uploaded to Internet Archive

Image source: Video Game History Foundation


Some time circa 1989, a 17 year old Dylan Cuthbert was hired as a programmer at Argonaut Software in Edgware, North London. Having some experience in programming 8-bit machines, he was given the daunting goal of developing a 3D engine for the 8-bit, monochrome Game Boy.

The result was a demo called Eclipse, that would go on to be a game called X - one of the "most important games in videogame history."

The full story is at Video Game History Foundation:

"When Michelle emailed the Video Game History Foundation with images of pre-release game cartridges, tapes, and extensive documentation, Frank Cifaldi and Kelsey Lewin wasted no time in getting on a plane. When they arrived at Mark’s home, they found a treasure trove. They set to work scanning physical documents, digitizing tapes, and dumping the contents of the various cartridges. They spent days sorting through the collection, when suddenly a random unmarked Game Boy cartridge caught their attention. It was Kelsey who first checked the mysterious cartridge.

“I plug it in and the first thing I see is the little astronaut and it says ‘by Dylan Cuthbert’ and I’m like, I know who that is!” Kelsey said, “I’m like, Oh my God, this is very similar to X, but also it has all of these other kind of tech demo type things in here. So I immediately knew it was interesting.” 

That demo is now available to all on Internet Archive.

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