(Sega AM1's universe)
The following is a comprehensive list of all unused content from Sega AM1's 1996 rail shooting game The House of the Dead. During development, content was scrapped due to time constraints, hardware limitations, and negative player feedback.
Unused content has been found via concept art, developer interviews, and data mining of both the final arcade release and its prototype, The House of Dead.
Alternate "creature Sophie" ending room[]
PN_room_6bb_zsof is an unused room for the bad ending, in which Sophie Richards appears as a creature; the "zsof" in the filename likely stands for "Zombie Sophie". The room itself is where Chariot seemingly kills Sophie at the end of Chapter 1.
In the final game, the creature Sophie instead appears in the Curien Mansion's foyer.
Cabinet features[]
Concept art shows scrapped features for The House of the Dead's arcade cabinet.
| Image | Notes |
|---|---|
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A cabinet with two monitors. Dubbed the "Reflection System", it let players shoot enemies that approached from multiple directions.[1] The House of the Dead 4 Special would utilize a similar design. |
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Sketch of the light gun designed with a "blowback" effect, which was achieved with air compressors. This appeared on location test cabinets, but was scrapped due to being mechanically unreliable.[2] In the prototype, the blowback effect could be enabled or disabled in the test menu. |
Character concepts[]
Concept art exists of various scrapped characters, or ideas for characters that are absent in their final designs.
| Image | Notes |
|---|---|
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A male character who had superhuman abilities. Designer Hiroyuki Taguchi does not remember if Playboy was an enemy or not.[3] |
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An early version of Dr. Curien, which was scrapped because of his resemblance to the titular character from the 1993 science fiction horror film The Invisible Man. Hiroyuki Taguchi does not remember why the character's name is "Happy".[3] |
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Dr. Curien's second (and largely final) iteration, whose full name Hiroyuki Taguchi did not know how to spell. Dr. A has a different-colored jacket.[3] His concept art appears in the EFI Genome Ward stage of The House of the Dead III. |
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A playable, "intellectual" female character who evolved into Sophie Richards.[3] |
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Four scrapped enemies: a spider-like creature; a dismembered hand; a skeletal hooded being with a rose and cane; and a slime creature. The creature designs kept evolving during development, creature designs improved as development progressed, so the creatures from the first half of development were scrapped.[4] |
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Chariot's concept art shows that his weapons was originally a sickle. This was changed to a bardiche in the final game. |
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Hermit's original design was less spider-like. |
Chariot fireplace entrance[]
The fireplace in Chariot's room was originally a secret door. It would have opened to reveal a ladder, which Chariot climbed in pursuit of Sophie and the player.[5][excerpt 1]
Sega AM1 cut the idea when they simplified Chariot's fight. They replaced the old room model, room_6bbb, with the updated room_6bb, which lacks the hidden passage. room_6bbb remains unused in the data.
Creatures[]
Textures, models, and animations for several unused creatures exist in the data. Most of these creatures were removed because they were deemed controversial.[6][7]
| Image | Filename | Notes |
|---|---|---|
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"baba" | Scrapped because Sega AM1 worried that her elderly appearance would cause controversy.[6] The filename Baba could refer to 婆 or 祖母 (alternative pronunciation), meaning old woman and grandmother respectively. |
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"syndy" | A buxom croquet mallet-wielding female. Speculated to have been removed due to her risqué appearance.[7] |
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"MrG" | A muscular male creature who wears a gimp mask, latex pants, and a heart-shaped belt buckle. Like Syndy, his sexual appearance is theorized to have been the cause of his removal.[7] |
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"disiprin" | Another female gimp-inspired creature. Her filename appears to be a Japanese pronunciation of the English word discipline, which further hints at the creature's sexual theme. |
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"lubin" | A small claw-wielding creature who resembles Rubin, but is shirtless, wears a cap, and sports what appears to be Greek text on his face and chest. |
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"hiru" | A blue leech. It has 6 animations[8] and resembles the Buyo enemy from The House of the Dead 2, though it is unconfirmed if this is intentional. |
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"neozom" | An unused variant of Sam with large scratches instead of open flesh wounds. |
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"debu" | An unused variant of Bentley with different-colored pants, lacerations on his body, missing portions of his scalp and mouth, and no missing eye. |
Gallery[]
Game titles[]
Zombie, The Deadly Dead, and The Horror Show were all considered as game titles before The House of the Dead was chosen. These were English translations of horror-themed Japanese phrases.[6]
Hermit fly head[]
Hermit has an alternate head model with glowing-red fly eyes. Although the creature's final design lacks this, its weak point diagram appears to still have the fly eyes. The House of the Dead: Remake retains Hermit's final appearance.
Textures[]
Unused textures that are absent in the final game.
| Image | Notes |
|---|---|
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The arcade prototype had an alternate unused continue text font lingering in the sprite database.[9] |
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The arcade prototype had an alternate unused game over screen.[9] |
Music[]
In the arcade version's sound test, audio tests 8, 10, and 13 are unused music tracks. It is unknown where 8 and 10 were intended to be used. Test 13 is a shortened version of Magician's theme.
Subtitles[]
In the game code for the arcade and Sega Saturn versions, there exists subtitle text for two unused lines:
This is the warning from Dr.Curien.
Stay away from this house! Or else....
The subtitles likely belonged to Hangedman when he kidnaps Sophie in the first chapter; they are located near the subtitles for Hangedman's final dialogue in the first two chapters. The first line noticeably lacks a space between the words "Dr." and "Curien". Neither line exists in audio form in the sound test.
Sources[]
- Excerpts
- ↑ Excerpt from The House of the Dead Dennou Shinan: Dr. Curien no Houkoku Sho, p.156-167:
"三本木：鎧をつけた状態で倒すと後ろの暖炉が開き、奥にはしごが。そこにローガンとソフィがいて下から装甲がなくなったボスが現れて襲いかかるはずだったんです。"
- References
- ↑ "Urgent planning SPECIAL! The House of the Dead", Sega Saturn Magazine, August 1997, page 194.
- ↑ "代表作：『ザ・ハウス・オブ・ザ・デッド』シリーズ ディレクター" (Japanese) pp. 1. SEGA Interactive Inc.. Archived from the original on October 10th, 2019.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Kori (September 7, 2012). "Development of The House of the Dead Part 1: Characters". The Website of the Dead. Archived from the original on April 19, 2020.
- ↑ Interview: The House of the Dead", Sega Saturn Magazine, issue 23, September 1997, pages 58-63.
- ↑ The House of the Dead Dennou Shinan: Dr. Curien no Houkoku Sho, pg. 156-157
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Interview: The House of the Dead", Sega Saturn Magazine, issue 23, September 1997, page 62-63.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "The House of the Dead", Retro Gamer Magazine, issue 160, 2006, page 63.
- ↑ Tim Ritiau [@egregiousguy] (March 11, 2021). Tim Ritiau on Twitter: "Up for today we have BO_hiru. A quick google translation defines hiru as "leech" which makes sense. It has 6 animations and differ from the Murrers and "Name" from Chapter 1. #hotd #houseofthedead #unusedcontent #hiru" (English). Twitter.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Tim Ritiau [@egregiousguy] (October 12, 2021). Tim Ritiau on Twitter: "So the HotD arcade prototype had an alternate unused continue text font as well as an alternate game over screen lingering in the sprite database. Time to patch it back in! #houseofthedead #prototype #i960 #coding #unusedcontent" (English). Twitter.
v • e content
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| v • eUnused content | |
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| The House of the Dead (Remake) • 2 • III • 4 • Scarlet Dawn | |