Project Deluge (Lot Page)
Project Deluge - PlayStation 2 (List)
Project Deluge - PlayStation 2 (Matched List)
Project Deluge - Assets (List)
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A storm is brewing, capable of transforming the land with every downpour.
Introducing, one of the biggest endeavors that we have taken yet.
It’s been a while since our last release back on New Years day. In the months before and since that release, we have been working on something truly special - a project so massive it practically eclipses everything that we’ve tackled up until this point. The only thing comparable was back on February 23rd, 2008 (over ten years ago) where we released over one thousand prototypes for various Sega consoles from old QA department backups. Since then, there have been many releases that have come close to matching the amount of content that could be found in a single release. But up until now, including our own efforts, they have only focused on specific periods of gaming history or specific products, companies, etc. Until today.
Today we are introducing the first part of Project Deluge, an ongoing project to assess a gigantic lot of various video game prototypes, pre production assets, and archival material spanning multiple console generations. These aging items were miraculously rescued from being destroyed, thrown away, or sold through the herculean efforts of ‘’’one person’’’. This person not only took on the task of backing up everything in their possession ‘’’single handedly’, but was so overwhelmingly kind enough to let us look at and preserve each item in his collection with no strings attached. Yes that’s right, all of it. For nothing in return.
So for the first part of the lot, we would like to present to you over 700 unique prototype builds for the PlayStation 2! Since the list of builds is so massive, we had to relocate the list to its own page that you can access here! Compressed, this brings a total of about 860 gigabytes of data. For obvious reasons, we chose not to host the matched builds but we are keeping a public record of each one and any interesting properties that can be found in them in a table that you can check out here. Eventually, we will be populating the site with various other assets from the lot as well, so keep an eye on this page in the coming months.
We would like to thank all the members of the Project Deluge team for helping us with this project so far. Without your help, it would’ve taken eons for anything to come about. We’d like to thank Jason Scott from the Internet Archive for giving us an opportunity to go through this journey and for providing the hosting for this ongoing project, and Iniche for working with the owner of all of these wonderful builds to make it all happen. Special thanks to Master Emerald for once again creating beautiful art for us to help make each of our releases something special (especially on short notice!). We’d like to thank drx and ehw for writing the scripts and helping get the project initially off the ground, and Sazpaimon for taking everything much further by expanding the capabilities of the script, running some of the builds on hardware, the streams, and so much more. And last but certainly not least, we’d like to thank all of our researchers (Zoda-Y13, GopherGirl, Xkeeper (TCRF), Rusty (TCRF), Shoemanbundy, Hwd45, SolidSnake, DigitalWarrior, Nex, and Drac) for taking the time to help us go through every single build in this lot so far (and all those delectable sports prototypes).
Well, that’s it for now folks! As this lot is an actively on going project, we do not have a tentative release schedule. However, be prepared for the next part of the lot real soon. More is on the way, so hang on tight! Also be sure to be on the lookout on The Cutting Room Floor (TCRF) for some more detailed research of the items featured in the lot in the coming months ahead.
Until next time, have fun everyone!
