Cancelled SNES Game 'Cooly Skunk' Could Finally Be Getting A Cartridge Release

Update: The crowdfunding campaign is now live

by Jack Yarwood 17h ago

Update [Mon 1st Jul, 2024 14:30 BST]: The crowdfunding campaign for the Cooly Skunk cartridge release is now live on Kickstarter.

In addition to a standard cartridge, which is priced at ¥6000 (roughly £30), there is also an option for a more expensive LED Translucent cartridge for ¥9500 (£47) that lights up whenever the console is powered on, as well as a version for ¥19000 (£94) that comes with a special edition of the game featuring some in-game items that are themed around the campaign's creator 4ST-kun and soy milk (the president of Visit now runs a soy milk company).

You can visit the Kickstarter page here to view all of these. Although, we should note that some of these are only available to Japanese customers.

Original Story [Thu 27th Jun, 2024 13:30 BST]: Ukiyotei's cancelled SNES platformer Cooly Skunk could finally be on the verge of getting a cartridge release 29 years after it was originally meant to launch, thanks to a new crowdfunding campaign set to go live this weekend.

The story of Cooly Skunk is a pretty long and complex one, so we'll do our best to cut things down to the essentials to save you some time.

Cooly Skunk originally began life as an entirely different Super Famicom platformer (believed to be Metamoru Kid Gūmin) developed under the publisher Bullet Proof Software, and was pretty close to being finished before progress was eventually halted and moved over to another publisher named Visit. It was under Visit that the game underwent a reboot of sorts to feature on a Skunk-type character, with this change apparently coming about (according to its director Kenshi Naruse) to try to make the game more appealing to North American audiences.

With this new makeover in place, the game was pretty much completed and looked to be set for release for the Super Famicom/SNES, but then, all of a sudden, the 16-bit market collapsed in North America and Sony's PlayStation emerged. As a result, development shifted over to the more modern platform, with the game eventually being released on PlayStation in Japan in 1996 and North America in 1998 under a slightly edgier title "Punky Skunk".

Decades passed and the SNES original was presumed lost, but then in 2019, a BS-X 8Mbit cartridge for the Satellaview was discovered in a Super Potato in Akihabara labelled "Cooly Skunk" and secured by the user billscat-socks. This confirmed reports online that a demo of the SNES game had once been broadcast via Nintendo's Japanese-exclusive satellite service, prior to its cancellation.

Though the demo only featured three worlds, as outlined in a writeup by Gaming Alexandria, a hacker named MasterF0x was able to access the full game, revealing it to be a simpler version of the PlayStation release.

The campaign is being spearheaded by the video game YouTuber/researcher 4Studio. It will cost ¥6000 and is expected to ship in March 2025. We'll let you know once the Kickstarter goes live.

[source kickstarter.com, via x.com]

Hailing from Manchester, Jack has a particular fondness for point-and-click adventure games. In the past, he’s written about lost games from studios like Sony Manchester, Genepool Software, and DMA Design, and has made a habit of debunking video game rumours.

1
RetroGames
4d ago

Well, I wish them the best and hope it gets funded, purely because all new SNES games are welcome. It doesn't look like anything special, one more mascot platformer for the system, but it doesn't look bad either.

But, if they could actually update the game to look a bit closer to the PS1 version, even simple stuff like making the HUD look nicer and update the main character to look like his PlayStation counterpart, etc, I think these kinds of things would go a long way to increasing its appeal and encourage more people to support the project.

There's a bunch of premade assets in the PS1 version that could likely just just be copy and pasted across and used to really noticeably update and enhance the SNES game before release.

The PS1's "Chill Out! loading screen character image could be used to spruce up the title screen on the SNES version:

https://youtu.be/UzyXkEAjLh8?si=CkGAvl7wi3nIyOIX&t=2888

And the screen below could be used on the Stage Clear screens on the SNES version:

https://youtu.be/UzyXkEAjLh8?si=n4xhC4tjiq4IwMze&t=2845

And compare the background layer tiles in this level from each version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICckn4X_AwU&t=48s (SNES)

https://youtu.be/UzyXkEAjLh8?si=WygFbiptBhjp7xvj&t=2896 (PS1)

I bet most of the far nicer looking PS1 tiles could be just ripped right out and use to replace of the kinda fugly ones in the SNES version.

Etc.

They're ain't that much going on there in the PS1 version that would be impossible on SNES with a bit of rejigging here and there and taking proper advantage of all the system's capabilities. And with both games already existing and all the assets already made and such, it's a least a far easier job to do some updating and polishing like that than it would be to make a brand new full game scratch. They're already in the same 256x224 resolution for a start.

Now, I doubt any of that will happen at all, but that's my two cents.

Theyre calling him cool and he has all these friends.. I think they’re ignoring some facts about skunks here. Nobody’s buying into the idea that skunks are cool and popular..

3
RetroGames
3d ago

@NinChocolate Yeah, probably the worst choice for a mascot when you think about it.

So the PS1 game finally getting a SNES release when it was originally intended for that platform, interesting.

Punky Skunk or Cooly Skunk either are very strange names but is what it is.

5
Sketcz
16h ago

This gives off the very slightest feeling of Ukiyotei's other SNES game: Skyblazer

I wish Skyblazer had gotten a sequel. While this has similar elements, I'm not sure it'll scratch the same itch.

6
RetroGames
15h ago

Has it made £30,000 on Kickstarter already?

If, so, I think we can safely say there is a willing and paying audience there for actual brand new SNES titles too if they are up to at least this standard.

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