Space World '97 Demo of Pokemon Gold & Silver Released

[InsaneNutter]

On November 15th 1997 a playable demo of Pokémon Gold and Silver debuted at Space World '97. This demo was never to be seen again until today. On May 31st 2018 an anonymous person dumped a ROM of the elusive demos, twenty years and six months since it was last playable by the public.

Pokemon Gold and Silver we're originally supposed to be released in 1998, however didn't arrive until November 21 1999 in Japan. With that in mind the final versions of Pokemon Gold and Silver is two years more developed then the Space World 97 Demos, making this an extraordinary find, even more so that it's made it's way to the public.

Their is a Google Spreadsheet with Info on a WIP translation from people who've had this for a while it seems. I can't post that though as it also links to the rom.

On the debug roms you can press select at the title screen to view the main debug menu.

Pressing Down + B + A at the title screen will allow you to adjust the time.

Edited May 31, 2018 by InsaneNutter
Updated info

[YoshiMoshi]

Whats the difference between the demo and the finAl version?

[theSLAYER]

24 minutes ago, YoshiMoshi said:

Whats the difference between the demo and the finAl version?

EVERYTHING.

 

For starters, look at the dex:

edit:
Screenshots of dex entries:

 

[YoshiMoshi]

So what happens if u transfer this unreleased pokemon to the retail games? I persume we cant?

[theSLAYER]

1 minute ago, YoshiMoshi said:

So what happens if u transfer this unreleased pokemon to the retail games? I persume we cant?

Their data don't exist in the retail games. So they'll look like the Pokemon we know.

[YoshiMoshi]

Are there any prototype moves to that don't exist in the retail game? Also it's a demo or a full version of the game?

[InsaneNutter]

The map which is certainly very interesting to look at:

[theSLAYER]

8 minutes ago, InsaneNutter said:

The map which is certainly very interesting to look at:

Certainly! Pallet Town got randomly crammed in, and the entire map is shaped like Japan (see the town map)

Also, shinies!

 

 

 

[Wanderer1391]

I want to make this post to clear up a few things as I think its important to know.

Where did the beta versions of G/S come from you may ask? Someone posted this anonymously:

Spoiler

"I don't think saying this will be a problem, but basically a low key collector of memorabilia, development equipment, and other scarce gaming paraphernalia recently passed away.

A part of his collection ended up in at least one second hand shop in Hokkaido that knew what they had their hands on and started spreading word without actually displaying what they had due to some of the hardware technically still being easily identifyable conpany property from several different developers, even though it wasn't stolen per-se.

The hardware included testing equipment (ie eprom carts), Game Boy dev units including a custom GameBoy Color compatible development Super Famicom Super GameBoy, and an SFC dev kit known to have been used by GF, along with some FM Towns and Mega Drive hardware of a similar nature, note that most of this suff is non-Nintendo.

A deal was cut to have several of the prototypes exported for dumping in exchange for collateral on the condition that the games then be repatriated.

The shop in Japan basically wants a layer of "buffering" between themselves and any publically visible activity regarding the Pokémon prototype in case Nintendo gets pissed about it, if they dont notice or care about the prototype dump they'll probably use it as publicity to actuion off the lot of what they have peace meal.

Cant say much more without outing sources or leaving enough bread crumbs that people could figure out the rest, but not all of this persona former collection ended up at the shop in question, individual pieces have entered the Japnese second hand and collectors market "in the wild" and its made a bit of a stir, but most of it nowhere near as popular or notable as the Pokémon protos."

According to the group who was working on this the original plan was to fully document the betas and release an English translation alongside it which was estimated to take around a month maybe less. 

An anonymous poster however didn't want the Pokemon fandom to wait a month and leaked the beta Gold rom, the plan now unless something changed while I was asleep is to keep working and release the beta Silver with everything else as per the original plan.

The Super Game Boy Boarder for beta Silver looks neat doesn't it?

Spoiler

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by Wanderer1391
Grammar correction

[Wanderer1391]

8 minutes ago, ajxpk said:

Wow! Looks neat... Why do people want to translate it though? I don't care about fan translations but feel impatient to get my hands on the (untouched) silver beta.  

Edit: 
Btw. the Mew Sprite that was used for the Distribution Software in Gen 1 is there as well!

I think they were also trying to clean up the roms as they were quite buggy, they don't even run on emulators like bgb or Gambatte without hex editing the rom.

[theSLAYER]

24 minutes ago, ajxpk said:

Wow! Looks neat... Why do people want to translate it though? I don't care about fan translations but feel impatient to get my hands on the (untouched) silver beta.  

Edit: 
Btw. the Mew Sprite that was used for the Distribution Software in Gen 1 is there as well!

 

I know.
As a matter of fact, that's probably the only time we ever see that particular sprite, right ><

[YoshiMoshi]

So what is being sold from the collection and where can i buy it?

Edited May 31, 2018 by YoshiMoshi

[theSLAYER]

25 minutes ago, YoshiMoshi said:

So what is being sold from the collection and where can i buy it?

maybe contact sanquii on twitter.

 

Also, I wonder if these demos have the functionality to distribute event Pokemon,
as part of the debug options.
@ajxpk this Mew sprite was never used anywhere else right?

[Guest]

@theSLAYER Not that I'm aware of. I already had a guess that the known distribution software was made at some point between development and my assumption was before or after Pokemon Blue was made which would explain the SGB border. It's pretty interesting to see the sprite in this demo and there's indeed a possibility that some code from it is inside this debug rom, but of course we can't make assumptions just based on a sprite alone. Very interested to learn about the debug features.  

[Wanderer1391]

Looks like you got your wish @ajxpk as beta Silver has been leaked.

[Taargüs Taargüs]

Re: demo shinies...  I already posted this on /vp/ but I found this Hoothoot. It didn't  sparkle when finding it or sending it out,  but you can clearly see that it's  different.  I can provide save states if it helps any,  I was using MyOldBoy. 

[YoshiMoshi]

For some reason I can't get it to run in old boy, can u help?

[Reisyukaku]

Heres a good render courtesy of twitter

[BlackShark]

2 minutes ago, YoshiMoshi said:

For some reason I can't get it to run in old boy, can u help?

Change the file extension from .sgb to .gb

[InsaneNutter]

10 minutes ago, YoshiMoshi said:

For some reason I can't get it to run in old boy, can u help?

You need to use the fixed header version of the rom and it should work on emulators / real hardware

3 hours ago, Wanderer1391 said:

Where did the beta versions of G/S come from you may ask? Someone posted this anonymously

 

Is that confirmed? I remember reading that on 4chan this Tuesday when people were wondering if the screenshots were real. I guess it probably is as everything else in that that thread has turned out to be true.

[Taargüs Taargüs]

Found another shiny while messing with the battle test

[celebi23]

How do you get around the rival battle at the beginning? Is there a cheat for it?

[YoshiMoshi]

3 hours ago, BlackShark said:

Change the file extension from .sgb to .gb

thanks

[theSLAYER]

4 hours ago, celebi23 said:

How do you get around the rival battle at the beginning? Is there a cheat for it?

Press select at title screen to enter debug menu,
Choose second top option to play the game with debug options.
now, holding B to run allows walk through walls.

Also, here's an image document I made to compare old school footage to the data in the game.
There's a few map images I haven't been able to replicate or fully replicate, so take a screenshot if you managed to find the spot!

Here it is. The image is big, so open in new tab to view it:

Do note that the maps I could not replicate, appear to be from an even older showcase of the game.
The notable difference, is best exemplified by Tin Tower comparisons.
The older copy has glass windows on the doors, and the newer one (and the one leaked) users striped textured doors.

edit:
I think a bunch of information matches this:
http://www.glitterberri.com/pokemon-gold-silver/spaceworld-97-demo/

edit2:
I found another image, and managed to match that too!

[Guest]

The Pikachu Sprite was used as a stamp in the GameBoy Camera software:
https://tcrf.net/Game_Boy_Camera/Regional_Differences