Tomb Raider IV was an action video game developed by Nick and Ted's Excellent Game beginning about June 20, 1998, and programmed using the BASIC language. The concept for the game was created by Nick Phillips and Tom D'attore, with programming by Ted Phillips and Bill Como. The game was never completed, but it slowly evolved into The Lost Pyramid as Ted gained more creative control.
History
The video game Tomb Raider II inspired the Phillips brothers and D'attore, who decided they wanted to make a similar game involving environments with hidden pickups, booby traps, and backtracking. However, due to their expertise in BASIC, they concluded it would be more feasible to program the game as a sidescroller. And since Tomb Raider III had already been in development for the main Tomb Raider series since late 1997, they decided to call their game Tomb Raider IV, because surely the main series would never make that many sequels.
The first stage took place in a desert environment, featuring enemies such as bugs, snakes, tanks, and guys with guns, as well as pitfall booby traps. Throughout the summer, Nick and D'attore's interest in developing the game subsided, leaving Ted to make many creative decisions.
During fall 1998, Ted Phillips designed several side-scrolling levels for the game on paper. The most famous was a pyramid that he had designed for a sixth-grade social studies project but repurposed for the game, because this level design represents a turning point that would eventually lead to the game's rebranding. However, in another notable surviving level design, Ted placed a continuous chain of booby trapped puzzles that must be solved in seemingly impossible and perfectly timed succession, featuring, although non-exhaustively listed in no particular order, spiked ceilings, walls, and platforms; a rising lava pit; a guy wearing a jetpack and wielding uzis; a flying scorpion; a falling elevator; a "radioactive beast;" an alien spacecraft powering up its main weapon; and (of course) Skelly.
A few months into development, Bill Como discovered a method of programming 3D environments, which he prototyped in an environment called GREND. This allowed for the game to be redesigned more in line with the main Tomb Raider series; however, since GREND was prototyped in a first-person view rather than third-person, the game used a first-person experience in order to reduce development time. Since you could no longer even see whether the main character was Lara Croft or not, it was decided to sidestep the inevitable licensing process entirely, and the game was reimagined as The Lost Pyramid.
The first stage took place in a desert environment, featuring enemies such as bugs, snakes, tanks, and guys with guns, as well as pitfall booby traps. Throughout the summer, Nick and D'attore's interest in developing the game subsided, leaving Ted to make many creative decisions.
During fall 1998, Ted Phillips designed several side-scrolling levels for the game on paper. The most famous was a pyramid that he had designed for a sixth-grade social studies project but repurposed for the game, because this level design represents a turning point that would eventually lead to the game's rebranding. However, in another notable surviving level design, Ted placed a continuous chain of booby trapped puzzles that must be solved in seemingly impossible and perfectly timed succession, featuring, although non-exhaustively listed in no particular order, spiked ceilings, walls, and platforms; a rising lava pit; a guy wearing a jetpack and wielding uzis; a flying scorpion; a falling elevator; a "radioactive beast;" an alien spacecraft powering up its main weapon; and (of course) Skelly.
A few months into development, Bill Como discovered a method of programming 3D environments, which he prototyped in an environment called GREND. This allowed for the game to be redesigned more in line with the main Tomb Raider series; however, since GREND was prototyped in a first-person view rather than third-person, the game used a first-person experience in order to reduce development time. Since you could no longer even see whether the main character was Lara Croft or not, it was decided to sidestep the inevitable licensing process entirely, and the game was reimagined as The Lost Pyramid.
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Lost Projects
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