7305 days ago a game titled Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy was first released in North America.
After around three years of development and more than a few name changes, going from «Shadow of Set» at E3 to «Misfortunate Mummy» around summer, they finally settled on what we all know.
The project started as a 1996 CGI movie concept from a small team of artists from Valencia, Spain called Anibyte. The team had already worked with Eurocom doing the cutscenes for a previous game of theirs called 40 Winks.
In these small demos, which can now be watched here and here, thanks to Ana Amat, we can already see some familiar faces in a different fantasy setting.
Eventually, the team could not get their movie funded, and joined game developer Eurocom to mutate the concept into something even more familiar. Merging Egyptian mythology, a touch of Arabian Nights, the Luna project, and a vibrant and friendly animated look.
We already see a transforming Sphinx, Anubis, and some early monsters like the Goofy Lizard.
Once the game started pre-production we can see the landscapes and architecture solidifying into very different patterns and palettes.
We also start seeing the first efforts of getting these concepts into the custom game engine they built; fighting memory and resolution limitations to make it all fit in a console with barely 32 megabytes of RAM.
Shown below are extremely early versions of both Abydos and Akaria; the underwater realm, home of piranhas and plenty of other relocated monsters, like the evil skeletal dragon boss that we can find under Abydos in the final version:
https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/31158491/4528d9e9bf90fb251a166069b5dbd0a35de5d0d1.png
With the titular character growing up and getting some new clothes, here we can see one of the very first concepts for Uruk, the «lava hell», and what seems like a prototype version of Abydos, with the bird design and slanted walls:
Here we can see a more advanced underwater Akaria Dome level, as well as a later version of the Abydos Canals, and early-to-mid versions of Sakkara; the jungle world where we would originally fight the Geb Queen:
The screenshots in the top part showcase the Sakkara temple, where we are introduced to the possession dart mechanic and we transform into nearby monsters, like a frog or a Dino oaf, like the one in certain boss battle. Below that, you can see the Heliopolis Wall, with a hint of the contextual HUD and an already working blowpipe. Plus Uruk Castle, with a slightly different appearance:
As most of you know by now, the game had to be downsized and started losing regions and mechanics due to the sheer scale of the sprawling levels and a lack of time to make it all fit and stay fun. Even parts of the Mummy storyline, with Bas-Ket being playable and guard capture/stealth sections, or the winged Sphinx and its flying sections in the end part, with the titular protagonist reaching the Uruk Castle.
So the Eurocom team focused on polishing the best parts of what they already had; transplanting and repurposing many of the monsters and NPCs to other areas to avoid discarding them altogether.
While missing a good chunk, and very noticeably stitched together in the last two hours of gameplay, what remains is solidly built.
Many of these unfinished and cut levels were eventually released in 2018 as part of the Authoring Tools DLC, and reworked versions by the community can be easily played today on PC via the unofficial Shadow of Set mod, created by @jmarti856.
Watch on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICstxaIckcs
(Unfinished 30-second CG ad made by Blur Studio back in the day; contains some swearing!)
For quite a few reasons, and here we enter the realm of the subjective, ranging from badly targeted or misleading marketing, or releasing right next to other fantastic games, the title never achieved mainstream appeal despite decent-to-good reviews. So Eurocom retained full rights from the publisher and many years passed. There are hints that they explored some themes for the eventual sequel.
(2004 concepts by David Muñoz Velázquez, @DavidMV)
Ex-Eurocom people would also try to repurpose the franchise during the height of mobile gaming with an infinite runner starring our friend the Mummy itself! None of these internal demos would release, and the company eventually sold it to THQ Nordic in 2016, with this high-definition PC version appearing a year later and the Nintendo Switch version after that.
The game is still being actively patched and improved, still trying to give it the love and attention it sorely missed. Now ready to be experienced by old and new players alike, hopefully a bit stronger and wiser.
Happy 20th anniversary, Sphinx!
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Credits: Thanks to jmarti856, lordquacksmith, SphinxLuvDuv and others in the community for contacting original team members and recovering/archiving these visual pieces.
As always, if you are interested in knowing more about the game, staying up to date, or finding other fans, feel free to join here: https://discord.gg/sphinx
