Picassio

[Rixalis]

Picassio was a game from Promethean Designs. Originally for the dreamcast but later plans were made to port it to gc(one version of their site refered to it as dolphin) and ps2. The game as far as i can tell was finished and they never found a publisher which in the end led to the company going out of business.

The premise of the game was that you would steal art, but it had to be done extremely carefully. The game was often showcased with the line that it contained no violence. You could ambush security guards(gag them and they would be out for a while) and in the trailer it seems like you could hack into the museum security system.

One trailer exists(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUAJbnMrsnE ). Which is off fairly bad quality, the original copy of it was extremely tiny. It doesnt show the amazing textures that the game has and how well it was done graphically. There are a fair amount of screens here (http://web.archive.org/web/20001216021600/www.prodesigns.com/picassio.htm), but many links are broken, ive got an archive of some more which i found somewhere.

As for the game it seems like it was canned mid august 2000. Which is when the company went out of business. I couldn't find anything else on it so I wondered if anyone else had heard anything of it

[Quzar]

There are a few screenshots here:
http://www.sega-brasil.com.br/especiais/dcunreleased/picassio.html

bit more info here: http://dreamcast.ign.com/objects/013/013902.html

and here: http://www.gamespot.com/news/2446027.html

ODCM issue 8 (Nov 2000) had a little bit on it too.

[Rixalis]

Ive read from somewhere about the ODCM issue before but i dont have it could someone scan it?
Everywhere does seem though to have a lot of the same basic information, there are more screens in some places though.
I wonder why the company had such a hard time finding someone to publish it, assuming that is the reason it was canned

[mononess]

I wonder why the company had such a hard time finding someone to publish it, assuming that is the reason it was canned
Some time ago (http://forum.unseen64.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=221&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=PICASSIO) i had a little "interview" with one artist that was working on Picassio and he was nice enough to answer some of my questions:


Q - Did you see any playable builds of the game? How far was the game along before it was canceled?

A - The only playable build of the game was a very basic one and is the one in the video on youtube. Basically the character creeping about and some very basic AI. Most of the gameplay ideas did not get implemented.

Q - What happened to the project and the team?

A - The project got radically changed halfway through development when the company boss saw the then newly released Shenmue and basically decided to copy it. Picassio then turned into a half adventure, half stealth type game but didn't get any further than some character/level designs before getting canned. The company fell into severe financial difficulty and employees (myself included) weren't being paid for months at a time. Subsequently they all left to work elsewhere and Promethean Designs went bust.

[Blai]

Very nice information.

Any other questions you can share with us? Any build out there?

[Rixalis]

I was just going through one of the ODCM issues(#10) under the list of coming soon games which includes a lot of unreleased games, Agartha,Black &White,Half Life,Gorka Morka, just to name a few most of which slated 01 Picassio is listed although its all the way on the bottom next to TBA along with a game called Quark which ive never heard of.
i would scan this list ( at least 10+ unreleased games) but my scanner is currently refusing to turn on so it will have to wait. What i noticed is that after ill Bleed every other game ive either never heard of or is unreleased.
Anyway, so the game was basically changed from the ground up. In any case it looked fun to play, i wonder if that one build of the game exists.