The Mystery of Garfield's LOST DS GAME

update: humansoft are the developer!

You’re absolutely right about physical props being more meaningful. Slowly lining up the four games you did have really, really made it clear how lost this media is.

In terms of the name, and how it takes place inside of Garfields house, it could have been worse. They could have called it "Garfield: Homestuck".

Funny thing, I worked on this game back in the days as a 3D artist/animator. It would have been a cool game (2D platformer with 3D graphics, kind of like new smb with mario64 graphics), but the distributor shut it down. Back then there were 2 companies called Humansoft in Hungary, so for legal reasons the developer in question was called HS Games officially.

Hard to believe one random fan on the internet like Quinton has become one of the foremost Garfield historians. I absolutely, unironically love it.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if that last option was the one. The publisher probably wanted something out for the new console and out before Christmas but, underestimated how long it would take for a developer to actually learn the hardware and tools to make a game for the DS. At the time you could potentially pump out a GBA game in a few months if you have a team who knew their way around it but, the DS was an entirely different beast and no small scale studio wanted to sign on to a project that functionality was impossible and the developer wasn't willing to work with an adjustable deadline so it didn't happen.

The description of "Bound For Home" is so weird, I feel like it contains clues about what the gameplay would have been like. Something about stopping a gang of cats disguised as Garfield from eating food? I keep imagining possibilities, like a tower defense thing where cats are walking towards a fridge, or a Where's Waldo thing where you have to spot the real Garfield.

What intrigued me the most here is that the game has a PEGI 3+ rating on the Amazon boxart which, if genuine, would imply that they at least reviewed it in some form.

I dropped everything to hear Quinton rant about Garfield. It’s mesmerizing to see his say “It’s Garfield time.” and proceeds to Garf for the runtime of the video!

I'm not really sure they could advertise a game as being "Licensed by Nintendo" with the Nintendo seal and everything if the game wasn't in some state of existence, right?

"Yellow cat" but he's orange

I don't think there's anything in the plot synopsis that suggests that the game was going to be set at Jon's house, and in fact would argue it suggests the opposite! Think about it: how would Wild Cat be able to get away with dressing up and posing as Garfield if Garfield was home already? To me, that alone suggests that the clan would've tried to get rid of Garfield in some way, so the game would consist of Garfield trying to get back and stop Wild Cat before Jon goes broke, probably going through a mix of original and recognizable locations in the process - in other words, he'd be 'bound for home'.

I would watch 10 hours of nonstop Quinton Re2s and Quinton Reviews Garfield related content. I am not exaggerating. Great video.

So your telling me, I have a “rare” box set, with a rare flyer, featuring a game so rare it doesn’t even exist? All because my dad liked Garfield and gave me his old DVDs.

Given that there were release dates and a promotional flyer with a plot synopsis, one of the approval entities probably has a file that says "it's bad even for shovelware, we can't release this."

The pamphlets and the amazon listings pictures of the cover are different. on the earlier one it says "rating pending" while on the amazon one it says 3+. When a game has to go through rating with the ESRB, it has to be either in mid-late development or completed as to give the ESRB a full vision and to give it a proper rating depending on the type of game and it's contents. This means the game was worked on to the point where it got an actual rating from the ESRB and possibly a rom or physical dev cartridge for this game for the ESRB would had to been made, this means the game is in a semi or fully playable state. The same happened with Mean Girls DS and how that just vanished but also got a rating and that was found to be in a semi-playable state. So this game exists somewhere but we just don't know who worked on it or what happened to it.

The Pegi rating and Nintendo License seal means there was enough of this game developed. If you could track down someone from that era who worked for either company, they might actually know a thing or two about this.

My guess is probably it being advertised either before a developer was found, or sometime before development began/very early in development. Considering shovelware games can typically take a few weeks to MAYBE a couple of months to develop, a Summer to Holiday 2005 window is a long time to develop something that is likely to either be an asset flip or a simple action/platformer title. It's possible that this was pitched and greenlit, but the developers were either never found or could never agree on a contract. Alternatively, the rights holders could have just pulled the plug early in development for whatever reason. I just find it hard to believe that any extensive work was done when there was about 4-6 months until the game was to be officially released.

Garfield has a special place in my heart, while the obsession did not last, Garfeild comics are what finally got me able to read properly. Your videos reignited my garf appreciation, and I thank you for it.

Am I the only one who finds it weird that they focus on there not being any multiplayer functions?