the cutting room mirror

Faceball

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This page details pre-release information and/or media for Faceball.

This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.
Specifically: Do any of the prerelease screenshots differ from the final game?

Development Timeline#

1993

  • July - The game starts getting revealed in magazines. The title is considered tentative at this point.1
  • July 18 - Presumably the date on the hidden signature in the Battle Options menu.
  • July 28-August 1 - Battle Caravan, a public tourney of the game before release, is held.2
  • Early August - A missed launch window for the game.3
  • August 4-8 - Battle Caravan is held.
  • August 18-22 - Battle Caravan is held.
  • September 4-5 - Battle Caravan is held at Laox Game.4
  • October 29 - A missed launch date for the game.5678
  • November 26 - Faceball is released for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² in Japan.910

Riverhill Soft#

According to Henk Rogers (Faceball IP owner and BPS/Tetris head) in a 2025 interview for Stop Skeletons From Fighting, Riverhill Soft's publishing for this version was a result of his brother (likely Edward S. P. Rogers), who was working at the company after time at Bullet-Proof Software, being "a big fan" of Faceball. This likely wasn't publicly known until this interview due to this version of the game lacking credits.11

References#

  1. PC Engine Fan July 1993, pg. 108↩︎
  2. Gekkan PC Engine September 1993, pg. 46↩︎
  3. Gekkan PC Engine July 1993, pg. 139↩︎
  4. Gekkan PC Engine November 1993, pg. 25↩︎
  5. PC Engine Fan September 1993, pg. 42↩︎
  6. PC Engine Fan October 1993, pg. 100↩︎
  7. Gekkan PC Engine October 1993, pg. 35↩︎
  8. [FromJapan] 13th CSG show --- Software List - "Faceball PC-SCD Action Oct/29"↩︎
  9. PC Engine Fan November 1993, pg. 82↩︎
  10. Gekkan PC Engine November 1993, pg. 22↩︎
  11. My 2 Year Journey to Solve the 30-Year Myth of Faceball 2000 | SSFF, 1:50:45. "First [I] had to ask him about the Game Gear and PC Engine CD ports made by RiverHill Soft" "Oh wow Yeah that was my brother He moved to RiverHill Software [...] So um yeah he's you know he's a big fan and he would have he would have been through our you know bulletproof software days Um so he worked at RiverHill Software and uh I don't know I didn't really get into the uh how can I say I didn't really get into how good of a job they did I or maybe I didn't I don't remember"↩︎