Pickles (Unreleased Nintendo GameCube Game)

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Overview

Pickles is an unreleased platformer video game for the Nintendo GameCube developed by Santa Cruz Games between 2005 and 2006. The game puts players in the role of a monkey on a unicycle and features a stacking mechanic, where the player stacks other monkeys and objects on their head as they play. Pickles was first showcased through a demo at Game Connection 2006. In August 2023, content creator Cake Hoarder allegedly discovered a version of the game inside of a development GameCube. Some believed the video to be part of an ARG due to the obscurity of the game.

Online History

The earliest known mention of Pickles online is an article published by Gamasutra^[1] on April 20th, 2006. The article discusses several upcoming games shown at the Game Connection 2006 event. In part, the article discusses a demo for a game by Santa Cruz Games called Pickles, an original IP and platformer where players control a monkey on a unicycle. The devs claim it "runs on Xbox, PSP, PS2, PC, and even the DS." The article includes several screenshots from the demo (shown below). On December 20th, 2009, unseen64^[2] reported on the game, also sharing the screenshots.

"So the soldier monkeys have bombs, and the elephant shoots peanuts like a machine gun and stuff. The idea is that you're stacking, and as you stack your teeter tower is toppling. This is just a tech demo, but if we could really devote some time and money into it, it could be really awesome."

Discovery By Cake_Hoarder

On August 28th, 2023, TikToker^[3]^[4] and GameCube collector @cake_hoarder uploaded two videos about a developer GameCube he bought. In the first video, he shows off the dev GameCube, claiming he bought it from someone who worked for a game development company. He then opens the GameCube to show an "NR disc," saying there could potentially be an unreleased or canceled game on it. The video gained over 500,000 views in a day (shown below, left).

In the second video, he explains that he found a version of Pickles on the disc and showcases footage of himself playing the game as proof. He claims that the disc supposedly has around two worlds worth of content on it, but that he hasn't found a way to get anything past the first level to boot up. He also claims that he plans on dumping the content of the disc online. The video gained over 500,000 views in a day (shown below, right). He also shared the discovery on X,^[5] formerly Twitter, via his page @cake_hoarder, garnering over 2,000 likes in a day.

Some commenters wondered if the discovery was real, or part of an ARG or some other hoax. On August 28th, the video was posted to /r/GameCube,^[9] titled, "Is this Real? I saw this on TIKTOK and was wondering if it was fake or real." garnering over 750 upvotes in a day. On August 29th, the discovery was reported online by numerous media outlets, including Game Is Hard,^[6] Nintendo Life^[7] and We Got This Covered,^[8] some of which explicitly mention the ARG theory.

Cake_Hoarder answered a number of comments under the post to /r/GameCube^[10] that day, writing that it "might be a while" until he can dump it because he hasn't gotten ahold of the person he knows who can dump it yet (shown below).

On August 30th, Cake Hoarder uploaded a longer form video about the Pickles discovery to YouTube,^[11] explaining how he got the disc containing the game, showing off further gameplay of the first level and showcasing the game's stacking mechanic, garnering over 7,900 views in under 24 hours (shown below).

September 2023 Update Video

On September 8th, 2023, Cake Hoarder uploaded a video to his YouTube^[12] channel offering an update on the game. In the video, Cake Hoarder reveals the GameCube and disc belonged to the founder of Santa Cruz Games and was sold to him by his son. Cake Hoarder then reveals that he got four more levels of the game to work. He shares information about the game he got from the son as well as a man who worked on the game known as "Corrupto," who claimed the game wasn't released because it "just didn't click" at the time. At around the 7:20 mark, Cake Hoarder shows off further gameplay of Pickles from levels two, three, four, five and the first boss fight. The video gained over 5,800 views in five days (shown below).

At the end of the video, Cake Hoarder reveals he sent the game to @Hard4Games to back it up, hopefully find out how to access more of the disc and dump it.