10 Lost Video Games That Were Discovered Years Later
5. Garage: Bad Dream Adventure
Garage: Bad Dream Adventure is a unique example on this list of a game that did get an official release but still wound up lost. Because the game's publisher, Toshiba-EMI, decided to halt CD-ROM production in general, only 3000 copies of Garage were originally made. This made it exceptionally rare and expensive, and owners of the game were hesitant to upload it to the internet for fear of Japanese piracy laws.
Garage's strange, psychological tone made it feel especially illusive compared to other lost games. The 1999 point-and-click horror is set inside the mind of a man named Yang, shown as a capitalist nightmare world populated by biomechanical beings. The game's art style feels inspired by the works of H.R. Giger and Junji Ito.
Preservation of Garage came about via a committed group of fans who had discovered the game's existence and began hunting through online Japanese auctions. In 2014, a user called cc0 secured a copy for 77,000 yen (roughly $550) and put the game online. This prompted an English fan patch to be made years later, allowing those who had fallen in love with the twisted world to enjoy it properly.
In 2021, thanks likely in part to the passion around its search those years ago, Garage got its first official release in twenty years for iOS and Android.