Not an everyday occurrence.
There are plenty of games that simply never see release. It could be for any number of reasons, too, since development can run into any number of pitfalls. But the original PlayStation probably had one of the lowest barriers to entry of any platform, barring PC. The Net Yaroze development kit was inexpensive, and allowed anyone with the knowledge, and the cash for the kit, could hypothetically develop a game for the system. And that’s where the story of Magic Castle begins.
Keiichi Matsunami and PIROWO began working on the game back in the 90’s, and as things worked back then, while you could run your development builds of a game on the Net Yaroze, you couldn’t simply publish it and have it run on native hardware. You either needed to go through Sony, or another 3rd party publisher. They had about 8 months of work into Magic Castle (and had been operating their team off of their personal savings) and were ready to take thing to the next level. While Sony favored the project enough to try and hire them on for something else (assuming my interpretation of the interview is correct), Matsunami and PIROWO turned them down, in the hopes of another party taking up the game. An unnamed big developer was interested, but due to the fact that the publisher wanted them to find more staff to work on the game themselves, and a lack of experience, the project ultimately fell through, and they disbanded their development house, KAIGA.
Cut to over 20 years later. Both Matsunami and PIROWO are still working in the industry; Matsunami works for SEGA AM2, having planned and directed the recently released Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Mega39’s, while PIROWO does still work in the industry, though he keeps his place of work a bit closer to the vest. While the failure to get their dream project off the ground stung for a few years after, both have been successful in the industry. And so, thanks to the fact that PIROWO still had the source code for Magic Castle, they decided to finish it.
The game, along with a translation of the interview with them, is currently available for free download over on NetYaroze Europe, along with a manual. The game, being unpublished, is not playable on original hardware, but will run on an emulator.
Frankly, it’s amazing to be able to play a new PS1 game for the first time in nearly 20 years. You can see the work they put into Magic Castle, and it’s incredibly nifty to see their work finally come to some sort of fruition. It provides something of a nostalgic feeling, really.
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