At E3 in 1997, a port of the Maxis PC title SimCopter was shown for the N64 as Sim Copter 64, but was never seen again after that. However, a playable version of the long-lost cancelled N64 game has been found. Twitter user and gaming history preservationist @dangentemp, shared the find on the social media platform along with the Reddit thread it came from.
Interestingly, along with SimCopter 64, SimCity was also due to get a 64DD port, which SimCopter would be compatible with. but neither of these saw the light of day.
Back in 2015, Unseen64 uploaded footage from E3 1997 to YouTube which can be seen below
Reddit user a707northbayer, found the playable cart and shared his find in a thread on the N64 subreddit, saying thats they got hold of the cartridge after trading in some SNES games — and that the person who they traded with was aware of what the cart was. a707northbayer has also stated that they are interested in making a backup of the game to preserve this slice of history, and has been approached by a member of the retro community with knowledge of dumping roms, while various others users have also suggested other names that a707northbayer can reach out to.
In the gamecollecting subreddit, the user also shared playable footage from the game’s first level, with the date on the build is 12-26-97, meaning this dev build is almost 25 years old and is more recent than the previously seen E3 footage.