Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors

Penn & Teller's Smoke And Mirrors

Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors is an unreleased video game that was planned for release initially on the Sega CD in April 1995 and to be followed by PC and 3DO versions later that year. The game starred the comedy-magician duo Penn & Teller. The publisher Absolute Entertainment went out of business before they could release the game, yet the game was featured and previewed in various gaming publications such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and reviewed by VideoGames magazine. Skyworks Interactive, Inc. owns the rights to all unreleased Absolute games, except for certain handheld console versions of Super Battletank, A Boy and His Blob, and Turn & Burn, which are owned by Majesco Entertainment. However, since Penn & Teller were owed money when Absolute Entertainment went out of business, any rights pertaining to their intellectual property, likenesses and performance within the title were revoked.

The game re-surfaced years later when Frank Cifaldi, editor of Lost Levels, a website dedicated to unreleased video games, received a copy of the game from a reviewer who had covered it years ago. The game is composed of several minigames and an adventure/platform game starring Penn & Teller. All the minigames, with one exception, were made for the sole purpose of enabling the owner of the game to fool their friends by many different means, making them "scam minigames" and virtual tricks. Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors is unofficially the video game equivalent of Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends video, which had the same purpose, and used properties of the video medium itself for the tricks.