Being part of a creatively-driven fan community is a fantastic experience. Everyone shares a common passion - be it a movie, book, or game - and channel that energy into something constructive. Some people make art, others create music. And a few bring all those creative efforts together into something massive. Each entry on this list features a fan-developed game years in the making. Years spent toiling away in the developer's free time, hundreds of hours fueled by all-consuming fandom. And then poof all that work was undone.

The threat of a cease and desist letter hangs heavy over the heads of all fan developers working with someone else's creation. It is the Sword of Damocles, the Eye of Sauron, the all-powerful force that at any moment could shut the project down - but so often waits until the last minute to do so. Here are seven lovingly crafted fan games sunk by such letters.

It's only natural fans would want to spend more time exploring one of the Super Nintendo's most beloved JRPGs. While Chrono Trigger had an official sequel - Chrono Cross - it wasn't the direct sequel some wanted. Enter Kajar Laboratories, the fan-driven developer behind , an extensive ROM hack that looked and played just like the original. Set five years after Lavos' demise, Crimson Echoes finds the original cast on a new adventure involving alternate timelines, reptilian AI, and a resurrected king from the past. These plot points help set up the events of Chrono Cross, thus bridging the gap between the two games.

And here's the worst part: the game was cancelled just weeks before its release. After five years in development, Crimson Echoes was officially shut down in early May of 2009, mere weeks before its planned release date. By this point, the game "35 hours of gameplay and 10 separate endings" along with some new modes and other extras. Basically, everything you could have wanted from a Chrono Trigger 2.

The extensive fan-community surrounding My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is one of the most creatively-driven communities out there. So it should come as no surprise that - between all the music, artwork, and movies - a few fan-made MLP game have popped up as well. Fighting is Magic was a 2D fighting game from MANE6 who hoped to marry the spirit of My Little Pony with the high-speed action of Capcom's Vs. series. The result was a light years away from anything you'd find on MUGEN.

And here's the worst part: Fighting is Magic got hit with a cease and desist letter shortly after helping raise over $200,000 for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In 2013, the organizers behind EVO on their Facebook page to determine the eighth game in their fighting game tournament lineup. Fighting is Magic was on that list, and drummed up a fair amount of support, but that didn't save it from getting shut down shortly thereafter.

Kids and adults the world over have been capturing pocket monsters for almost two decades, and yet we still don't have an official Pokemon MMO. In 2009, a small team of independent developers sought to fix this glaring omission with Pokenet. Players were able to battle, train, and level up their Pokemon, even though the game was still technically in beta. In essence, it looked like a really crowded version of the Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen games, with dozens of trainers wandering the Pokemon wilderness.

And here's the worst part: Pokenet was shut down on April Fool's day. What kind of a sick joke is that? Plus, if you do a simple search for 'Pokemon MMO' you'll discover Pokenet isn't the only Pokemon MMO in town. So why did it have to be canned while all these others live on? Your guess is as good as mine, and mine is 'bad luck'.

This one is a real heartbreaker. After eight years toiling away on their own time, Spanish developer Bomber Link finally released Streets of Rage Remake. This massive game was a glowing tribute to an arcade classic. It contained over 100 stages, 19 playable characters, and a 76-song soundtrack remixed by five different musicians. It was a beast and, according to the developers, designed completely from the ground up. According to , "It does not use reverse engineering nor a single line of code from the original games. It's all based on visual interpretation."

And here's the worst part: Not only did Sega can this glowing endorsement of their own franchise, they shut down their own as well. A video of a prototype Streets of Rage remake hit the web in 2012, courtesy of developer Ruffian Games. The footage shown was of a playable demo thrown together in six weeks. It was all for naught, however, as the project was apparently scrapped for unknown reasons.

The story of this fan-developed Metal Gear remake helps highlight just how arbitrary the whole cease-and-desist process appears. In 2014, a fan-developer Outer Haven announced it was halting development on its remake of the 1987 classic, Metal Gear. This came as a bit of a shock after the same developer just a few months prior announced that they had received Konami's blessing to move forward with development. For Pete's sake, they even got David Hayter himself to supply some voice work for their trailer. These guys were dedicated.

And here's the worst part: they had the green light from Konami, or so they thought. Originally, the developers and are working on a new game that's Metal Gear-free.

Super Mario 64 is one of the most beloved 3D platformers of all time, and a testament to Nintendo's skill at game design. Even so, if you want to play the game today there are only a few ways to do so. Developer Royston Ross offered a new alternative earlier this year with , a high-definition remake of the Bob-omb Battlefield using the Unity game engine. You could even play it in your browser. But after about a week in the spotlight, the game was taken down at Nintendo's request.

And here's the worst part: the entire thing was a tease within a tease. Not only did we get a very limited taste of the Bob-omb Battlefield in HD - remember, it wasn't up for long - that stage in itself was a tease of a fully realized Super Mario 64 HD, something that should really be in our lives. I guess we'll just have to make due with our $10 ROM dump on Virtual Console.

What's especially odd - and/or maddeningly frustrating - is that the likelihood of a company issuing a cease and desist letter appears almost arbitrary. Why did Pokenet get singled out as the PokeMMO to axe? Why did a remake of a Super Mario 64 stage get shut down when there are hundreds of Mario 64 hacks and remakes out there? And here's the big one: why is there not an industry-wide standard covering this sort of thing?

Look at Valve: they embraced the fan-developed, HD . If all companies required all fangames to be shut down, that would be one thing, but instead it appears the decision hinges on the personal whims of the companies themselves.

So I say embrace the creativity. These fangames are a testament to the rabid devotion of their communities; not to mention an excellent source of good PR. You don't build a loyal community by stifling its creative efforts.

Oh, Twin Peaks – you keep breaking our hearts.

We were devastated when the show was cancelled back in 1991, so the news that David Lynch and Mark Frost were working on a new season of the surreal murder mystery was one of the delights of 2014. Alas . Whether that will hold remains to be seen – Showtime are keen to tempt him back – but right now we're very, very sad.

Still, it's known that the scripts (all penned by Frost and Lynch) exist and it seems likely that a third run will happen, with or without the Man With The Hair From Another Place. And if it does, there are some questions that we'd like answered... Spoilers for the show and Fire Walk With Me from here on in.

This is our main concern. The TV series ended on the mother of all cliffhangers, with plucky FBI agent Dale Cooper trapped in the Black Lodge and his doppelgänger – actually the demonic Killer BOB – running loose in the real world.

Now, Fire Walk With Me obliquely suggests a way that Cooper might be released (“My name is Annie. I've been with Laura and Dale. The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can't leave. Write it in your diary.”) and you can bet that Harry would cotton on that something was wrong with his BFF, but it's all very vague. We need to know that our very special agent escaped somehow. And we want to know what BOB's been up to while wearing his face...

Related to that last point, we can assume that Killer BOB will be back in some shape or form. He's the show's primary nemesis – a force of evil who moves from host to host. So while it's sad that we won't see former set dresser Frank Silva again (he passed away in 1995), the character can still appear by wearing the face of one of the people he has possessed. The question is, which one?

Coop is obviously a possibility, though we hope they don't go down that route for too long. It's perhaps more likely that we'll see BOB in the form of Leland Palmer. As the person who murdered Laura, it would make sense. Plus, we know that Ray Wise is likely involved in the new series, and also that he's very good at playing bad.

A bomb went off in “Beyond Life And Death”, apparently killing Andrew Packard, Pete Martell and Audrey Horne. But did any of them make it out alive?

Jack Nance (Pete) and Dan O' Herlihy (Andrew) have both passed away, so that kinda rules out their return. But Audrey presumably survived – she was one of the show's most popular characters, after all. She has to come back.

The same goes for her dad, Ben (played by Richard Beymer). Last time we saw him, his head had been split open by Doc Hayward. It'd be a damn shame if that was the end of Twin Peak's most venal businessman.

But that raises another question. Assuming that Ben did live, which version will we see in season three? The selfish manipulator, or the carrot-munching environmentalist he later became.

Twin Peaks without Laura Palmer is inconceivable – just look at how the show floundered after her killer had been revealed in season two. The character is the key to the entire series: an apparent innocent with some dark secrets. Tellingly, when Lynch returned to this world with Fire Walk With Me, he made sure the film was all about her.

Sheryl Lee has indicated an interest in returning to the role, but the question is how? Not only is Laura dead, but so is her identical cousin Maddy. Now the obvious answer is that we'll probably see her in the Red Room again, which makes sense. Perhaps she's been keeping Coop company all this time. That said, the fact that her spirit will have aged probably needs to be addressed...

This is one of the most hotly debated areas in Peaks lore, and one of the most intriguing loose ends.

In Fire Walk With Me, Laura obtains a ring bearing the mark of the Owl Cave, which has some connection to the Lodge Spirits. The ring passes from Teresa Banks (dead) to Laura (dead) and then to Annie (still alive – just). In The Missing Pieces (the deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me) we see that it was taken from her by a nurse. So what happened to the ring, and what was its purpose? Who made it? Does it protect its wearer from possession by BOB, or make them more of a target? Hopefully we'll find out more about this next year...

It seems unlikely that we'll see ever rock's greatest chameleon reprise his role as FBI agent Phillip Jeffries. But then again, stranger things have happened – not least the likely return of Twin Peaks

Whatever, his brief scenes in Fire Walk With Me are tantalisingly weird, adding time travel to Peaks' already stacked roster of strange occurrences. It was intended that Jeffries would be a central part of future films or episodes, but the commercial failure of Fire Walk With Me scuppered that. Perhaps now he can be and we'll finally find out more about Judy...

Assuming that both Coop and Audrey are in the show, and not possessed by an evil spirit or, y'know, dead, then will we see them rekindle (or even just kindle) their budding relationship? It was called to a halt in the TV series because Kyle MacLachlan felt it would have been inappropriate for an FBI agent like Coop to start dating a high schooler. A fair point, though Sherilyn Fenn disagreed with the decision back in 1992, saying “I think Kyle blew it, because Dale and Audrey were so great together”.

Well, that wouldn't be a problem any more. Perhaps it's time for the two to give things a shot. That said, things were going pretty well with Annie (Heather Graham) before the last couple of episodes, so maybe he's all settled down with her. Assuming, of course, she survived and that BOB hasn't murdered her in the intervening years.

Twin Peaks is full of strange subplots and odd ideas that were probably never intended for the sort of deep analysis they've received over the last 25 years. Aside from all the big plot stuff, here are a few more of the things we'd like answers to:

How's Annie? Will Donna Hayward be played by Lara Flynn Boyle or Moira Kelly? Did Lucy and Andy ever sort their tangled love-life out, or is Dick Tremayne still being a nuisance? Was Josie ever released from the door knob? Is Chester Desmond still in the Lodge? Is Invitation To Love still on the air? Who, exactly, put the fish in the percolator? Did Little Nicky grow up to be the Antichrist? What has the Pine Weasel been up to for the last two-and-a-half decades?

Oh, Twin Peaks – you keep breaking our hearts.

We were devastated when the show was cancelled back in 1991, so the news that David Lynch and Mark Frost were working on a new season of the surreal murder mystery was one of the delights of 2014. Alas . Whether that will hold remains to be seen – Showtime are keen to tempt him back – but right now we're very, very sad.

Still, it's known that the scripts (all penned by Frost and Lynch) exist and it seems likely that a third run will happen, with or without the Man With The Hair From Another Place. And if it does, there are some questions that we'd like answered... Spoilers for the show and Fire Walk With Me from here on in.

This is our main concern. The TV series ended on the mother of all cliffhangers, with plucky FBI agent Dale Cooper trapped in the Black Lodge and his doppelgänger – actually the demonic Killer BOB – running loose in the real world.

Now, Fire Walk With Me obliquely suggests a way that Cooper might be released (“My name is Annie. I've been with Laura and Dale. The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can't leave. Write it in your diary.”) and you can bet that Harry would cotton on that something was wrong with his BFF, but it's all very vague. We need to know that our very special agent escaped somehow. And we want to know what BOB's been up to while wearing his face...

Related to that last point, we can assume that Killer BOB will be back in some shape or form. He's the show's primary nemesis – a force of evil who moves from host to host. So while it's sad that we won't see former set dresser Frank Silva again (he passed away in 1995), the character can still appear by wearing the face of one of the people he has possessed. The question is, which one?

Coop is obviously a possibility, though we hope they don't go down that route for too long. It's perhaps more likely that we'll see BOB in the form of Leland Palmer. As the person who murdered Laura, it would make sense. Plus, we know that Ray Wise is likely involved in the new series, and also that he's very good at playing bad.

A bomb went off in “Beyond Life And Death”, apparently killing Andrew Packard, Pete Martell and Audrey Horne. But did any of them make it out alive?

Jack Nance (Pete) and Dan O' Herlihy (Andrew) have both passed away, so that kinda rules out their return. But Audrey presumably survived – she was one of the show's most popular characters, after all. She has to come back.

The same goes for her dad, Ben (played by Richard Beymer). Last time we saw him, his head had been split open by Doc Hayward. It'd be a damn shame if that was the end of Twin Peak's most venal businessman.

But that raises another question. Assuming that Ben did live, which version will we see in season three? The selfish manipulator, or the carrot-munching environmentalist he later became.

Twin Peaks without Laura Palmer is inconceivable – just look at how the show floundered after her killer had been revealed in season two. The character is the key to the entire series: an apparent innocent with some dark secrets. Tellingly, when Lynch returned to this world with Fire Walk With Me, he made sure the film was all about her.

Sheryl Lee has indicated an interest in returning to the role, but the question is how? Not only is Laura dead, but so is her identical cousin Maddy. Now the obvious answer is that we'll probably see her in the Red Room again, which makes sense. Perhaps she's been keeping Coop company all this time. That said, the fact that her spirit will have aged probably needs to be addressed...

This is one of the most hotly debated areas in Peaks lore, and one of the most intriguing loose ends.

In Fire Walk With Me, Laura obtains a ring bearing the mark of the Owl Cave, which has some connection to the Lodge Spirits. The ring passes from Teresa Banks (dead) to Laura (dead) and then to Annie (still alive – just). In The Missing Pieces (the deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me) we see that it was taken from her by a nurse. So what happened to the ring, and what was its purpose? Who made it? Does it protect its wearer from possession by BOB, or make them more of a target? Hopefully we'll find out more about this next year...

It seems unlikely that we'll see ever rock's greatest chameleon reprise his role as FBI agent Phillip Jeffries. But then again, stranger things have happened – not least the likely return of Twin Peaks

Whatever, his brief scenes in Fire Walk With Me are tantalisingly weird, adding time travel to Peaks' already stacked roster of strange occurrences. It was intended that Jeffries would be a central part of future films or episodes, but the commercial failure of Fire Walk With Me scuppered that. Perhaps now he can be and we'll finally find out more about Judy...

Assuming that both Coop and Audrey are in the show, and not possessed by an evil spirit or, y'know, dead, then will we see them rekindle (or even just kindle) their budding relationship? It was called to a halt in the TV series because Kyle MacLachlan felt it would have been inappropriate for an FBI agent like Coop to start dating a high schooler. A fair point, though Sherilyn Fenn disagreed with the decision back in 1992, saying “I think Kyle blew it, because Dale and Audrey were so great together”.

Well, that wouldn't be a problem any more. Perhaps it's time for the two to give things a shot. That said, things were going pretty well with Annie (Heather Graham) before the last couple of episodes, so maybe he's all settled down with her. Assuming, of course, she survived and that BOB hasn't murdered her in the intervening years.

Twin Peaks is full of strange subplots and odd ideas that were probably never intended for the sort of deep analysis they've received over the last 25 years. Aside from all the big plot stuff, here are a few more of the things we'd like answers to:

How's Annie? Will Donna Hayward be played by Lara Flynn Boyle or Moira Kelly? Did Lucy and Andy ever sort their tangled love-life out, or is Dick Tremayne still being a nuisance? Was Josie ever released from the door knob? Is Chester Desmond still in the Lodge? Is Invitation To Love still on the air? Who, exactly, put the fish in the percolator? Did Little Nicky grow up to be the Antichrist? What has the Pine Weasel been up to for the last two-and-a-half decades?