Welcome to Games That Weren't, a site dedicated to news around the world about unreleased games, incomplete games or prototype games and findings. As well as news, reviews and features, we have various platform specific archive projects with downloads and more in-depth reviews and interviews. Please feel free to browse and also use our forum to get in touch and help with our quest to document and preserve all that is currently lost.
GTW’s Jazzcat has been busy arranging for a number of years the translation and release of a long lost game called Star of Africa.
Well, finally the time has come and everything is now completed. Here you can find the full download, and very soon we’ll get more details about the game itself:
Author of the Codemasters graphic adventure Slightly Magic, Colin Jones, has set up a new Kickstarter project to resurrect the game in a 8-bit legacy edition (with faithfulness to the original graphics), but also with an extra special incentive which will be of interest to those into unreleased games like us….
As you will know via GTW64, there was a sequel planned called Slightly Spooky – which sadly never saw the light of day. Well, if Colin’s Kickstarter is successful and OUYA funding is obtained as well, then Slightly Spooky will also be produced and given free as digital copy to those who are eligible for Slightly Magic’s remake.
But that isn’t all! If the stretch goal of £12,000 is met, then the third title in the series will be produced also. A title was set originally for a 3rd game, but never started after the non-release of Slightly Spooky.
An additional bonus is that Allister Brimble will be re-recording his original music score with his latest instruments and equipment for the game.
For more details, check out the Kickstarter page here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/colinjones/slightly-magic-8bit-legacy-edition
Following on from the Jonathan Kendall collection, Mike Berry recently came forward with the offer of making available the editor he created to generate levels for Reckless Rufus.
With the possibility of more to come, I have set up a general page to add any interesting tools and bits and bobs (not quite GTW specific, but not previously seen) from Mike’s collection.
So as a starting point, here is the Reckless Rufus level editor tool – which is labelled Awesome Dude, which was the original name for the game before Alternative Software asked for the rename at the death.
Here it is, and hopefully there will be more to add in the future…
Things have been a little quiet recently with other projects on the go, but a few updates have trickled through as follows:
Benny Hill’s Madcap Chase, Gem-X 2, Gunboat, Ladders To Learning, Leopard Lord, Prizone, Sarge
GTW64 was on display recently at the Play Expo 2013 in Manchester at Event City. It was a great weekend, where we got to chat to many developers – including Steve Wahid regarding his Streethawk work.
Below you can find some photos from the event, as well as a link to a podcast interview (starting from around 43:32).
We hope to do similar stands at other shows in the future!
Another GTW64 update which includes:
All dogs go to heaven, Breakthrough, Gunboat, Leopard Lord, Lord Of The Rings, Oriental Games, Razzmatazz, Rescue Mission, Slidez, World Boxing Champ
All specifics about the updates made can be found in a new “Updates made” link at the top of the reviews. Click to expand and see what exactly has been updated.
Thanks to some recent contributions, the following titles have been updated. And now after a feature request, you can now view an update log to see exactly what has changed. This can be found near the top of the review.
Benny Hill, Grimblood, Hagar The Horrible, Main Event, Minder, Rainbow, Sarge, The Sweeney
A very small post to just share a previously unseen Flying Shark asset from the original game before it was handed over to Dominic Robinson and John Cummings at Graftgold Ltd. Yes, that is right – Bob Pape within his recent book on R-Type had disclosed that there was an earlier version of Flying Shark in development at Catalyst.
There was also an earlier Rampage development under way at Catalyst by a chap called Stephen Waldie. When Stephen found out he wouldn’t be paid until the end, he walked as he could not afford to live without a regular income stream.
Unfortunately, the Flying Shark coder was not quite up to the project and walked out after only a few weeks. Both projects were moved onto other developers before being finished off and released.
Thanks to Bob Pape, we can at least share part of the Flying Shark V1 remains which he found on a development disk. It just contains an unused side panel which would have gone into the Catalyst version of the game. Maybe some day more will be recovered, but we doubt either game got very far at all.
More this week, mostly in the way of new entries and a series of updates with scanned items added. No new games to play this time unfortunately, but we hope to have more soon. Enjoy!
Benny Hill, Bloody Kids, Boxing and Galactica 1 pack, Bryan Robson’s Super League, Castle Fear, Delphian, Demolator, Espionage, Flame Island, Golden Path, Grand Slam Tennis, Grimblood, Gunboat, Hagar The Horrible, Main Event, Minder, Nifty Lifty, Orel Hershiser’s Strike Zone, Oriental Games, Pengi, Plexar, Q8 Team Ford Rally Simulation, Quadrillion, Rainbow, Sarge, Star Fighter, The Sweeney, Think!, Warlord, Xenodrome
Aviatak, Bamboo, Battlestorm, Crossbow, Deep Star, Gladiator, Heavy Barrel, International Soccer Challenge, King Of Chicago, Kobayashi Naru 1994, Liverpool FC, Lock On, Lord Of The Rings, Lords Of The Rising Sun, Miami Vice, Murder!, Operation Thunderbolt V1, Pulsator, Rebelstar, SDI, The Omnicron Conspiracy, Total Recall V1, Tour De Force, Trick Ramp Crazy
Well, following on from the release of Fun School Special, we have a special update this time with not one new finding – but 7 previously unseen and unreleased games/previews – thanks to the efforts of Duncan Kershaw, who has been digging through his work disks for GTW64. This includes three full games, and the rest are quite meaty previews plus a sadly corrupted title (which we hope may get saved some day). But there also some other promising developments which you can find out more about below:
A large amount of titles – most intended for Players Software recovered and preserved:
Codename Desert Storm (full game), Charlie (full game), Deep Star (preview), Harrier Strike (full game), Liberator (preview), Locomotive (preview), Space Hop (full game)
Graham Gooch World Class Cricket
Demigod 1994, Hi-Tec educational titles, Kobyashi Naru 1994, Majik 1994, Micro Driv’in, Nightwing 1994, Shard of Inovar 1994, , The Darkest Road 1994, The Magus 1994, Unknown Ikari Warriors clone, Unnamed Karate game, Venom 1994, Wanted: Dead or Alive, World Boxing Champ, Zombies
24th Amaranth GP, Adam Caveman, Axels Magic Hammer, Batman Returns, Brides Of Dracula, CJ’s 4th Adventure, City Bomber, Cops Fight Back, Dune Buggy, Escape From Colditz, Everwar, Fighting Cops, Final Eclipse, Firefighter, Flubble And Squij, Germ Alert, Habitat, Key to Success, Laser Disc to C64 interface, Leaving Teramis, Lethal Xcess, Mumbles – Superspy, Nuclear Nick, Olli & Lissa II: Halloween, Penguin Tower, Pipe Mania, Save The Hippy, Scooter, Se-Kaa of Assiah 1994, Solar Jetman, Sooty And Sweep 2, Space Ace, Spikey and the search for Rip, Spooky, Starburst, Super Pac Twins, The Seven Gates Of Jambala, Time Scanner V1, Trojahn, Unknown Ole Mogensen game, Venturia, Warriors
