Games That Weren't^®

Before you say it, this is NOT the Jeff Minter game of the same name! In fact, Sheep in Space was the provisional name for another game that never quite made it.

The game was being written by Chris Lancaster, who did Crazy Balloon and Manic Miner for Software Projects on the C64.

Spookily, Chris gave the game the provisional name of Sheep In Space (which at the time he thought was completely original), when Jeff Minter then released a game with that exact same name.

However, the concept was completely different. The game involved a giant stetson with a window in it, allowing you to see glimpses of the sheep inside which you had rounded up by steering your stetson to capture them.

The game was never finished or released as Chris was never entirely happy with the game play – so it was stopped. It isn’t sure if the development was intended for Software Projects, or someone else entirely – we hope to find out from Chris soon.

Chris has offered hope that the game still exists, but he says that not much of it really exists. But we hope to find something and will bring it to you soon. Watch this space!

A quick entry for a game we know very little about, apart from a few mentions in various demos that was produced by Hookie/Cosine. The demos were Mega Muzak and Bouncing Kerzonkas, and the game was discussed by Hookie within the scroll texts of the demos.

Nothing apart from the name was mentioned – so we are not sure what type of game Ecorche would have been. Most likely it would have been some kind of Space SEU, but we need to get confirmation from Hookie himself.

Was the game ever started? Who was it intended for? Time will tell!

One of a series of games from A.R.Software which sadly don’t seem to have seen the light of day for reasons we are yet to discover. One theory is of course the company went bust – but is that the case, or are these games just hard to find?

Chopper Land is described in the advert as a game where your chopper is chartered to transfer goods from your base and land SAFELY. An exciting new game full of surprises.

A review of Dots and Boxes suggests that the A in A.R stood for Al-Haddad, so can this be a clue to help us?
A lot more information needed, but check out the gallery for now and please get in touch if you can help us find this game!

Following on from Neverending Story and Hunchback – The Adventure, there was plans for a 3rd game to use the very same engine developed by the late Ian Weatherburn.

After getting the licence for Batman and having the 3D game released around 1986, Ocean were to make use of it with an adventure game.

Work according to Simon Butler was started and the game was actually finished. It is unknown though why the game was never actually released. Was it due to poor sales of the other adventure games?

It is likely the game will never be found as sadly Ian passed away back around 1990 time. Unless someone kept anything of the game (Simon sadly has nothing), this one is lost forever.

Additionally we believe that either Fred Gray or Martin Galway would have composed the music – though await confirmation on this.

Early days, but we hope to learn more soon!

Dr Who has in recent years had a resurgence in popularity with the new BBC episodes showing every year. Back in the 80’s, there was a demand to see Dr Who games – but not that many were actually ever released.

One such game that was planned for the C64 was a conversion of the BBC Micro text adventure, Dr Who and the Warlord. The game was scheduled for release in the summer of 1984 but never quite made it for reasons we are yet to discover.

The game was based on a completely new plot written by an ex-producer and came in two parts covering around 250 locations. The first part takes place on an unknown planet where, to find the Doctor, you must outwit lurking androids and King Varaga’s Blood Guards. The second part has you transported back in time to the Battle of Waterloo, whre you must defeat Napoleon and the evil Warlord himself.

The game featured real time, a help facility and the ability to save your last position and stop the clock if you need a tea break. The game was to use Novaload to ensure loading of saved games was as fast as possible.

In addition to the C64 version, a Spectrum version was also under way – and had the same fate befell it. Did the BBC company decide to pull out and show support purely for their own BBC Micro platform?

Contributor Strident reveals that sadly the producer passed away in 1990, but revealed who programmed the BBC Micro edition. Maybe they were also involved on the C64 conversion? The game was also later re-released via Acorn User magazine as “The Warlord”, with all references removed.

We were informed also that Meyer Solomon sadly passed away in November 2013, after rellocating to USA in 1988.

We would be interested to find out more, and see if this even got started. It would be a great find if we could find it, maybe as important as finding a lost Dr Who episode!

A very quick entry which was brought to our attention via a tune in Gilles Soulet’s HVSC folder. Albedo was a game released by a company called Myriad, and saw release on 16-bit platforms including the Amiga.

The existence of a C64 tune suggested that a C64 conversion was under way, though Gilles confirmed in June 2023 that no C64 conversion was ever considered or started.

The music was made on the C64, as the editor/compiler (called Kmuse) that Gilles used was developed on C64 for a previously released game called The Fifth Axis. All they had to do was adapt the play routine for the Z80 and Amstrad audio chip.

So that solves the mystery of why the music existed, and now we can close case on this title!

A very quick entry, as this could well be vapourware.

The original TT Racer sadly never got a C64 release, but strangely there was a news snippet in Commodore User which suggested that a new TT Racer 2 game was on the way for the IBM PC and C64 (no mention of a Spectrum version).

No PC version has surfaced, so we are wondering if the game was ever started at all.

Do you know any more?

Novasoft was one of those early development companies for the C64 which disappeared as quickly as they arrived.
I don’t think i’ve ever really seen anything to come out of the company.

The Great London-Paris Air Race was a sequel to a “Vic-torian follies adventure” series on the Vic 20, where you would have to fly over 225 miles of rolling land and sea from a cockpit-based viewpoint.

Primarily the game was advertised for the Vic 20, with Commodore 64 version listed as coming soon. However, I don’t think the Vic 20 version has even surfaced, even though the first game – Seaquest did.

So did a few copies sneak out in some shape or form? Was the game actually ever started?

Very early days for a very early product from a very early C64 company.