Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are a Cancelled & Unreleased Video games archive with prototypes, developer history and assets for many computers and consoles of all ages. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public. Sharing history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late. GTW has been preserving lost video game history online since 1999, and long before that offline.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host for many different platforms.
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!
Another quickie – whilst hunting through some disks from Andrew Morris, we found a sprite set which contained the planets from Mega Apocalypse, and a very simple ship. Additionally there were sprites with Video Images Software text made out of them.
It seems to be a set of mockup sprites for a game that never quite made it – but we need to get more information.
As there is very little to go on at the moment, the only hope we have is that we learn about any other Video Images / Impact games which were in production and make the connection – or someone happens to come across the screenshot and recognise the single ship sprite.
Sadly neither Dave Colley or Dean Hickingbottom recalled anything about the game – but suggested that Andrew Morris may have inherited the sprites somehow. Dave recalls speaking with Andrew at somepoint – so it may have been a very early abandoned game.
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.
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.
Pigs on Marse was an interesting looking RPG which was advertised back in Ahoy! in March 1985.
The game was highlighted to us thanks to Matthew Goode who got in touch and supplied a scan of the advert from the magazine. It looked an interesting product, coming with a 100 page cartoon book to help you complete the game. The pig theme of the game looked very interesting game too, possibly making the whole thing a lot of fun.
But what happened to it? Unfortunately nothing of the game has surfaced so far, which suggests that the game never actually got released. Or did it in limited form?
It’s early days, but do you have this game? … and can you help us digitally preserve it if it did get released?
Or did you work on the game and know why it didn’t get released? Steve Rogers – are you out there?
Was it too ambitious to release with the 100 page cartoon book? Marsoft sadly never released any other games, so it is possible that they just ran out of money.
Help us find out more about this interesting sounding RPG!
XS was a game being developed by Graham Hunter and Paul Docherty in 1987.
The idea was to be a Defender based game, with a fast side-scrolling shooter where you rescue civilians from sewers and street scenes whilst shooting aliens.
Unfortunately nothing ever properly got started, and after some differences of opinions in the Pulse group – both Graham Hunter and Paul Docherty left to form Radix.
Paul suggests that he isn’t aware of anything being started apart from graphic mock up ideas – so we hope to find Graham Hunter to confirm more.
For now, check out the mockups of the sewer level which were used in a demo by Radix called Peace on Pulse.
The While Dragon was a game being proposed by a guy called Sean Huxter. It was hoped that it would be proposed to Epyx Software back in the early 80’s as a sequel of sorts to Dragonriders of Pern. Sean believes that the game would be a lot more fun than the original version that Epyx released.
The game would control which screen he has to go to, some mockups included a Firestone Pit (for refilling a dragon), Map room (for chosing which region to go to in a fight thread) and Egg Room (where oldtimers would occasionally steal a queen egg).
The mockups show Pern environment screens. Thread would fall on the land, and if it touched it, the land would turn black. When a whole land block was deadened, it would be lost, and no longer accessible. Your dragon would fly over the land, flaming thread, Joust-like.
Overall the mockups look pretty impressive for their time, and it is a shame that Sean didn’t get to submit his creations.
We hope to hear more from Sean soon about this game and if anything was ever sent to Epyx. For now, check out the game mockups until we learn more about this entry.
3-2-1 was a popular quiz show in the UK during the 1980’s, hosted by Ted Rogers with a strange side kick character called Dusty Bin.
Many games coming out the time were tied into various films and TV shows, and even 3-2-1 got into the act with their own game. The game was only available via mail-order from a company called Micro Computer Incorporated, and gave you the chance to win lots of prizes just the like real thing. The star prize being a week’s holiday in Spain.
To win prizes, you would have to play the game then download your score and send it to the company. According to the few magazine snippets at the time, the concept was secure – but of course no doubt people would have exploited it.
So what happened to it? Well initially it hit some troubles getting passed through, but it eventually surfaced on the ZX Spectrum – with an auction for the game recently found. However, it doesn’t seem to have been preserved just yet. The C64 version though is completely at large and no information could be found on the title from initial searches. Although the magazine snippets talk of a C64 version, the box screenshots only show “For all Spectrum users”.
Did it ever get to production on the C64, or did the early flop on the Spectrum prevent it ever going to market. Do you know any more about it?
Well, it seems it was released – and there is a C64 game in the Retrocollector archives, yet to be preserved. Hopefully soon it will be made available!
Now I have to say that i’m very surprised about this entry, considering I grew up with the Vic 20 version of this fun little game. However, i’m a little sceptical to whether this was merely a mistake by the reviewer. We shall see I guess!
Race Fun was a very simple up scrolling game by Rabbit Software, where you had to simply pass as many cars as possible and not crash. Nothing more to it than that.
The Vic 20 review in Commodore User magazine suggested that the game was “Much better than the 64 version”. Nothing of a C64 has surfaced though, so what exactly was the reviewer playing? Were they getting mixed up with another title?
Star Traders (working title) is one of the lesser known Mega Game titles which Imagine Software were to release back in 1984. The series was to include around 6 games – with Star Traders to be the 3rd/4th title being done on both the C64 and ZX Spectrum. Both Bandersnatch and Psyclapse were the two more well known titles.
Originally we only had the one entry for the entire Mega Games set, but to be honest – each game is worthy of its own entry. So we have the main Mega Games entry to cover all, and ones for each title that we know of which were due for the C64. The Mega Games entry in particular will talk more about the failed hardware add-on attempt to combat piracy. Here we will focus purely on the games themselves.
Star Traders was confirmed by Marc Wilding to be a mix of the Activision game Star Raiders (hence similar name) and Elite. It got to a very early stage with the ship flying through a starfield and with a early menu system.
Marc Wilding has confirmed that he has sprite drawings, design documents and also the entire remaining source code for the game – albeit, printed out on huge sheets of A3. It is hoped that maybe a project could be set up to preserve this material and maybe even get things running again. Not an easy job, but one we hope that Marc will be up for in the future.
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