Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are an 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.
Briefly mentioned in an issue of Commodore Cracker, there was a brief news item saying that the conversion of Uefa Cup Soccer for the C64 was looking seriously delayed.
It never surfaced unsurprisingly, and was most likely vapourware. Note in the news was that it was looking seriously delayed.
There honestly isn’t anything to add at the moment. Likely to be nothing, but interesting none the less!
We have added scans from Commodore Cracker, which suggests some names behind Retros – including a Matthew Withers. Can they be found?
This game involved flying an hot air balloon across a slow scrolling landscape, dropping sandbags on enemies. The game was in fact released on the Atari 400 around the time with the same name, and was ported over to the C64 in two months.
Although this game was never properly released back in the day, it was released on a Grandslam/Argus Press compilation back in the early 90s.
Starcade, also released Savage Pond. they were at that time linked with Argus Press, but not owned by them. Therefore ‘Up Up and Away’ has always been owned by Starcade. When Argus Press was bought around 1986, it was renamed Grandslam by the new owners.
Originally, the game did apparently surface under the ‘Pulsar’ label, but was stopped quickly, as the company name clashed with another label. Eventually the game did surface under the ‘Starcade’ label until late ’85, when the company fell under due to problems with piracy and small sales.
So there we have it, the game *did* infact surface at some point… but not by its original company. So basically this game is not technically a unreleased game, but no-one has yet claimed to have owned the original Starcade release. Well – until HÁ¥var Bruvold Hojem did in 2016, when he purchased a Spanish copy of the game which was released by Argus Press. So it was pretty much fully released, but not in the UK oddly it seems!
In 2013, Richard Bayliss very kindly made a back-up of his copy of the game from the Argus Press 1986 compilation in TAP format, which we have now added to this entry in the downloads section.
A neat little game, and a piece of Rob Hubbard to boot!…
A rather ambitious title which sadly never made it as more current life commitments came about.
This was to be a cross between Narc, Splatterhouse and Final Fight, featuring some nice graphics similar to those in Rubicon, and over 200 frames of animation. The bitmaps were quite large, so the 1541 had to be hacked quite well to load in the graphics at good speed. Music was composed for the game and worked very well with the game. The game was being produced around 1990/1991 time.
It took about a year to come up with a fully playable level of a game which was very ambitious to say the least. It was demoed to people, but no-one really picked up the project, and eventually it was realised that the game was just TOO ambitious to be created for the C64, especially for the tape market!
GTW first learnt about the game back in 2006, and things stalled a little with the fixing of the game to present to you due to real life commitments.
But in December 2010, GTW is finally proud to present you with all the remains to Undead. This includes a specially produced slideshow and tidied up and running version of the game by Conrad! The slideshow in particular is superb!
Thankfully you get to play the first level so you can get the chance to see how things were. Overall its quite like Splatterhouse more than the others! Although there are glitches and things are not quite complete, it is quite fun to play and pick up objects and there is a large amount of controls to know. Here is an overview from the author:
INSTRUCTIONS Use joystick in port 2
Fire – hit / fire gun / use item / throw, it will alter on three different hits. If zombie is close, player will grab it and hold.
Left / Right – move forward or backward. Hold fire to turn
Up – pick item from the wall (not useful in this demo)
Down – pick item / crouch (fire when crouch will activate the kick)
Space – use gun / put gun away
Tips: You can use zombie as club, let them come close and press fire to grab, if you hold fire and press left / right, Jon Plissken will wield zombie You can take up to three bites, then Jon will fall down and lose a life. He will get up when you move the joystick
When playing the demo, some frames are not visible when moving left, unfortunately. Game will load up 16-colour bitmap screens while you walk, but there are only few of them. After the graphics run out, you will only see garbled mess.
Additionally there is a music demo which you can run and several story files. We have also included all the work disks with picture files and the original loader materials supplied from Miha, in case you want to have a sift through.
Overall it was a huge shame that the game never made it, as it looked to have a lot of promise. Maybe if the game was done in a slightly different way, it could have been released by a big company back in the day and done well.
However, in September 2021 – Miha Rinne announced that he and Pekka Kleimola had resumed work on the game and are now creating new development tools to ensure they can better realize the vision they had for the game. It will have lots of graphics, and will take lots of memory – so it will be released as a cartridge/flash image only.
Shortly afterwards, Miha contacted us to reveal a new development blog on the game which can be found and tracked at https://undeaddevblog.wordpress.com/ – enjoy!
Then in October 2022, Miha did a great video talking about the history of the project, also demonstrating the Necromancer (which is a new art + animation creation tool for C64 development). You can check this out below:
Also – Miha gave an update via a new blog post at:
In January 2024, Miha gave a new update showing a prototype development in Unreal, to test gameplay and animations quickly before implementing on the C64:
Followed by a new blog update in March 2024. We’ll keep posting any new updates here until the game is finished, and finally escapes GTW :)
Then in November 2024, a gameplay video of the new demo version was released. It won’t be available on the net, but it was testable at the Zooparty 2024 event:
In April 2025, a further update video was posted of a vertical slice of the game:
This graphically superb clone of Capcom’s Black Tiger was in production by Gary Liddon of Zzap fame, and also Paul (Dokk) Docherty of various artistic efforts. The game looked great in the adverts, and the screenshots looked very tasty for the fellow game player.
Sadly the game was so similar to Black Tiger that publishers Firebird were apparently running scared, because of the hassle that Us-Gold had with Nintendo and Activision over Giana and Katakis respectively. It is also rumoured that Gary was slow with developing the game, and this is why not much was done in the time period of the game’s development.
From a discussion long ago with Gary Liddon, GTW’s David Simmons found that the game was never finished, and that there was a demo somewhere. Gary unfortunately didn’t have it and Dokk didn’t either.. So who did?… Well, someone did… and a pretty nigh complete version too…
TMR/Cosine kindly donated GTW a file from Firebird’s development system (PDS), which contained all the remaining source code for Tyger Tyger, at about 50% completion state. Gary Liddon actually sent TMR this file many moons ago, which Gary may have forgot about… Possibly Gary thought someone else could finish it.
For a while now, Jani Tahvanainen and Henrik Jansson have been examining the PDS file, and have managed to extract all the source code, and have been sifting slowly through the code and trying to put it all together.
And after a long hard slog.. GTW is now finally able to present you with a first ever release of the game thanks to these two great guys. A few people doubted whether we’d ever see Tyger Tyger even after the PDS turning up, but now you can see for yourselves what a mightily fine job they have done.
With what was pretty much like piecing together a million piece jigsaw, Tyger Tyger is finally here after a 15 year wait.. From what is seen, it is pretty much playable, though the game was only ever 50% complete… it still contains fantastic graphics and animations and overall about 4 levels approximately. It must be applauded for the incredible work that Jani and Henrik have done here… they have essentially saved a long awaited title for our C64, and I hope sincerley that they get the recognition and praise for this fantastic work!
Even one level got very badly corrupted, but Jani and Henrik luckily managed to salvage the majority of it and restore it back to its former glory, thanks to the scans on the GTW pages. It is to be noted that the game features a lot of bugs from its production days, and its possible to get stuck in the background etc. But there are a number of options and keys available to allow you to explore what was Tyger Tyger. You will be able to see for yourselves, that had this game been finished, it would have been a class act. Just look at some of the graphics and animations by Dokk to see why.
We recently in 2013 found a preview scan from Commodore User magazine, which shows the first level with a moon behind the trees. This cannot be found within the previews, so there may be more to find of the game in the future, or this is something just not activated in the game.
You will notice that there is no sound at all in the game. In 2012, a note from Charles Deenen was temporarily leaked which had a Maniacs of Noise release list from 1988 time. Listed was Tyger Tyger – suggesting that Maniacs of Noise were to do the SFX and tunes for the game had it been completed. The only tune that may have been meant for the game is Disco China by Charles Deenen.
It is believed that Gary was heavily distracted whilst developing the game – he tried to complete it by coming into the TelecomSoft office for a few weeks, but this didn’t help things and everything veered completely off course.
Gary got in touch via the comments (see below) in 2017 and confirmed that things had been slow during development and got to a tricky stage when Firebird were taken over by Microprose. For the game to continue at Microprose, the contract would have to be transferred – which was in Gary’s hands to do. He decided not to, and the game as a result was cancelled. He feels it would have been difficult to get the game properly finished anyway.
Interestingly, in Swedish magazine Datormagazin, issue 8 1989, page 4, there is an interview with Gary Liddon (see scan below). The article has the following to say about Tyger Tyger:
“The game idea for Tyger Tyger is Gary’s own, but he is not the sole person working on the game. The graphics are made by Paul Docherty, who normally works for System 3. Unfortunately, there were a few issues between System 3 and Paul, so Gary decided that it was best for Paul if he only worked for System 3. This left Gary standing with only background graphics. Gary called in his old friend Robin Leavy to do the Sprites. Robin has previously worked on e.g. Armalyte.”
Our anonymous contributor (thank you!) suggests that the passage is slightly confusing even in its original form, since it first seems to state that Paul is actively working on Tyger, only to go on saying that actually he has left and Robin has taken over. He suggests that perhaps the latter part is a last-minute addition to the interview before going to press. This may also explain the Le[a]vy typo, if it e.g. was heard over the phone at the final minute.
So what are you waiting for?… Download a piece of history. Gary Liddon’s legendary game has now come home at last…
Two on Two sports is a Vollyball game from Epyx which was advertised in one of their catelogues in the early 80’s. In their adverts they strangely did drawn screenshots which looked fairly like the final game shots – so we have put these in for now.
The game looks a lot like the standard Summer Games theme, with the same kinds of characters in the drawn shots. Was this by the same developer?
Anyway, the game has never surfaced for reasons unknown and so the search begins for yet another game, and another Epyx sports game too!
From the creator of UXB, Twin Turbo was to be a conversion of the Spectrum and Amstrad game. It was an Outrun clone that I specifically remember seeing it as a kid, and wishing there was a C64 edition.
Well, we now learn that a conversion was on the cards ,and thanks to HVSC and Adam Gilmore for releasing his work tunes. In his work tunes were a series of titles which sounded very much like games. One in particular was Twin Turbo which Adam confirmed as being for a C64 conversion that never was. Adam confirmed that Jason Fox was the developer.
With UXB being found, it was hoped that maybe something of this conversion could be located. In 2021, we spoke to Jason and he confirmed that he was given the job to convert the game in just 4 weeks overall. Roughly half way through, something came up and Jason wasn’t able to complete the game. He wasn’t sure if it was ever passed onto anyone else to finish, but it seems not.
Sadly Jason has nothing of the conversion after over 30 years, which means this could well be completely lost to time. We don’t know if anyone did pick up the baton – if you know anything more, then please do get in touch.
At the very least you can check out the tunes intended for the game – but just sadly nothing playable it seems.
Twilight Zone was to be a graphic adventure based on the popular TV series of the 80’s. The game was being produced and eventually got a release on the Amiga and on PC.
The C64 version was coming (and listed in catalogs), but eventually it never quite surfaced and was soon forgotten about. The game didn’t get a bad reception, so just why the game never surfaced is beyond us at the moment. A news item mentioned the game in issue 14 of The Games Machine.
The game should have been simple to produce, so maybe First Row Software decided to abandon the C64 early on? The C64 did die out earlier in the US games wise compared to the UK.
A lot more research required for this one, but maybe you know something?
Ram Jam Corporation, famous for their adventure games and Dandy, teamed up with Mosaic to create their next game Twice Shy, an adventure game based on the Dick Francis novel about a computer program which predicts race results.
Unfortunately, according to Richard Hewison who spoke with the developers, the C64 version didn’t happen. It came at a time of relative turmoil for the developer, and so the C64 version was never started and RamJam ceased trading as a company about 6 months after the Spectrum version was published.
However, contributor Sean O’Neill has found that the C64 version was fully reviewed in Commodore User magazine in December 1986! Did they infact review the Spectrum version, or was there actually a complete conversion made?
More information needed, but it seems that there could well be a full game out there to find after all!
Yet another TV sports game was planned by the excellent Cinemaware, and late into the C64’s life. Sadly this was never to be it seems.
Cinemaware’s website describes the game as follows:
“Lace up you hightops and get psyched for a fast breaking, in-your-face, full court, 5-on-5 pro basketball simulation that looks exactly like a network broadcast. TV Sports: Basketball gives you total control over an entire squad, including player substitutions and strategic double teaming. Your skills as player and coach will receive their ultimate test as sudden shifts in momentum and fatigue take their toll.
Go head-to-head against another human or face an awesome computer opponent. You’ll marvel at the Cinemaware quality animation and graphics; real arcade action on offensive and defensive; individual and team statistics; even the post season playoffs! TV Sports: Basketball is truly Phi Slamma Jamma of basketball simulations!”
In typical Cinemaware style, this was an excellently presented game on Amiga and PC, and no doubt a C64 conversion would have been very close (If judging by the past efforts of the previous TV Sports Football conversion).
So what happened?… We are not really sure. We’re guessing that TV Sports Football was to be their swansong on the C64 platform, and probably the game didn’t get great sales as they expected. That was a sign to move away from the machine, and hence any work which may have been started would have been scrapped.
Richard Hewison who worked at Mirrorsoft doesn’t recall a C64 version or seeing one at all. Cinemaware did ST versions at Mirrorsoft’s request for Europe, and the Football conversion for the C64 was also requested. It is unknown if the Basketball title was in the C64 request list from Mirrorsoft. It could well be down to finding the developers of the Football game to find out if th
We have added credits from TV Sports Football with question marks over them – as it could well have been the same developers involved. We’ll need confirmation of it. It is very likely that Jim Simmons would have done the music, as he did this for most of Cinemaware’s games on the C64.
The original Tusari was a flick-screen platform game that appeared on ZZAP! Megatape 35, given away with issue 89. However, Martin Piper has revealed that the sequel was going to be different.
“It was a much updated version of the original Tusari that is a scroller rather than a flip screen based game.”
Very exciting stuff – the original game was very well received by everyone including Frank and Andrew at the time who bought the magazine in the good old days. Martin these days is very accustomed to the odd Berzerk arcade conversion, and has been knocking a fair bit of code out recently.
So is there any chance of finding what’s left?… “I’m trying to find sources to resurrect a couple of old projects I was working on many years ago. But my work disks from back then are sadly not well documented.”, says Martin.
From the sounds of things, the sequel got to a fairly advanced stage – so who knows what might turn up. We are very hopeful that Martin can find something very significant on his disks, but then he may decide to finish it (Which would be awesome!)
However, Martin has decided to try and resurrect the project for now by using a combination of his old Tusari code and new code. You can now download a preview that Martin has released. He is also generously keeping all of his new code public in GitHub, which you can check out at https://github.com/martinpiper/C64Public/tree/master/Tusari2
It seems that the sequel could be on its way at long last!
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