Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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 short entry for a Thor Software game that was advertised back in August 1983 in Compute! magazine (volume 5, issue 8). This has been highlighted thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog.
The game was described as “The Alphabet for preschoolers”, where you could “Teach your children the alphabet early with graphics and sound”.
Thor Software is not to be confused with the UK company of the same name. The question is whether the game was ever released at all? Do you know anything more about it?
A short entry for a Castle Software game that was advertised back in August 1983 in Compute! magazine (volume 5, issue 8). This has been highlighted thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog.
We don’t know much about this game at all, but know it was due for release on the C64 and VIC-20 back in the day.
The question is whether the game was ever released at all? Do you know anything more about it?
A short entry for a Castle Software game that was advertised back in August 1983 in Compute! magazine (volume 5, issue 8). This has been highlighted thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog.
Killer Piller was already released, and can be found in Gamebase, though it seems a 3D edition was produced too. It’s likely it would have been the exact same game, just with 3D colours or some graphical changes made.
The question is whether the game was ever released at all? Do you know anything more about it?
Metal Piramid (and yes, that is the spelling as shown in the game) is a neat platformer which was developed back in the early 1990s by Attila Deák, who would eventually go on to working at Novatrade and on Ecco the Dolphin 2.
The game is a neat little platformer, which reminds me a bit of Hard n Heavy, where you must collect items, avoid/kill enemies and get to the exit. Overall, there are 10 levels to navigate, with an end sequence, so it seems to be complete.
Music was created by Zoltán Nagy (and is tucked away in the game), though the title and game tune is by Neil Baldwin. Seems that the music was temporary and Zoltán’s music was not fully utilized, even though it is there and is being ripped for HVSC.
Richard Bayliss kindly has made a version which uses Zoltán’s music as intended, and you can find this in the download below too.
The game was found lurking on some disks that Csaba Virag had been preserving and obtained from a friend. It isn’t sure if the game was distributed in someway, but it doesn’t seem to have been archived at all – so we are guessing that it is actually unreleased.
Looking at the end sequence, it talks of a sequel which was to appear on the Commodore Amiga – though it never happened by the looks of it. We hope to get hold of Atilla very soon to learn more about this game and the Amiga game.
For now, check the game out for yourself and enjoy thanks to Csaba’s great preservation efforts!
A quick entry for yet another missing Datasoft title, which has been highlighted to us by Bertrand / Atari Frog (my apologies for the delay finally adding the entry!).
As you can see from the scans from Atarimania.com – the game is an educational title and had a loading screen shown too (if anyone has a higher res version to grab the screenshots – please let us know).
The game was based on a kids cartoon show with two crows and would various educational concepts with some fun elements included.
Sadly it seems to be completely missing at the moment and we’re not sure if the game was ever released. Do you know anything more and can it be saved?
A quick entry for yet another missing Datasoft title, which has been highlighted to us by Bertrand / Atari Frog (my apologies for the delay finally adding the entry!).
As you can see from the scans from Atarimania.com – the game is an educational title and had a loading screen shown too (if anyone has a higher res version to grab the screenshots – please let us know).
The game was based on a kids educational television show in the US and would teach concentration, memorization and recognition. Gumby would help kids memorize and repeat sentences of pictures and to identify patterns of musical tones.
Sadly it seems to be completely missing at the moment and we’re not sure if the game was ever released. Do you know anything more and can it be saved?
A game that was seemingly released, but has yet to be fully preserved. Are you able to help preserve the game?
Just to note that there is a non-JR edition already in Gamebase, but this is a different title by the looks of it.
There are scans of the disk on a software website, which we have borrowed for here. So the game is out there for both C64 and Atari – but just needs to be recovered and preserved.
Advertised in Compute! Vol.7 issue 1, Global Quest was due for release on both Atari and Commodore 64 platforms, and was a strategy war game by California Dreamers in 1984.
Sadly the game is currently at large, and we’re not sure if either version was released or not. It’s with thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog that we have learnt more about it.
If you know anything more about the game, please do get in touch!
Yet another missing Synapse Software title in the archives, with thanks to Bertrand/Atari Frog for highlighting. The game was mentioned as an upcoming title in Protector 2’s scrolling text, but also listed in a Synapse Software price list from September 1983, with a slated release date of October 1983.
Thanks to an anonymous contributor (thanks as always!), in the US newsletter “The video game update” from Jan 1984, page 147, there’s a brief update on this game: https://archive.org/details/computer-entertainer-2-10
They stated that Synapse had dropped NEW YORK CITY and QUASIMODO for Atari computers and shelved MORGUL for the C64.
However, our anonymous contributor makes a very interesting theory and suggestion, which does seem to have legs. In the September 1983 list, although Morgol is mentioned – Necromancer (also released in 1983) is not!
Was perhaps Morgol a working title for Necromancer? In this Synapse catalogue, Morgol is spelt as Morgul with a “U”. The word “Morgul” according to our contributor, hails from Lord of the rings, and is an elven word for “black arts, sorcery, necromancy“. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Morgul
We’ll quote directly the contributed theory, as it sums things up perfectly:
“Morgol (Morgul) could have been the working title of the game which eventually became Necromancer. Perhaps the name Morgol got stuck in some PR material and started living its own life. Interestingly enough, Necromancer is actually mentioned in the Atari section of the price list, here with the proper name – and with the same cartridge release date (10/83) as C64 Morgol. One could easily imagine a secretary getting documents from the Atari and C64 departments separately and just typing them up verbatim.”
That could very well be the case. Perhaps there are remains of “Morgol” or “Morgul” still in the Necromancer code which could confirm this?
Thanks to contributor HG (see comments), its been revealed that box art was produced for the game. It clearly hasn’t been used, but it begs the question as to whether the game had got that far. With packaging produced, that suggests it may well have done. Also, does this therefore dispel the suggestion that Morgol may have been a working title for Necromancer? It also has different artwork too.
Do you know anything more?
Yet another missing game, this time in the form of science software called Chemistry Tutorial, which would go through all the physical properties of the 106 known elements and had a complete periodic table display.
The program was distributed on a dual-sided disk with both C64 and Apple IIe versions at $29.95 and was advertised in Compute vol.8, issue 2 in 1986.
Did anyone buy it? Can it be preserved?
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