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.

Latest News and Posts

Mythos

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A fantastic Super Zelda clone written for the C64 by Crossbow/Crest and was a secret part to the demo Krestage 3 – More Weird Stuff. This awesome clone has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately it seems we will never see a full version of this game anytime soon.

When you think about a Zelda conversion on the C64, you think of getting something which is fairly close to the NES versions in terms of graphics. Well, the C64 version does its best to blow you away by providing a conversion which looks almost identical to the 16-bit SNES version. A really fantastic achievement and a testament to the awesome graphical work which has been done.

The demo allows you to walk around a very accurate representation of Zelda’s map, with the ability to swish your sword and even chop the greenery of the map like in the original game. It seems that quite a big chunk of the map is in place, and the clone/conversion was well on its way to becoming a fully fledged game.

The game was ditched after Crossbow lost interest in the development and time was against him. This seems therefore to be a mere proof of concept. To complete a game of this scale would take so much blood and sweat for maybe only a thousand or so who may play it. We assume that the hidden part is all that was ever created, though there may be some small bits and pieces that Crossbow may show someday. This seems to be it, and all that may ever be sadly :(

We’d love this game to not be a GTW, but sadly it seems it indeed is and is another one to chuck into the archives. A fantastic C64 Super Zelda conversion… case closed…

TRIVIA: To access the hidden part in the demo, on the password area – you need to enter “no limit hold’em”.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 3 Comments

Myth 2: Dawn of Steel

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Myth was a huge game on the C64, which won many awards due to its style and class. System 3 announced that work would begin on a sequel, named ‘Dawn Of Steel’. The planned sequel would have had yet more historic set levels to do with Myths and Legends etc.

Not much of an outline was given of what it would have been like, but system 3 as usual promised a sequel which would beat the original. Brendan Phoenix in later years found a leaflet from System 3 which mentioned Myth 2 as an up and coming title (see scans below).

Ideas were drawn up, but actual coding was rumoured to have never started (at least on the C64). Interestingly in 2014, a contributor on EAB spotted that artist Les Edwards had produced some cover art for a game in 1991 called “Dawn of Steel” .. which must have been Myth 2 (see scans below).

As for the game itself, did it ever get started? Well, thanks to Jazzcat – Mark Cale has confirmed that it did not.

“We never started Myth 2 on C64. Robin and Doc did a lot of the Amiga graphics but the original graphics were done by Bob. The original character wore jeans and was more like a teen hero.

When we went to the Amiga we changed the character to more of a barbarian type character. Myth 2 was only ever a concept that never was fleshed out.”

So confirmation that there was never a sequel started on the C64 (nor it seems on other formats), and very much case closed!

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 10 Comments

Mysterious Worlds

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A stunning little game, featuring some great graphics and wonderful spot effects and animations. This game was intended to be sold via mail order companies on the C64 for a price of around £8.99, which seems like a reasonable price for the game that was being produced here. It was rumoured to be sold by Crystal Software, but this needs clarifying.

Since the previews were spread on a few magazine cover disks, nothing else has been heard of the game, and therefore sounds like the game has been scrapped and was incomplete when scrapped.

A shame, but then it may have reached a much later stage than is actually here with this preview. But with no credits to match to the game, it is going to be another hard task to find out more on this game.

However, thanks to contributor (see comments) Liqmatrix, we have learnt that the game was released on the Amiga and PC back in 1990. For the Amiga the game was released on a cover disk in seems called Amiga Fun. It seems someone decided that a C64 conversion would be a great idea in later years – but who was behind it exactly?

There are a number of cracks and previews that exist, most of which were released around 1992-1993, but with a late one from Legend in 1998 that credited Groovy Bytes and said the game was coming soon. The most interesting of all is the crack from TRC, which has two very different looking previews. There are also a stunning series of background conversions too intended for the game that you can browse through. Certainly there is a story behind this conversion, as so much work was done – was it perhaps anything to do with X-Ample?

It seems that at some point Steven Diemer (A-Man) may have been the musician for the game, so we’ve added them to the credits for now.

A very mysterious game. Do you know anything more about the conversion?

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Mystical

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Yet another Titus title which was mentioned in a schedule list from 1990 for the C64 on Tape and Disk.

The game did surface on the Amiga, under the Infogrammes label and wasn’t particularly well recieved. It was sort of a poor mans "Feud"… It also appeared on the Spectrum and Amstrad platforms, which suggest that surely a C64 version was in contention or even started.

Just how far the C64 version got, we don’t know just yet… It’s very early days. This could well be vapourware.

Do you know anything more about this title?

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Mutant

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

According a text source, Mutant was to be the next game released by Kris Hatlelid after Frantic Freddie.

When Kris visted Lemon 64 once, he couldn’t remember any games that he worked on that were never released. It might be a hard one to try and find anything more about. We got in touch with Kris where he said the following:

"I started Mutant on the Vic-20 as a prototype around a combination sort of Defender meets Choplifter. Imagine defender, but set on earth and having to rescue people from a city under seige from Aliens.

Goals were 1) rescue people, 2) preserve city. Frantic Freddie seemed like a better and more original concept (although it was pretty derivitive from a Vic-20 game called Panic City by a friend of mine that I worked with – Vince Sorrenson), and honestly more acheivable so we ran with that concept, and thought we’d get around to Mutant, but after I did some prototype work, it never really gelled. Additionally, Astroblitz came out and I wasn’t sure I could do better than that. ;-)"

When asked about the C64 version that was to be done…

"Sadly, Mutant (which I thought would be the next game from Greg and myself) never made it past prototype. I got sucked into BBS and copy protection development (which did get used by EA, where I later worked full time), and Greg and I kind of drifted apart.

I guess the good news is that I’ve taken an interest in remaking some of my old ideas, so it’s possible I get around to dusting off the concept as a mini-game. Unfortunately the source code is long since dead."

So that could be it… but it seems like Mutant is sadly dead and buried. Could Greg have a copy still?… Or is this it?

It looks almost like a open and shut case…

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Mumbles – Super Spy

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Mumbles – Super Spy was another cool looking game from Databyte, and was advertised with their released game, Polar Pierre within all the popular magazines at the time.

Just how the game would have played is anyone’s guess. As far as I’m aware, no review of the game was made, and hence the game never surfaced. Just what happened to it?

We don’t know much more about the game at the moment, and all we have is a scan of the game as detailed in the magazines at the time. Do you know any more about this game, or is it lost forever?

Fabrizio Bartoloni found some information in MC Microcomputer which translated to:

“We have to look for Baldar, the usual mad scientist, and destroy his lab before it’s him to destroy the world. A carbon copy of most traditional spy adventures and bearing some vague resemblances to Impossible Mission, Mumbles Superspy is a decent quality videogame from the American company Digicorp distributed in Europe from the British company Databyte. If you look for originality, you won’t find it, if you search for fair quality graphics you will”.

Source: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/adam-caveman/mc_microcomputer-059_0087/

The game was trademarked by Digicorp Inc, who are still going today, so we hope to learn more soon from them (if anyone is still there from those days).

Art Huff had confirmed back in 2013 that he was no behind the graphics, but then in December 2022, Ron Rosen got in touch to confirm that he was indeed the developer of the game after all and that Art had been mistaken. Art had actually done all of the graphics, and the game was fully completed. Ron wasn’t aware that the game had never been released.

Unfortunately Ron confirmed that he no longer has any code for any of his past works, though there are a few other contacts who may – so those routes are for now being examined to see if anything could be located. Ron also solved another mystery by confirming that he and Art were behind Adam Caveman.

Watch this space and hopefully we’ll have some more positive news soon.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 8 Comments

Multi-pack

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A quick one for you, this time from a catalogue which advertised a Multipack of games which included:

  • Nine Men Morris
  • Cymon
  • Gammon 64

There is a Nine Mens Morris game in Gamebase, but this has now been confirmed to be a different version.

Thanks to Paul Jones (see comments), a copy has been located and he has very kindly preserved the game and provided a copy of the TAP image. Please see downloads!

Paul thankfully spotted the tape in a bundle and got it for a good price – he was very quick to preserve and try and make available – so thank you Paul!

They are indeed different programs to what is already out there by the looks of it and we now know that this was indeed sold – just in very limited numbers!

Case closed!

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Master Tetris

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A very buggy Tetris clone, called ‘Master Tetris’, with corrupted graphics, but still somehow playable.

It’s hard to critise a game as playable as Tetris, and this certainly is playable, but the downfall is the graphics and lack of any imagination.

The bugs are down to the early version, so it’s likely the bug was fixed in a later version of somekind.

The game seems to be fully playable, and I can’t see how much more work would have been needed to complete this game. It may have even been completed.

Luckily, the game came with some credits, so its possible that we could find out what actually happened to the game.

No Gameboy Tetris, but still a playable tetris clone…

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Mr Fixit

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

This was to be the original NightShift game, as it started out.. with a victorian toy-making machine.

Lucasfilm later stepped in and had all the toys changed and the game changed to what was eventually released as “Nightshift”.

It is quite possible that the game got very far before it had a change of graphics and a name change, but did anything exist of this, or has it been lost forever?

It would be really interesting to find something of the game, but we shouldn’t be too hopeful… it may have only been concept drawings and initial designs which were changed.

However, an interesting entry which we will try and find out more about regardless… For now, check out the cool “NightShift” game which did make it!

Check out the released game for now…

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Movie Monster, The

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A quick entry for a slightly different looking Movie Monster game that was in various magazines at the time.

Happy Computer in particular were presented with a preview of “The Movie Monster” in the Spring of 1986 which had a blue Godzilla and further differences to the final version.

Early days for this one!

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 2 Comments