Latest news and posts

Whole Brain Spelling preserved!

Last updated: by fgasking

A quick post to highlight another C64 title preserved, thanks to the efforts of Allan Pinkerton, who has been slowly helping to recover a large number of unpreserved educational titles for the platform.

Today we see the release of Whole Brain Spelling – General Word List, which was an educational title from Sublogic.

wholespelling

We believe there may be others out there to preserve by the company, so we are adding a single entry in GTW64 to try and hunt for these. Here are the links for Whole Brain Spelling:

Posted in Commodore 64, GTW64 news, Reviews | Leave a comment

Perplexus Diodomin

Last updated: by fgasking

2002 James Boulton

Platform: Game Boy Advance

Perplexus Diodomin was a Game Boy Advance title that was in development back in 2002 by James Boulton (code), with graphics done by James (tile graphics), James Barnard (tile graphics and music) and Jamie Bamborough (character sprites).

per4 large

James Boulton was (and still is!) a huge fan of Puzznic, enjoying the title form its release on the Atari ST back in the day. He had started writing a version of the game on the Atari ST originally when he was 15, but didn’t get very far. He always had the idea of doing a Puzznic style game in the back of his mind though. Continue reading →

Posted in Game Boy Advance, Prototype, Reviews | Leave a comment

Super Skweek

Last updated: by fgasking

1991 Loriciel

Platform: PC (DOS)

A short entry for now for a PC conversion of the Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST and Atari Lynx puzzler sequel. Highlighted to GTW by contributor EAD.

Plans for the PC seem to be on very solid grounding, as the manuals feature loading instructions for that version of the game, and the original was released for DOS just over a year before. However, it seems to have never surfaced. Continue reading →

Posted in PC, Reviews | Leave a comment

Frak!

Last updated: by fgasking

1991 Nick Pelling

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Frak! is an absolute classic on the BBC Micro, starring caveman Trogg as you navigated across various trecharous levels with your trusty yo-yo.

frak3

It is no surprise then to learn that there had been plans to bring Trogg to 16-bit platforms at some stage, and Commodore User magazine would report this back in August 1991. Continue reading →

Posted in Amiga, Reviews | 3 Comments

Roll Call

Last updated: by fgasking

2005 SCi

Platforms: Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox

A short entry to cover an earlier incarnation of Eidos Iteractive’s Urban Chaos: Riot Response. The game began life as a sequel to SWAT: Global Team Strike, before evolving into Roll Call.

SCi would rescue the project after the collapse of Argonaut and later be released under the above name. Thanks to Hidden Palace, there are already early prototypes of the game in its earlier incarnations which you can find here:

Recently in October 2021, we were provided with a Qualitative Game Evaluation on Roll Call dated June 2005. By this stage, SCi were involved. Check it out below:

The document aimed to review the current build and specifics of the title so far, plus the name of the game to come up with something more fitting. This was done by having four extended group discussions lasting two hours, with one-hour gameplay.

It is a fascinating look at the development process and how the game was viewed at that point in time, as well as the decisions that led to its eventual renaming to Urban Chaos: Riot Response.

This is pretty much why we have created this prototype entry so far, but if anything else relating to the game surfaces like this – then we will continue to add and update this page.

Posted in PlayStation 2, Prototype, Xbox | Leave a comment

Super Productions Software games

Last updated: by fgasking

Although the main purpose of Games That Weren’t is to preserve unreleased games, we occasionally try and share preservation efforts of ones which were actually released, but were extremely rare and yet to be preserved. Today we share preservation of a set of very rare Commodore Vic-20 games thanks to Vincent Procaccini.

case display

Vincent got in touch with GTW, as he was trying to find out more about an obscure set of Commodore Vic 20 games in his possession by Super Productions Software.

The only thing he could find out about the company was that they had the same address as “Album Globe Distribution”. So it seemed to be a company just trying to get in on the whole video game craze at the time, which I think K-Tel also did at one stage too with their double packs.

Continue reading →

Posted in Features, Vic 20 | 1 Comment