Games That Weren't^®

Yet another Donkey Kong clone was planned for the C64, but this time an attempt to update the classic theme. The idea of the game was to have the first 4 levels based around the original Kong game, with the 2nd bunch of 4 levels created by coder himself.

The new levels were to be based as an underground, where Kong lives at night-time. Each level was going to be 2 screens wide, and scroll left and right. The idea for the finished game was that you had to collect keys in order to rescue the princess.

A series of keys would have been needed to be collected. Once the final key is collected, the player would have had to make their way to the dungeon..

Once at the dungeon, the computer would have taken over and shown the following sequence, as described by the programmer:

“The door opens and you walk into the dungeon. A heart appears between you and the princess. Both you and the princess, stand facing the screen whilst the remaining time adds to your score.”

The game was to consist of many new animated features such as water, bridges, spikes, conveyor belts, and also the dungeon door.

Shaun Pearson created all the graphics, and contacted GTW about the game. He told GTW that the game was not called ‘Barrel Bunger’ as first thought, but ‘LOTYA’ (Barrel Bunger was the game’s bonus level). The game featured yellow apes to meet with the namesake.

The game was never completed, as the coder was a accountant who just liked to dabble with code in his spare time… He lost interest and so the game was lost.

Shaun kindly pointed us in the direction of his unused game logo, which is now in the shots pages, and also of the scans he has recently uploaded to his own webpage. These feature designs which were intended for the game, and explain some of the gameplay in more detail.

Sonically, there was nothing done, but it was planned for JVD/Focus to do all the music and probably SFX. All that currently consists is a series of screens, a sprite demo and a slightly playable preview of level 1.

An awesome little sequel to Lost Robot, which was released on a German disk magazine back in the early 90’s. Lost Robot 2 aimed to push things much further with a rather nifty little game. The game is a sideways scrolling shooter with some truly awesome hi-res graphics throughout. This is a real colour explosion of a game.

Unfortunately it is just a preview, as the game was never completed. The game was coded in assembler using just an Action Replay machine code monitor. Just the one level is playable, though graphics for the second level is also included with the download.

It is a huge shame that this game never quite made it – it is one of the rare previews which has huge promise and one that will be sorely missed. At the very least, Sven has been very kind enough to put up all of his work out.

Sven also confirmed to GTW64 in 2013 that the game only got this far and was abandoned as he decided to move onto other platforms.

We can enjoy what little work has been done and think about what might have been… Case closed!

A classic 3D maze game, cloned again on the C64.

Sadly, apart from a modern looking font, the actual game is not progressing any further than its 80’s counterparts.

Graphically its very simplistic, and overall the gameplay is very simplistic, and slightly boring.

This was probably only intended as a small game for a magazine cover or something, but not much else is known about this strange little game.

Again, no solid credits to follow up at the moment, so time will tell if any more information turns up on this game.

I’m lost…

A sequel to the wonderful Heavenbound game by Cosmos Designs was in production for Cherry Software in 1996. It caused a bit of a storm in a software drought era for the C64, promising some great new gameplay, and with a left-right scrolling perspective.

A lot similar to the Fred’s Back series, Lord MC Sun had the typical great graphics and sounds like with past Cosmos Designs games, and no doubt would have been a great late release for the C64.

Unfortunately, as with many of the Cherry Software games, Lord MC Sun was scrapped. This was likely due to the event of companies not making a good profit anymore, and Cosmos Designs pulled out of the C64 scene after realising this leaving 3 unfinished games behind.

It is not known how much more work Cosmos Designs actually completed since this preview, and before it was scrapped. Hannes Sommer suggested that this was as far as the game had ever got.

Case sadly closed for this one.