Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
Originally we always believed that the first game was never released, but infact it was by CP Verlag. But thanks to Professor Chaos we learn that a sequel actually underway and mentioned in the end sequence.
Upon chasing up, it was found that the game was about 60% complete but the music and graphics were not finished (we guess due to various issues) and so the game was cancelled.
At present we are looking into if anything of the game has survived and hopefully we will be able to bring you the remains in the future.
We are guessing the game would have been based around the original game’s engine with some minor improvements – we will try and confirm this very soon!
Originally this preview was believed to be a game that never quite made it, but thanks to Professor Chaos we learn that it did indeed get a release on disk magazine Game On, released in Germany by CP Verlag.
The preview was an unofficial English translation done by a cracking group at the time. So with all these details now in place, this is one to be closed and eventually removed from the archives!
However, it has lead onto details of a sequel that never made it… so keep your eyes open for that soon!…
A rumoured title from Empire, the little known C64 games crew. It has been found however that this was a game being developed on the C64 by Palace software, around the same time that Barbarian 3 was being produced.
Hot Rubber was a 3D motorbike racer, with a behind-view point of the racer. A very ambitious game for the C64, but one that failed miserably even on the 16-bit versions.
The game was mentioned in various places and in particular in Commodore Power issue 1, page 10 – whom said…
"The game… has the unique feature of allowing a 2-player option, which has never been done before. It will be out on the roads in November"
The C64 version as you may guess, never surfaced and has now become somewhat of a mystery. It’s very likely that it was found to be too hard to make a conversion, or that Palace Software went under before the game could be released. We believe that the company went under soon after the game was released on other platforms, and we all know that C64 titles took a back seat compared to the 16-bit versions in the early 90’s with developers.
We need a lot more information on this game, but we hope to find something more out soon. Can anyone help with credits?
Very limited information at the moment, but this was to be a title created by Commodore Cracker editor Brian Turner of which he said the following in one issue:
"At last I have manage to find the time to start work on the first C64 game I will be releasing on my "TURNER SOFTWARE" label. It’s called "HORROR HUNTER" and you are a bounty hunter, who has to battle against and defeat the worlds most terrifying (and famous!) monsters. DRACULA, THE MUMMY, FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER they’re all here!
Features will include: Massive levels, improved title screen, music (hopefully!) intro message, and loads more. It will be sold at a budget price and probably come with a fact file sheet on the monsters in the game.
Format will be tape AND if things go right disk too! Expect more news and a review soon!"
It was likely to be a SEUCK release as Brian had no previous coding knowledge. We could be wrong, but until we find Brian Turner – then we will not know.
Text adventure from Kayde who went into administration at the 26th August 1983. Did Spectrum releases, tried to do C64 and Vic 20 ones, which never seemed to surface.
The game in the advert (Two adverts were submitted by Peter Weighill) was described as follows:
“The day seemed to be absolutely perfect. The two of us floating happily along in our balloon. Not a single cloud in sight. I suppose it lulled us into a false sense of security. The storm blew up from nowhere and before we knew it, we were fighting for our lives. There was nowhere to land, just the sea below us. What is the object you can see on the rock in the middle of the lagoon?”
Thanks to contributor JDP, we have learnt that the game was actually released on the Spectrum – though it seems the version here was found via a re-release, and it isn’t quite known if the Kayde version actually got a release. The guys at CASA actually fixed the Spectrum version as there was a fatal error in the code. The fixed version can be found here.
It suggests that the C64 version may never have sneaked out at all, and so we could be looking for an unfinished conversion.
The third and final part of the Horace trilogy was sadly never to be on the C64. Indeed the game was planned, but it kind of fell by the wayside, and as far as we know… nothing was ever actually started, even though a C64 conversion was mentioned once a in a C64 magazine (We are guessing pure speculation, and no fact).
Even though Spectrum versions did manage to make it out, by the time any C64 version was contemplated, the game was seen as quite dated, as Gregg Barnett explains:
"I don’t think this was seriously considered as a C64 port. Things had moved on by then – we’d done Fist and ported the Hobbit, both mega sellers compared to the Horace games. It was clear that bigger things could be done on the 64. Hence Horace was fondly retired, a game series that belonged in the early days of home computer games."
So was maybe a sprite ported, or anything of the game started?… Gregg does not know, but its widely believed that a conversion never got anywhere apart from a possible planned conversion.
Maybe someone will port the Spectrum game in modern times, but this is one official game we are likely never to see…
Apparently not to be confused with the release by Golden Games back in the same year, or is it? … We’re not too sure, but it seems a co-incidence that there would be two Hollywood Poker games released around the same time. Later on in 1989 it seems that Reline also released a Hollywood Poker game called Hollywood Poker Pro.
We believe that this game could be the Hollywood Poker Pro game, as ReLine also released a game called "K.A.O.S", which was a Diamond Software game too. It could be that the game was heavily beefed up and released sometime later (Maybe the original game didn’t feature digitized pictures?)
We have no clue what has happened here exactly, but we are guessing that maybe ReLine took over Diamond at somepoint, or were the same company. The only game in Gamebase listed under Diamond Software, is Diablo which you will see on the scan.
Seems like we need someone from Diamond/Reline to find out more… are we looking for an early version of the poker game (from its Diamond Software days) or is it exactly the same game, and therefore another case to close?…
A very quick entry, and which was ever so briefly mentioned by Darren Melbourne when discussing Carl Coffey’s programming past.
Carl as you may recall is the programmer of the first version of Soldier of Light, and also of the enhanced SEUCK game called Wheelies.
His talent was apparently very good, and even in 1984 the talent was evident in a game about a winged Gyphon type creature called Hobey Joe.
For reasons unknown the game never surfaced, and has gathered dust for many years.
However in recent times we have been in touch with Carl and as well as hoping to recover more of the first version of Soldier of Light, we are hoping to recover this promising game too!
For now we wait and hope that something is recovered.
Never to be released, Hijack was a side-on strategy game to be released by Electric Dreams (A division of Activision). This was an interesting game which did fairly well, and was recieved on the Amstrad and Spectrum platforms.
However, the planned C64 conversion was never to surface for reasons unknown today.
A review in Powerplay magazine in Germany confirms that a C64 version was done – with the magazine mentioning C64 under the list of platforms. So just what did happen to the C64 conversion, was it finished?
This entry is particularly interesting as the gamewas mentioned in “Illegal” pirate fanzine as something seen at PC 1988 show (or so it seems) by SSD of Cosmos.
We are lacking a lot of information so far on this game and could do with some new findings – Do you know any more about this game?
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