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.

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Dragon Slayer

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

Created by Hans Ippisch who was interviewed in an old magazine. A question posed to him was about any unfinished projects which were gathering dust. His reply was that he had started on a game called “Dragon Slayer”, which only one level was ever almost finished.

The game was in fact to be a title released by Linel on the Amiga mainly, but seems a port for the C64 was also unofficially on the cards too. The game was mentioned in various magazines, and Games Machine had a Amiga shot, which we’ve included here.

In this level, you can fight against a giant dragon in high resolution graphics. Graphically impressive, you couldn’t really do much apart from stare at the animations for a few seconds.

Thanks to contributor Akkroid, we learn from a snippet in The Games Machine, that the title would be a sort of Psygnosis Barbarian type of game with very large characters wandering around rooms. We learn more of the story – which tells of a wicked dragon that terrorises a remote village – each year the villagers have to sacrifice a virgin to the beast in order to protect themselves. The only way to stop the dragon’s reign is for one particularly brave adventurer to locate the shattered segments of a medallion, access the dragon’s lair and wipe it out.

The game would feature hundreds of locations in villages, forest and the castle (which itself would have 300 rooms). Sadly it was never to be though!

This C64 version was spread as a demo by the programmer and is all what remains of this game. No extras or additional bits exist, unless Hans Ippisch can confirm otherwise?

Promising preview, never off the start line… What happened to the title from Linel which seemed to promise so much? Well, it transferred over briefly to Starbyte and was to be released under the title of Warriors of Darkness – a separate title with a new team which you can read more about at that link.

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Dragon’s Lair 2: Timewarp

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

Well, there was rumours of Space Ace being converted to the C64 by Empire, which were confirmed… but we can also reveal that a deal was being hammered out with Sullivan Bluth to bring Dragons Lair 2: Timewarp to the C64!

Thanks to Paul Cawley for digging up some crucial information, it seems that discussions got stuck in a bit of a loop between the owners of the game and Entertainment International UK, who were trying to negotiate the 8-bit conversions for C64, Amstrad and ZX Spectrum.

Things dragged well into mid-1990 and the owners got a bit fed up and even started to pitch to other companies to do conversions. They wanted to ensure that development was started asap, so they could get a Christmas 1990 release. It never happened, but we don’t know if anyone actually started any kind of conversion or if an agreement was ever made. The information ran dry at this point.

Just how a conversion would have shaped up is anyone’s guess, but it would have likely been similar to the older Dragon’s Lair format done by Software Projects… but then we feel that Wrath of the Demon could have been an indication of how the game could have been designed by taking on its engine in someway.

It seems its also unreleased on later platforms up until around 1995… http://www.dragonslairfans.com/flyers/dl2/dl2down.jpg

Very early days on this one, but we hope to have a lot more information on the proposed conversion soon, including possibly some documentation on what was being planned.

More soon on this one…

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Dragon’s Kingdom 2

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

I remember Dragon’s Kingdom very well – sadly for the wrong reasons though, but it was in Commodore Format (Around issue 11/12) where the game got quite a panning by the reviewers for being a poor Ghost n Goblins clone. After checking things out many years later, it seems CF were overharsh about the game – certainly it was very much inspired by Ghosts n Goblins (Well, almost the same in places ;-) ) it was quite a good game (Just a little hard – which was another reason the reviewers hated it sadly).

Well, the developer Alberto Frabetti later decided to improve things by developing a sequel in around 1992. When interviewed back in 2005, he had the following to say when questioned…

Question: "Did you work on other projects that didn’t see the light of the day?"

Alberto: "Whilst working on DK1, I developed a language called "MONSTER LANGUAGE" which was able to create and manage all sorts of animations of enemy monsters.
On DK2 I developed "MONSTER LANGUAGE 2" a truely kick ass package which able to manage every possible situation of the monsters used on the best coin-op of that time. Really complex animations built up using 8-sprites, etc.

DK2 would have been the best platform ever, enemiess and levels at the same quality of a coin-op.Unfortunately it didn’t see the light of day due to a lot of problems, a true pity."

When Alberto was questioned about whether anything had survived of the game, we were given bad news that sadly it hadn’t and that it had been lost in the midsts of time. There is always a remote possibility that something could show up in the future. Alberto may not want anything to sneak out – so we’ll just have to wait and see!

One thing we know is that the sequel could well have been a Ghouls n Ghosts clone, what with Alberto’s love affair with the Ghost n Goblins theme in his games. His other game Varidan was another clone.

More soon on this one we hope…

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Night Hunter

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

Thanks to screenshots from various magazines for an Amiga version of Night Hunter, it can be confirmed that this is in fact Night Hunter by Ubisoft. In the game, you control a nice Hi-res overlaid Dracula who must roam around his castle. Pressing down on the joystick turns you into a werewolf type character.

The first two previews have no sound, and the first preview doesn’t have very good scrolling. Preview two has much smoother scrolling, but little more than the first preview. There are a few glitches and bugs in both, but this can be put down to the stage reached by the previews. Dracula can actually walk in the air, and moonwalk too!

The third preview actually contains music by Jeroen, and allows you to go outside of the castle. This seems to be a later version of the game, and possibly this is how far it reached.

Jeroen Tel’s awesome music sits in the HVSC with its awesome samples and can also be downloaded from here. Apparently the tunes were done in a rush thanks to Ubisoft’s quick demands.

Originally it was not known why the game was cancelled, as Ubisoft continued to produce C64 games until 1992. Possibly the game was too hungry for sprites, as the main character is very well animated, two sprites high and has a overlay. Certainly by hacking into the game’s code, the player seems to have all his animations which he would have had in the full game. There were no other sprites made.

The game also saw release on the likes of the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, Atari ST, Amiga and PC. So clearly there was some kind of issue with the C64’s development.

Well, thanks to a contributor – we learn that the coder was a chap called Guy Mille – who worked on Iron Lord previously for Ubisoft. Although the game was seemingly progressing well, Guy was under huge pressure regarding the graphics and fixing glitches, freeing additional scanlines. Some of the demands were a bit too much, and Guy called it a day with Ubisoft and moved on. Bruno also confirms that this was the case sadly.

As a result it seems – Ubisoft decided to cancel the C64 version. Did Guy release the remains of the game as a result of this? Nope – Guy had handed over the source code after leaving the project for pastures new.

There does exist a version which features enemies and sprites, which is what started to cause the glitches and issues that evented in cancellation of the game. It is now very unlikely that the last version of this game will ever see the light of day, but you never know. It is lucky that this version at least did make it!

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 8 Comments

Dozy Dodo

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Advertised in many magazines, this was a title being sold by Anik Microsystems… however only two Anik games exist and seem to have been released on the C64.

The advert describes the game as follows:

"Did you know that the Dodo lays its eggs in mid-flight? Conservation Charlie is doing is best to save the species but is it enough? (Joystick required)"

So it seems that the game may have just been a single screen affair where you must catch falling eggs from the sky for points, maybe not much more than that?

The game was being sold very cheaply at around £4, compared to the higher price of their titles in Gamebase. Maybe this was a simple BASIC game that was being sold for quick profit?

We know very little more about this than the above, a lot more research needed and hopefully we will find some of the people who used to work for Anik.

More soon we hope on this title…

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Double Crotch

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

This neat columns clone was coded by Axiom, with graphics by Modern Bob.

Both were members of "Lotus" (from "Lotus&Crazy") in those days. They joined "Genesis*Project" later.

There was a far more advanced version of this game, which had FLI-graphics. A version which Christian Widmann (Widdy) actually had, but unfortunatly may have lost. Christian is actually a friend of the creators of this fine game.

MBob is rumoured to still have his disks, though Axiom gave all his C64 disks away.

This is currently great little Columns clone which looks fine… we hope that Chris can find something for us :)… A more advanced version of this game would be most welcomed.

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Doomsday Blues

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A new GTW entry as suggested by Dumbflag… Doomsday Blues is described as follows (thanks to www.cpcgamesreviews.com)

"Known as Eden Blues to French readers, this is another adventure action game from ERE. You’re a prisoner who tries to escape from a high security jail. You have to avoid the robots that patrol the compound and find food, wine and coffee (it’s a French game!) to restore your health. The graphics are really good and manage to create a gloomy atmosphere. Your character is funny, even when he dies, which will happen very often. The game is very hard indeed; every move you make costs health points. You have to bash doors to progress (which lowers your strength) and your vitality decreases every second. So it’s nearly impossible to stay alive for more than five minutes. Without this flaw, it could have been a really good game. "

Sadly the game was never to make the C64 and Spectrum platforms as promised. These promises were made in the adverts that came in the magazines. It should be intresting to note that ERE only produced one game on the C64 – Battle of Midway which was released by PSS.

Looking at the Amstrad version, it certainly isn’t a game that the C64 cannot handle, it seems strange that it was cancelled. Dumbflag suggests it could be due to the Amstrad version not selling well, which is possible and maybe back this suggestion up. Maybe ERE went bust?, but I think they actually went on to produce other games (Not many C64 ones though). Maybe its because the C64 was not too big in France that they didn’t bother?… Who knows?

We need to find out more, and much more research is needed for this one. Its very early days yet.

Can you help?…

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Doom

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Nothing at all related to the classic ID game on the PC, though a similiar perspective.

This is more like Bloodwych than Doom, and looks quite good at the stage its reached. Its a little bugged, but shows promise of a neat little RPG.

A few screens are present, which you can navigate through using the arrow buttons on the screen. You can also shoot some large monsters with your gun.

This is it so far, with no other information on the game whatsoever. Information on the game’s creators will hopefully establish more information on the game itself.

Quite nice looking, and shaping up well…

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Donkey Kong Jr

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

Back in the 1980’s, Atarisoft were doing official conversions for the Commodore 64. Donkey Kong Jr was oddly one of them! We learn of this conversion thanks to Mat Allen who has documented the conversion briefly in Digital Press.

We were not sure at present how far the game got, or why it was cancelled, but we are guessing it was due to Atarisoft breaking up at some point.

However, Phobos/Ready64 found a snippet in Video Game Update (August 1984 – see scans) which suggests that Jack Tramiel got Atarisoft to stop all C64 developments and focus just on Atari. It wasn’t the video game crash that caused the cancellation of titles. Thanks to Roberto Nicoletti and Phobos for the heads up.

According to an internal Atari document that Bertrand from Atarimania has:

A “test report” was initiated on May 18th, 1984. It is not clear whether the game had reached “REV. 1” status or whether the test was performed at this specific date between “REV. 0” and “REV. 1”. Whether any more work was done on this title before Tramiel took over in early July is anybody’s guess.

It means that something was in the works, so did it get much further and does anything still exist?

Well, thanks to Zdrmonster, we learn that it was K-Byte who were behind the conversion, and excitingly there is video of the game running on YouTube, which we have extracted here. This was posted about thanks to GDRI. This shows a game in a very advanced and perhaps even complete state:

Unfortunately K-Byte would go bankrupt in 1986, though that means Donkey Kong JR was canned due to the Atarisoft pullout.

Regarding credits, the programmer is in the video and we can just about hear their name: Greg Broniak. We think they may have worked on Summer Games as well – but its a great lead and hopefully we can track down Greg to find out more.

In the meantime, thankfully a brilliant conversion was done in 2014, so you can play a very decent conversion of the game.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 8 Comments

Dondra – A New Beginning

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

The source of this next entry is interesting as it was mentioned in "Illegal" pirate fanzine as something seen at PC 1988 show (or so it seems) by SSD of Cosmos.

Dondra was actually released on other machines like the Apple 2 by Spectrum Hollobyte, but we think that Mirrorsoft did release a number of titles by them.

And now we can confirm that the C64 version was infact released, as the game was also released under the name: Questmaster. The C64 version can be found here.

Case closed!

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