Welcome to Games That Weren't!

We are an 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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League of Light

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

A short entry for now of what we believe may have been a working title (or not quite remembered correctly by Peter Kaminski).

Whilst talking about Pyramid of Time, Peter recalled a title that Russell Lieblich was working on around the same time. Apparently it was a lot less structured as a game, and might have just been some loosely organized brainstorming and music that Russell was working on.

Thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni – we learn that the game was mostly complete on the Intellivision, but never fully released. It however got released years later thanks to the Intellivision Lives compilation. Eventually, the game was reworked and evolved into Master of the Lamps on the C64. More details of this can be found in the German article linked here.

This may well mean that no C64 version of the game ever existed, and at best – was a V1 version of Master of the Lamps.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Garden Wars

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

Not to be confused with the Commodore VIC-20 game of the same name – this particular Garden Wars was developed in Italy and to be released by a company called JCE.

Andrea Pachetti revealed the game in a great blog post in November 2022 and that the game was first cited back in mid-1984, and remained in the publisher’s catalogue until at least 1986.

So was the game actually ever in existence? Did anyone buy it? The game was unfortunately at large, even though it was sort of reviewed and is seen in physical forms in catalogue images. A screenshot of part of the game was shown too.

Thanks to Andrea’s post as the original source, the game is described as follows:

Romeo , the protagonist of our game, is the victim of a spell cast on him by the old witch of the woods, since some time ago he had collected magical seedlings destined for mysterious spells. To free himself from the spell that oppresses him, Romeo must go through eight enchanted gardens that separate him from the wall beyond which he will find salvation.

During this adventurous and dangerous journey he must collect all the lucky charm plants he encounters in his steps, while avoiding the poisonous ones planted by the witch in his path. But his escape is also hampered by horrendous monsters who relentlessly pursue him, and if that weren’t enough he must avoid falling into the many bewitched wells .

Once he has reached the ladder , he cannot enter the next garden without having collected all the lucky plants and having touched all the gnomes of the wood which will help him escape. Once he reaches the eighth garden, to pass this last test that separates him from freedom, he will have to contend with six monsters, and once under the wall he will have to look for the ladder blindly , since he will not be able to see it. Find it, it will come down automatically, and Romeo will be free.

Andrea has done a very detailed search and investigation, and so far hasn’t been able to match up the game to any other releases – and was so believed to be at large.

Two years later in 2024, Silvio got in touch via the comments to say that they had a rare copy of the game in their collection and was willing to sell to see it preserved.

As Silvio was based in Italy and because this was Andrea’s original search, it made sense for Andrea to be the one who recovered the game – so we linked the two up, and this was the result:

https://quattrobit.substack.com/p/garden-wars-jce-1984

Andrea collaborated with Ready64 to ensure that the game was fully preserved, and you can now check it out for yourself. Then in November 2024, Ready64.org produced an article that talks about the game and its copy protection which you can view at https://ready64.org/recensioni/leggi_recensione.php?idrec=38

A very early and simple game, but yet another recovered and case closed!

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 8 Comments

Lordsfire

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

The thing I love about working on Games That Weren’t, is that even after over 20 years – we still get the odd surprise surface. Our next entry is a title by an author who created a VIC-20 game which is very close to my heart.

Lordsfire is a title by Jeremy Walker, who had previously produced Envahi on the VIC-20 for Virgin Games in 1983. Jeremy knew the C64 was the machine to have and produce for, and got to grips quickly with the hardware to produce his very first game on the platform.

His idea was for a very loose interpretation of the Thomas Covenant books by Steven Donaldson, with a multi-part game – testing out the potential of the C64’s video and sound chip, and what Jeremy felt was “a ridiculously large memory of 64k!”.

In the game, you were to control a young Lord of the castle-in-the-sky, where you have inherited a mighty winged steed and a powerful fire-staff, but more importantly the hand of a beautiful princess in marriage.

Furious at being overlooked on the wedding guest list, a coven of witches steal and lock her away in a distant tower and cast your staff deep into a volcano. Heartbroken, you head eastward on a quest to save her.

The game would take place across 6 distinct locations overall, including: The Wood, The Volcano, The Battle, The Cerulean Caves, The Well and The Coven. It was a neat and ambitious first development by Jeremy, all crammed into a single load and developed over a 2-3 month period.

However, Virgin Games would sadly reject the game. Jeremy felt he had missed the boat, and games were now written by teams of dedicated people and his new game didn’t quite make the cut, even though it is a pretty impressive first effort. Unfortunately we wouldn’t get to find out if Jeremy could improve on things, as he decided to leave the games industry at that point.

Rotting away on a disk for 38 years, Jeremy managed to find a copy of his game and kindly sent it over to GTW to fully preserve after Simon Birrell put us in touch. So now for the first time in almost 40 years, you can play this multi-part game from 1984 that was intended for Virgin Games.

Looking at the title, I’ve certainly seen far worse games see a release – so it seems quite harsh of Virgin Games to reject it. The main character sprite looks brill overall, especially the winged steed!

So here it is – we hope you enjoy it, and a detailed chat and piece on the game with Jeremy will be found in a future issue of FREEZE64 too, so be sure to check it out!

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Asteroids

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Here we have an unofficial and very decent version of Asteroids that was developed by Jesper Brinkkjaer and Tommy Tamsen back in 1984. Confident they had done a good job, they tried to sell it to Atari – but had it rejected.

The game remained unreleased for almost 40 years, until Tommy Tamsen preserved and released the game on his webpage. This was tidied up and properly packaged by Hokuto Force in November 2022, which you can find a download of here.

It is great to see Jesper and Tommy’s work saved and made available to others to enjoy, and see what could have been an official conversion, had it been picked up.

We’ve also included a download of Yatzy 64, which they did before Asteroids and doesn’t yet seem to be preserved in the likes of Gamebase 64.  So grab both and check out the early talents of both developers.

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Syntax tape

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A short entry for a compilation tape that was advertised by Swedish magazine Allt om Hemdatorer (All about Home Computers) in 1984.

Thanks to an anonymous contributor, the ad translates as follows:

Already today you can buy
TOMORROW’S COMPUTER MAGAZINE

No 1    A Mystax product   1984
SYNTAX
The cassette-based magazine for VIC-64 (Swedish name for C64)
UFO-64: Action in space, complete all 15 attack waves
DRACULAS SLOTT (Dracula’s castle): Text adventure in Swedish. Cold shivers guaranteed!
BOSSO: Cool machine code action. Hunt for diamonds, chased by monsters, hurry up…
BREAKOUT: Old favourite in a new action-filled suit.
ARTISTEN (The artist): Become a new Rembrandt on the TV screen.

All of the titles seem to be currently at large, but if we’re wrong – please let us know. BOSSO in particular sounds very promising and surely someone must have brought a copy of this tape?

Apparently Mystax AB went bankrupt at some point – so did that prevent the game from ever being released to anyone? They have some games in Gamebase at the moment, but nothing matching the above.

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Commando V1

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A very short entry thanks to an anonymous contributor, who has flagged up that the Elite release of Commando should have included Level 3, which was cut from the final game.

The final game only contained levels 1,2 and 4 overall. When Gary Penn asked Chris Butler what happened – Chris confirmed that everything was all there (levels 1-4) and complete, when Rob Hubbard said that he needed 6K for the music and there wasn’t room.

Steve Wilcox then requested for Level 3 to be hacked out to make room for the music. Quite a decision overall!

Of course, we have been since treated to a proper remastered version of the game with all the levels in 2015, though this would be a great curiosity to see how Chris Butler’s version of level 3 looked and played.

Could it be found in some shape or form before Rob’s music was added? It is seemingly unlikely now, but if Chris is ever willing to chat some day about his past works – it may lead to finding an earlier build. Who knows?

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Billy Boulder

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

A short entry which has been highlighted by developer Ron Rosen, who recently in December 2022 helped to solve the mystery credits behind Adam Caveman.

We’re not yet sure what type of game Billy Boulder was, and hope to learn more from Ron Rosen soon. As with Adam Caveman, Billy Boulder was named after one of Art’s sons – Billy.

Its believed that the game was intended for release by Databyte, though we have not yet found any adverts or evidence of this. If anyone happens to find anything, please let us know.

Sadly Art passed away in recent years, and Ron also no longer has any of his code. We hope to possibly find something via other means and will update these pages in the future.

EDIT – It has been pretty much confirmed that this game was The Legend of Billy Boulder, due for release by U.S. Gold on Amiga, ST and PC in 1990. We will close off this entry soon and set up a new page in a week or so.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 4 Comments

The Battle of the Bulge

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A short entry for a SSG title for the C64 that was advertised in its 1988-1989 catalog as coming soon. With thanks to Joseph Tsai for highlighting. Note, this is not to be confused with the game by Argus Press.

The game was also due for release for the Apple II and IBM/Tandy computers. The description for the title was as follows:

“On December 16th 1944, Hitler unleashed the last major attack on the Western Front. Germany’s last reserves of men and machines rolled over the thinly held Allied front line and set out to reach the Meuse River, 90 miles away. Bitter fighting erupted over an 85 mile front. Using an all new game system, Battle of the Bulge allows you to command entire armies as the whole battle is re-created on your screen.”

The game never surfaced in the end it seems, and is still at large. Was the game actually ever released or was it cancelled? SSG continued to run for many years afterwards, and there seemed to be no further mention of the game.

If you know anything more about this title – please do get in touch. In the meantime we’ll try and reach out to SSG to learn more.

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Campaigns of Napoleon

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A short entry for a SSG title for the C64 that was advertised in its 1988-1989 catalog as coming soon. With thanks to Joseph Tsai for highlighting.

The game was also due for release for the Apple II and IBM/Tandy computers. The description for the title was as follows:

“For the twenty years from 1796 to 1815, the little Corsican general dominated European politics as no one had before or since. His dynamic military genius revolutionized the face of battle as his Grande Armee carried all before it. You have the chance to command the finest army in European history and re-fight on a grand tactical scale the mighty battles which shaped the development of the modern world.”

The game never surfaced in the end it seems, and is still at large. Was the game actually ever released or was it cancelled? SSG continued to run for many years afterwards, and there seemed to be no further mention of the game.

If you know anything more about this title – please do get in touch. In the meantime we’ll try and reach out to SSG to learn more.

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Heartbreaker

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

A game that has been discussed on the Lemon64 forums for over 10 years, but somehow we missed it. Heartbreaker was a game by CBE in 1984 and was discovered by YouTuber Polaventris.

A very intriguing Pooyan style game, its origins are not quite known. Apparently the game was found on a bunch of disks purchased from someone in Finland.

When Polaventris was asked to preserve the game, it was sent to a forum member in 2012/13, but unfortunately this was the only copy and hasn’t since surfaced. It is a huge shame, and it is hoped this wasn’t the only copy left in existence.

We wonder if perhaps CBE was not a company, but refers to the initials of a developer behind the game. That score panel also looks quite similar to another too.

An anonymous contributor (thanks!) suggests that the logo letters on the presentation screen have the colours black, yellow and red – the same order as the Belgian flag. The house in the intro also looking like an Alps mountain hut – so is the game perhaps of mid-European origin?

We will try and do some more digging soon when we get more time, but if you have any more information in the meantime or any suggestions who CBE might be – please do get in touch.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 2 Comments