Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
A strange game this one… nothing much on it either, apart from a average title screen and two screens of action… or none as the case is in this preview.
The preview’s two screens have you controlling a space craft over a castle like backdrop, with no enemies to shoot or anything. You can just move the ship and thats it.
Its unknown what the idea of the game was, or what was to be of the game. Mike Are is the guy to ask, and that we hope to do soon.
Too early to judge this game…
Thanks to Charles Haley for digging this one back out for us.
Cilo is a very early preview of a single screen space shooter which doesn’t do a great deal at present. Essentially it just allows you to shoot a few bullets at some moving sprites.
We are guessing that the developers got bored pretty quickly and scrapped it early on, but confirmation is needed to close the case on this one, and that we aren’t hunting for something a lot more complete.
Do you know more about this game?
Chutes and Ladders is another long lost educational game to add to the GTW archives, and another which we know little about at the moment. It is assumed from the title that it is a kind of Snakes and Ladders game which was being developed and which never was.
Roger Pederson was involved on the game, and was believed to be its developer on a variety of platforms including IBM, Apple II and C64. All his games were first developed on an IBM, and then later ported to Apple II and C64 with relative ease.
It was unknown about what had happened to the game, but Syd Bolton from the Personal Computer Museum got in touch to say that they owned the game. And here it is:
http://pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=38638&type=Software
And in extra quick time, Syd has very kindly preserved the game for posterity!…. See the download link above! Many thanks Syd!
Please note that it is NTSC only, until someone does a fix. We are not going to add any scans or shots as this is confirmed as a released game, just in limited numbers.
Case closed…
This game was originally brought to the attention of GTW thanks to Jason Kelk, who reported that a guy called Ian Bean (Ian/Fusion) had contacted a C64 message board, asking for a game which he and a guy called Ted Carron did for Ocean Software called "Chute Pursuit".
He mentioned that the game included graphics which he later used for Fusion intros. Well, Chute Pursuit has been found, with in two different forms – Frexel, an early version of the game and the final release itself. This includes graphics which feature in the Fusion intros from the late 80’s.
The Frexel preview in the download is what Ted Carron sent around to various publishers, trying to find a publisher to finish the game for. This was found out after the actual note Ted sent, was found with the Frexel preview. Ocean Software decided to take on the game, and so Ted Carron and Ian Bean set to work finishing the game, which was renamed to Chute Pursuit for reasons currently unknown.
For unknown reasons, Ocean did not actually release the game in the end, even though the game was fully completed. Sadly the creators were not paid, as Ian tells GTW…
"Just wanted to say a big thanks for finding a partial copy of Flexel/Chute Pursuit.
The info you have about the development of the game has some errors. Ted Carron and I shared both programming and graphic design.
We were NOT paid in full for the game. (not that I am bitter!!!)"
The game is a average vertical scrolling SEU, with a strange parallax effect and some good bas-relief graphics.
In recent times the full game has surfaced on both Gamebase and highlighted to GTW thanks to Mason. It seems to have been cracked in its final state once Ocean dropped the game for reasons unknown. Although sadly the developers were never paid for their hard efforts, it is good to see that the game did actually make it out. It would be interesting to hear what Ocean remembers of this game, but the crucial thing is that this is a case closed!
Case closed!…
A game planned with a character bearing a slight overweight resembelence to a famous Sega character. The game is nothing like Sonic, though pokes fun at the game with an overweight badger instead of a hedgehog.
Chronic spins in funny fashion over a game in the style of Blagger. Its not actually that bad a game, very old style considering it was being developed in 1997. I would have said 1987 with its nostalgic feel.
Chronic must navigate around the levels, collecting as many milk bottles as possible before going into hibination.
Apparently the game was being produced for a disk magazine, though fell by the way side. Mark Walters is the man to ask, and hopefully he can help with GTW’s enquiries into this funny little game.
Recently found and added was another preview cracked by Onslaught which features Level 2, but is strangely dated two years earlier than the first preview we had of level one.
“Do me a favour, plug me into a C64″…
Another title from the obscure "Little Softie" software house back in 1983, and another which seems to have gone missing from time.
The adverts in Personal Computer Gamer detail the game as follows:
"A programme for the young child with 2 skill levels.
Let your boy or girl be a special helper for Father Christmas in this personalised Christmas story. The visit from the fairy – the ride on the sleigh – journey to the Pole and the delivery of the presents makes this a magical game for the young to be played again and again. Both games run on Spectrum 48K and Commodore 64 (on cassette)."
This seems to indicate that the game could have been an adventure game providing choices for the user, like with the Adrian Mole games on the C64.
This would I think have been one of the first games to implement such a system. Just how the game would have looked and felt is a question we cannot yet answer. Maybe someone from the company will come across this review and have something to say?
Check out the scans for now…
You may be screaming at me for putting this game in the archives, but this is no normal version of Chiller.
The game basically was originally withdrawn due to the connection to Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video at the time of the game’s release.
The game originally featured a neat rendition of Thriller by David Dunn, but Mastertronic decided that they could face possible legal action because of the music and asked for the music to be changed immediately.
The problem was, that a few copies of the game sneaked out with the original music, before Mastertronic canned the first version, which are extremely hard to find. You basically will have to buy every copy of Chiller to ever find an original with the original Thriller music… I have now 8 copies of the game, and originally had no luck.
However, recently Gareth Dolloway noticed this review and offered his own copy of Chiller, which is infact Version 1. So now thanks to Gareth, GTW can now bring you a .TAP image of the original version 1.
The game itself is familiar to all, created by the Darling brothers before they established Codemasters. The new music made and put in the game they eventually sold on large scale, never suited the game properly.
Site vistor, Carl Speed, had the following to say about the game:
“I just wanted to say that there is a difference on the front covers that I’ve noticed. The V1 seems to have no mention of Burner Loading System on the top right red triangle section. Only the newer version does. I’m not sure if this is absolute, but I’m sure it probably is. Thought I’d pass on the discovery, in case people are looking for the version.”
Well, I checked and I think he’s right!…. Basically it seems that if you have a copy which doesn’t have the “Burner Loading System” mentioned, you could have an earlier edition with the original music in. Time to start checking!
Additionally we found this early screenshot in an early issue of Your Commodore – which must have been dropped from the final game… what was it to be used for?…
Thanks to someone who got hold of a copy of version 1, you can now download the game how it should have been… or sounded at least!
Oowwwwwwwwwww!…
The Battle Of Chickamauga was going to be a stragetic war game, of which there are many on the C64. Its scheduled release was for 1987, by Games Designers’ Workshop (GDW), an American company who already had a fine pedigree in board games and RPGs by the 1980s, having formed in 1973.
The game was based around the Battle of Chickamauga during the American Civil War. You controlled either the Confederate or Union army of over 50,000 men plus artillery. The only references to the game for the Commodore 64 is from a full-page advert by GDW that primarily promoted their other planned game and Games That Weren’t 64 entry, Rommel – Battles for Torbruk and a similar full-page advert also promoting the one released game by GDW, Road to Moscow.
The game was however released on the Atari platform, more details can be read below
Nothing else is known about the C64 conversion though – and surprising considering that the Atari version did well on its release. Was the C64 version ever even started?
More digging required for this entry, and we hope to track down some of the original developers at some point in the future.
Mentioned in issue June 1986 of Commodore User, this was a game mentioned as coming soon along with 3 Days in Carpathia.
It was described as a Mafia scenario featuring Rats Maldano and the Morona Brothers and would have been written in The Biro like with 3 Days.
It never surfaced and its believed that the game never got past the planning stage, however it has been found as a Spectrum incarnation in Sinclair User magazine in 1987, with a link to Activision (see scans). So something was started at least! But was it started on the C64?
Do you know anything about this game?
A neat little game from way back in 1986, by the C64 programmer of Turtles and Speedball 2, Carl Muller.
Chevalier features a PITFALL 2 style main character which jumps around various platforms and ladders in this sideways scrolling game. Very reminisant of Ghosts and Goblins in its style of play.
This game was scrapped for unknown reasons, something that hopefully Carl will oneday shed some light on. Carl originally released this and others on his webpage as unreleased works.
It’s not known who this was being pitched for, but plans were definately there i’m sure, what with Carl also creating a special loader with a little game in it, of which you can play along with this preview.
According to Carl from his webpage, a later version used to exist with aliens, but the tape had sadly been lost. So this looks to be all that remains of this promising little game.
Graphically it’s nothing special, there is no music (Apart from the loader), but who knows what may have been?
Hopefully more from Carl soon someday…
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