Games That Weren't^®

This may not be an actual planned release, but contributor Dimitris F got in touch to share a scan from Greek magazine Pixel, who reviewed Zany Golf and listed the likes of C64, Spectrum and Amstrad as the release platforms for Electronic Art’s title.

Was it merely a printing error by the magazine, or did Pixel know something that many of us did not?

If you know anything more, please do get in touch – but we suspect that it was indeed a printing error.

A short entry for what is somewhat a bit of a mystery at the moment, being investigated by long-term C64 supporter Alex Aris.

Alex has been collecting all the issues, and has highlighted that issue 14 seems to be completely missing in action. The magazine ended its run on issue 15, but there seems to be no trace of 14, which was due for release in December 1985.

Was there ever any such issue, or was there simply a printing mistake with the numbering for the final issue? Well, thanks to Paul Jones, it has been confirmed that there was an issue 14 and has now been fully preserved. See Alex’s post reporting the recovery: http://musingsofanoxoniangeek.blogspot.com/2023/04/64-tape-computing-issue-14-found.html

Alex has also put together a definitive archive of all the 64 Tape Computing tapes so far, which you can check out at http://musingsofanoxoniangeek.blogspot.com/2022/10/64-tape-computing-archive-project.html

Case closed!

A short entry for a title that was being created by the developers of Jack Attack – Kevin Kieller and John Traynor.

This was a title for Commodore – an educational title to teach basic math concepts. Sadly Commodore were not interested, and so the game was never completed. After this point, John and Kevin moved onto more business focused software development.

We hope to learn more soon about the game, though it is believed to be completely lost now.

A short entry for a title that was being created by the developers of Jack Attack – Kevin Kieller and John Traynor.

This was a title for Commodore – a multi-level treasure hunting type of game, where the aim was to avoid being trapped by a spider (or a spider web) whilst gathering treasure and moving from level to level. It unfortunately was never completed.

We hope to learn more soon about the game, though it is believed to be completely lost now.

A short entry for a Commodore MAX title that was proposed, but never finished and released.

Air Battle would set you in air and space, pitting you against many different types of alien invaders. At each level, the player would be faced by 5 waves of 3 aliens, each which must be successfully destroyed in order to advance to the next level and increase rank.

The game was projected to be 4K in size. It isn’t known at this stage if the game was ever actually started or not. We do know that the game’s developer was to be John Stockman.

If you know anything more, please do get in touch!

A short entry for a Commodore MAX title that was proposed, but never finished and released. NOTE: This game was actually leaked on the C64, but it is the MAX edition which is still at large potentially.

Greenhouse has you having to try and grow as many flowers as tall as possible, without letting weeds take over the greenhouse or the bugs eating your flowers. You need to try and grow up to ten plants in total by turning sprinklers on and off at the top of the screen.

The game was projected to be 4K in size. It isn’t known at this stage if the game was ever actually started or not. Although the C64 edition was eventually leaked out onto the scene, and we assume that it is the same developer as the MAX edition.

Thanks to Anders Carlsson, we have been able to add additional credits, and it is felt that the game in the GB64 archives could well be identical to the MAX game. No one is sure how it managed to leak out though at present.

Thanks to Kate Willaert, we learn that the game was handed off for evaluation a few weeks after the 20th August 1982, but the game did not show up for the MAX launch in Japan.

Was the actual MAX version much different compared to the C64 edition that we know of? If you know anything more, please do get in touch!

A short entry for a Commodore MAX title that was proposed, but never finished and released.

Pirate Attack (a working title) would have you trying to destroy an attacking pirate ship before it destroys you. The game would start with two frigates in battle formation, with a white ship on the left being the player ship.

You would use a canon to reload and set elevation to try and hit the pirate ship before it hits you. You can just try to make the most damage compared to the pirate ship, or ideally sink it before the day passes (indicated by the position of the sun in the sky).

The game was projected to be 4K in size. It isn’t known at this stage if the game was ever actually started or not. We do know that the game’s developer was to be Eric M. Cotton, who programmed Gorf on the C64.

Thanks to Kate Willaert, we learn that Eric confirmed that development never got very far unfortunately. It isn’t known if anything has survived.

If you know anything more, please do get in touch!

A short entry for a Commodore MAX title that was proposed, but never finished and released. Cosmax would have you destroying extra terrestrials as you scroll across the screen in a mountainous terrain. E.T’s attack two from the front and one from the rear, with each E.T. having a different attack speed and where they will attempt to kamikaze the player.

The player will need to destroy the E.T.s by avoiding their attempts to collide and fire missiles at them. The game was projected to be 4K in size. It isn’t known at this stage if the game was ever actually started or not.

Anders Carlsson confirms the game was developed by Jeff Bruette, but that Jeff could not remember much about the game. Jeff also commented the same thing, but told how the project almost got him fired by Jack Tramiel.

If you know anything more, please do get in touch!

A short entry for a Commodore MAX title that was proposed, but never finished and released.

Sub Hunt would have you piloting your helicopter in a fast-paced search and destroy mission. You know the subs are down there, but where? You must use your chopper’s sonar to reveal subs for a fleeting instance to then destroy.

It isn’t sure if the game would have scrolled or have been a static screen title – it was projected to be 2/4K in size. Additionally, it isn’t known at this stage if the game was ever actually started or not.

Thanks to Kate Willaert, there is a good point that there are initials in the corner saying “BH”, which is likely to be Commodore employee Bill Hinderoff. Could they have been the developer?

If you know anything more, please do get in touch!

A short entry for a title that was mentioned in a loading screen for Nato Commander by Microprose back in 1984.

We believe that Challenger was a space shuttle game of some kind, but little else is known at this stage with no other details seeming to be out there relating to the game.

A lot more information needed – but do you know anything about this game?