Games That Weren't^®

Another puzzler, but not actually that bad. If you remember and love Tilt by Genias, then you will like this game.

More of the same, with slightly less than impressive graphics, but some samples (albeit scratchy) and a cool old style tune playing in the background.

This is a two player game where you must simply get your ball to the end of the maze and to the exit designated at the bottom right of the screen. You have to do this by shifting parts of the maze in a horizontal and vertical fashion, making for some frustrating times over the time limit.

It is an addictive one level preview, which has some potential, but currently its unknown how far its potential took it.

Thanks to Gaz Spence, we learn that the game was by BetaSoft, which was a two-man demo group on CSDB. Both were also part of the demo group, The Obsessed Maniacs, suggesting that BetaSoft was a games development offshoot.

Hopefully with credits now in place, we will get to learn more about the game and if it progressed any further.

Electric Boys didn’t just have the main plans to do games such as Flashback or Defensive, but EBES did have other plans which originally were told to the public through the disk covermount of Commodore World, which EBES imported for UK readers.

Bak Pakker was one of these games which EBES were to take and update. Including amazing new graphics, music, super smooth scrolling and attack waves. The plan was to include multi-hires sprites and amazing graphical backdrops.

Nothing much else was planned and in the end it was all but words as EBES fell to the fate of no support, as did many trying UK companies.

All that exists today is the original game which Russ Michaels had planned to convert, an unofficial version of Jetpac which roams the internet. This preview has an added note, mentioning the game’s plan.

The game was also known in some EBES notes as Super Jetpac – Bak Pakker could well have been the working title for the game.

To give Russ full credit for his efforts (Which was immense at the time), it was a shame that EBES did not make it.

A good idea, but an idea it will all but remain… Case closed…

I remember seeing this game after receiving a load of old disks from a company called Shareware Plus. This was one of the many previews I found hiding away, classed as PD/Shareware. Now the name has been suggested to be Babylon by one crew, but actually the game never had a proper name, so Babylon is kind of a working title, as was “Paralax” which was given when Onslaught released it.

Anyway, this unnamed game is an awesome little preview of a game which owes a lot to the Mario games, Mayhem and maybe a bit of Castlevania?

The game works in similar fashion to Mario, by busting blocks with your head and squashing some characters by jumping on them. Collecting a special treasure chest will allow you to throw fire torches at your enemies, but you can also change weapons by pressing 1-3.

Starting with a cool Uridium style title screen, with large scrolling letters (Spelling “Demo”), the graphics are impressive, with some cool parallax later in the preview, and some Mayhem-esq style lightning effects. Scrolling is very smooth with an easy to control main character.

There is no sound, and only one level in this preview, and it seems that this is pretty much as far as it got. The programmer gave up on the game when trying to get interest from some of the publishers left around 1993/94 (i.e. Magna Media for Golden Disk) and wasn’t offered as much money as he had hoped.

Deekay/Crest wanted to resurrect the game in later years, but it was found that sadly all the work disks were lost. Xayne/Crest was to do the music in the new version, though the artist Daniel Kottmair suggests that Xayne had composed for the game at the start. We’re not sure if the tunes exist in HVSC, though there is nothing in the previews that snuck out.

Additionally back in 1996 – Everlasting Style also looked to pick up the game (with Deekay’s consent) and finish it off as the sequel to Misfortune. It was released on Commodore Fever Issue 3 listed as Misfortune 2, but is the same demo as which we see here.

Sadly this is all we will ever see of the game. Case closed!

An awesome looking sequel to the great Lion’s Of The Universe series, almost taking Armalyte’s crown. If you have not seen or heard of Lions Of The Universe, then go and grab it and play it in a closed and dark room for a few hours – it’s great!

The strange thing is that this game seems to be next in line to Return Of The Lions, which was not complete either. The preview present is unplayable, but rolls through the game and shows what was being promised. Some stunning backdrops, sprites and gameplay from the looks of things, taking a step further from the predecessors with up and down scrolling while scrolling towards the right.

Music as usual is great from Karl Sommer, and overall the preview had the making of a fantastic shoot-em-up. The game was originally believed to have never been completed due to Cosmos leaving the C64 scene and finding that selling games on the C64 was not too profitable anymore.

However, thanks to Andreas Millinger, we are shocked to discover that the game was reviewed in an issue of 64’er and scored an impressive 9/10. It seems a lot more of the game does actually exist and (hoping that 64’er didn’t review a preview or something) maybe even a full game!

Even more evidence was when Hannes Sommer confirmed himself that the game was completed and actually sold to someone (unfortunately he cannot remember who that is!) So the game is out there quite remarkably! We just need to find that someone who brought it! Hannes is also desperate to see the game again, as he no longer has it either!

Check out the gallery area to see a whole new range of previously unseen screenshots which show some very colourful worlds and baddies. Also check the Magazine Review item for a translation by Andreas of the original review (With link to the scan). The final game apparently had 4 levels with 2 stages each.

Thanks to Karl Kuras, we have also added a series of diary entries from 64’er, which Hannes created over a period of time. There is a lot of juicy development detail there about the game and its creation, as well as some screenshots we hadn’t seen before.

In July 2024, developer Martin Piper took a look at the preview and managed to make it playable. Via his excellent video, its discovered that the control routines were there, and had pre-defined directions fed into the demo to make it run:

We’ve added the debug notes that Martin made, and hope to be able to add a download here sometime to a playable version. At least this will be something until hopefully some day the full game surfaces.

A fun little platformer which took off initially as a joke, controlling a alcholic which has to collect empty beer bottles and sell them in the "Netto" supermarket.

Created by Rasmus Wernersson and Peter Rasmussen , who has kindly contributed to GTW over the years with information and games for the archive, Rasmus confirms that the game was never complete. Although this is the case, speculation was given that a more advanced version of the game does exist. The game was to be sold through a C64 games company, but this is unclear to whom this would have been.

The preview which currently sits in the archives, lacks many of the graphics which are apparently present in the later version of the game.

Apart from collecting empty bottles, you could also collect cannabis leaves. The graphic green glitch at the top of the preview’s screen was apparently mean’t to be a nice looking giant cannabis leaf according to Rasmus. This leaf would gradually be built up from scratch as you collected the leafs. When the "Pot-o-meter" was full, you could then smoke the pot and get stoned… Sounds great, i’m sure Ocean would have licenced this any day! :)

Also present in the game was mean’t to be a pink elephant with wings, which was supposed to be a power-up. This would circulate around the main person and kill all enemies in its path.

Overall, several levels were planned, which included a city level with street fighting, junkies, wreaked cars and even a flasher (Male and female :) ). "Another level was a bottom of the ocean level with a Mermaid." (Rasmus remembers)

These graphics apparently exist somewhere, and Rasmus will hopefully oneday allow GTW to compile a slideshow or compilation of the rest of the game for the archives if he finds the remains.

So for now, until more arrives on the game, is a early preview which is slightly buggy, but better than nothing, and certainly a laugh. Read Rasmus’ own comments on the game. We hope to find out more soon and even possibly find more of the game.

One for the pot heads out there… ;)