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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Stellar Manager

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

An entry for a title which we knew was sold on tape, but there seemed to be no evidence that a disk version was ever sold.

The tape version of this Polish game is completely different to the disk version, whilst also the tape version wasn’t downloadable on the net either.

The title itself is a strategy game in space, where you have to colonize as many planets as possible within a given period.

With Jazzcat finding and preserving the game, over the past year or so CSixx has also been busy translating the game into English too, so here it all is – along with the original disk and tape images preserved.

Thanks to Martin/Stadium64, it has been confirmed that the disk version was released and has now added an entry on Retrocollector.

Therefore it is very much a case closed and not a GTW!

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Knuckle Buster V1

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

I should have added this to the GTW64 archive ages ago, but for some reason did a separate site post.

What we have here is a rather different looking Knuckle Buster game on the C64 by Mat Sneap. Luckily in this case the preview has been around for some time. The thing is that some people have specified that they prefer the preview to the final game. Do you agree?

And how/why did this early preview manage to sneak out?

There are many differences compared to the final game, including some heavy sprite changes. Interestingly, the sprites in this earlier version are much closer to the arcade game Knuckle Joe. So it has been questioned whether Knuckle Buster originally started out as an attempt at a proper arcade conversion.

It seems quite likely, but over the months leading up to the release – the game underwent a lot of changes. Even in the CVG review, the game has no proper score panel area, and a preview in the issue before has a different panel yet again.

Our initial thoughts are that Melbourne House attempted to get the licence, but failed, so they just tweaked it slightly and released as Knuckle Buster.

If you know anything more, please do get in touch – for now check out the early screenshots and check out the early demo for yourself. Hopefully Mat will shed some light on the title sometime soon.

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Megváltó

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

It’s not just commercial games that we add to the GTW archives, but also unfinished projects that were homebrew.

Megváltó is one such homebrew title which was being made in SEUCK by the cousin of our contributor ‘Dey’ way back in 1991.  The title translates as ‘Savior’ or ‘Messiah’ in Hungarian.

In the game, the protagonist is a guy with an old-school 2 cassette boombox on his shoulder, who can shoot out musical notes at various enemies. There are maze-based levels and sections throughout and overall its quite a large title.

We’re not sure why it was never fully finished or submitted anywhere, but thanks to Dey – the game has now been saved.

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Dynacomp catalog titles

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

A combined entry once more to pull together a list of titles which are currently missing and haven’t been digitally preserved. With thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog for flagging up.

These come mostly from a Dynacomp 1987 catalog at which we are gradually adding from. Many titles were likely published by other companies (Hodge Podge for instance was released from Artworx Software Company) and are a mix of games, educational and utilities.

Here are the titles:

Games
  • 50 Annotated Classic Chess Games – PRESERVED! Thanks to Allan Pinkerton!
  • A Christmas Adventure
  • Backgammon 2
  • Battlefield!!!
  • Blackjack Coach
  • Bridge 5.2 (Next up from: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=16159&d=18&h=0 ? )
  • Bridge Baron (Might be: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=17023&d=18&h=0)
  • Commodore Games Pack 1
  • Commodore Games Pack 2
  • Commodore Games Pack 3
  • Commodore Games Pack 4
  • Commodore Games Pack 5
  • Commodore Games Pack 6
  • Guide to Chess Opening
  • King’s Indian Defense
  • Management Simulator
  • M-Master
  • Monarch
  • Moonprobe
  • Najdorf Sicilian Defense – PRESERVED! Thanks to Allan Pinkerton!
  • Poker Party
  • Senior Aircraft Controller
  • Space Evacuation
  • Staffmaster
  • Starbase 3.2
  • Trivia Mania
  • Video Boxing
Education and Utilities
  • Active Circuit Analysis Program
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Astroview
  • Auction
  • Basic Scientific Subroutines Vol.1
  • Basic Scientific Subroutines Vol.2
  • Basic Scientific Subroutines Vol.3 Chapter 1
  • Basic Scientific Subroutines Vol.3 Chapter 2
  • Basic Sorting Subroutines
  • Basic Statistical Subroutines Volume 1
  • Beam Deflection
  • Budget Model Analyzer
  • Catalogue Card and Label Writer
  • Celestrial Basic
  • Children’s Carousel
  • Chinese Writer
  • Cloze Reading Comprehension
  • Collector’s Paradise
  • Commodore 64 Tutorials
  • Data Retrieval System
  • Data Smoother
  • Digital Filter
  • Eliza 2
  • E-Z Macro Assembler
  • Family Tree
  • File Manager Plus File Manager
  • Fourier Analyzer
  • Functions
  • Golf Handicapper
  • Gradcalc
  • Graphics Creator
  • Handicapper
  • Handicapper 2
  • Harmonic Analyzer
  • Heat Loss
  • Home Doctor
  • Home Insurance Inventory
  • Hometown Demographics
  • Life Style Analyzer
  • Linear Algebra
  • Linear Ordinary Differential Equations
  • Linear Programmer
  • Master Drill
  • Mathematics Collection
  • Microphys Science Series
  • Mind Prober
  • Monkey Business – Typing Tutor (related to: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=10260&d=18&h=0 ? )
  • Mr. Astrologer
  • Multilinear Regression
  • Multiple Integration
  • NBA Handicapper 2
  • NFL Handicapper
  • Nonlinear Systems
  • One World: Countries Database
  • Personal Finance System
  • Pro Predictions
  • Rapid Reader
  • Regression 1
  • Regression 2 (Parafit)
  • Regression Analysis 1
  • Regression Analysis 2
  • Serendipity
  • Shopping List
  • Solar Heat Gain
  • Stattest
  • Stepwise Multilinear Regression
  • Super-64 Utility Menu
  • Teacher’s Aide
  • The Adam Osbourne Software Collection
  • The Oddsmaker
  • The Pep Prep Series
  • The Science Professor Collection
  • Transfer Function Analyzer
  • Typing 1
  • U.S.A Profile
  • Ultra Terminal-64
  • Understand Yourself

Can you help us find and preserve them? Were they released, just in limited numbers?

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Operation Neptune

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A Dinamic Software game that never was. Operation Neptune was a game that was produced by Narciso Quintana, who back in 1987 wanted to work within the games industry.

He sent a music demo off to Dinamic, and had a response from company owner/president Victor Ruiz, who was interested in Narciso composing music and writing games for them.

To prove himself, Narciso started producing a fictitious game which would be named Operation Neptune. The graphics were sent over from Dinamic, and the music was composed by Narciso himself.

When about to get ready to work in Madrid, as Narciso was a minor, his parents did not give him permission to go – which lead to the contract with Dinamic being broken. It left Operation Neptune in limbo, and as the graphics were property of Dinamic, Narciso couldn’t finish the game.

Narciso later went to work for Topo Soft and was music composer for a number of titles such as The Black Crown at Mad Mix Games 2.

As for Operation Neptune – it only ever got as far as a simple test demo, with a score panel, enemies and a looping map. It has early promise, but there isn’t a huge amount to see so far and a lot more work was required to finish it off. The sprites were later re-used in Navy Moves.

However, thanks to Narciso, we have been able to add the demo to the archives, so you can see a glimpse of a Dinamic game that never was.

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BrainBreak

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

A short entry for a title which ended up with a happy ending in 2022. BrainBreak is a tile/puzzle game that was due for release back in 1993, but for reasons as yet unknown was put on hold for many years.

Around 2020, the game’s developer Daniel Krajzewicz decided to resurrect the game and tried to get interest via a Kickstarter to fund it to completion.

When this didn’t happen, Daniel proceeded to finish the game anyway and has now been able to release the game via itch.io and Psytronik (in physical form).

Check out the game for yourself at the links below, and a great end to what was once a cancelled game.

With thanks to Zack for the spelling correction.

Posted in: GTW64 archive | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Kwik Snax V1

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

It has been somewhat of a mystery about Kwik Snax on the C64, which ended up being a completely different game to the ZX Spectrum puzzler of the same name. The ZX Spectrum game was a spruced up Pengo clone, where as the C64 version was a mix of Flicky and Pacman.

Thankfully what we got was pretty decent, though it’s always been a question on our lips about whether perhaps there had been any plans for the original to have been converted.

Well, The Oliver Twins confirmed on their own webpage about the game that there hadn’t been plans to convert Kwik Snax originally to the C64 at all. But then Jason Benham had sent in a maze game to Codemasters, which they decided to re brand with Dizzy, and create a C64 Kwik Snax.

GTW’s Gaz Spence had wondered if perhaps the original maze game had been intended for another publisher. Codemasters had just recently published another of Jason’s games, Pro Boxing Simulator – previously released a few years earlier by Superior Software under the name of By Fair Means … or Foul! Superior had also released another of Jason’s games a few years earlier called The Legend of Sinbad, which had a maze element to it.

Could the game have been originally submitted to Superior Software therefore? We checked in with Superior’s Richard Hanson, who remembered Jason and his released games quite clearly – but doesn’t recall being shown a maze game like Kwik Snax for approval.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t presented to Superior Software. As Richard had so many submissions back then, he couldn’t be 100% certain after all this time.

So it is possible the game was submitted elsewhere, but none-the-less, the game had been submitted to Codemasters in a different guise. It would be very interesting to see how it looked originally minus the reskinning work and discover what the original intentions were.

So for now we name this entry Kwik Snax V1, until we learn of the original title. We’re hoping to hear back from Jason soon (we think we’ve found him!).

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Eros

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A short entry for a title that could well have been released and sold, but perhaps in limited numbers. The game has yet to be preserved.

The game is an erotic adventure game, where you are about to embark on a trip to Eros, an uncharted island in the South Pacific Ocean.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to save yourself and the people of Eros, from the impending eruption of the formidable Mount Zayton. Along the way, you will encounter adventure, obstacles and erotic sexual experiences. Well, that’s most teenagers of that era sold then!

According to the advert, the game was for adults only (of course!), and was an interactive fiction game where you control the story, but the story “controls your mind”. Where your experiences while on Eros will “stimulate your imagination and create vivid images in your own mind’s eye”.

<cough> So in the name of preservation, if you happen to have a copy of this game, please do get in touch. In the meantime, we are as of yet unsure if it ever saw the light of day.

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RabbitJack’s Casino

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

A short entry for a title that was released, but seems to be at large at the moment, like Habitat was for many years.

As with Habitat, RabbitJack’s Casino was a game that was created for the Quantum Link service and consisted of four games including stud poker, bingo, slot machine and blackjack. It was created by Rob Fulop, who created classics such as Demon Attack and Cosmic Ark on the Atari 2600.

More details about this and other work by Rob can be read at Scott Stilphen’s fantastic interview at http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/rob_fulop/interview_rob_fulop.html

Thanks to Marco ‘Exile’ Das, it was been confirmed as being preserved at Retrocollector.org , and so thanks to Marco, we’ve added a download here too (which requires Q-Link to run).

Case closed!

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McMurphy’s Mansion

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A surprise finding thanks to the guys at Genesis Project (in particular Hedning, Six and Whisper), which is a very obscure text adventure game that was written in 1984 for Martin-Art.

Previously the game was only known to exist for MS-DOS, but was ported from the C64, which was released originally around 1984-1985 (the copy protection was dated 1985 according to Hedning/GP). The C64 version was found in 2022 on a set of American disks from New York.

The PC version however was released later around 1987, and then again in 1989. The MS-DOS version was sold as shareware, but the C64 disk was copy protected – suggesting it was sold and not given away in the same way.

We were not 100% certain that the C64 version was properly released, but contributor Gareth Pitchford located an advert for the game that confirmed it was being sold and found many adverts in the US press at the time. We’ve added two to the gallery.

Basically, the game was released as “New” via a company called Ultrabyte, who were doing the advertising. Earliest spot is July 1985 in the likes of Compute!’s Gazette, RUN and Ahoy! From research by Gareth Pitchford, Ultrabyte was ran by a Carl Allan Kukkonen.

Within the downloads, you can find also a map, full documentation and a solution to the game. This is a great finding overall, and yet another C64 game preserved thanks to Genesis Project.

So, a game that was released in limited numbers, not unreleased but finally preserved!

A huge thank you to Gareth Pitchford for all of his additional research into finding out the release details for us to add to the page, which has saved us a lot of research work.

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