Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are a 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 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?
A short entry for a title that was mentioned in a loading screen for Nato Commander by Microprose back in 1984.
We believe that Go Sets Go was a sports 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?
A short entry for another Prisma educational title which was completed, but never released for some reason. The game did see release on the Amiga in 1991.
All we know is that the developer was someone called “Simon”, and they had the following to say back in 2020:
“I worked on the C64 port of another Prisma title, Pepe’s Garden. Never released. I remember having to use all kinds of tricks to fit the disk-based 16 bit title into a single load 64k. Got vague memories of having to compress stuff and stash it under one of the ROMs. Think I also did some stuff with dynamically creating sprites from the character set data, and maybe even some sprite raster tricks too, because obviously 16 bit machines had access to hardware like a Blitter, and all the little ol’ C64 had was 8 sprites.
I don’t have a copy of it any more. I think I managed to port most, perhaps all, of the original 16 bit game, but I don’t recall if I finished it. Don’t remember coding any sound or music. Slim chance the source code may be on an old floppy somewhere, but no idea where.”
Do you know anything more about this game and can it be recovered?
I was about to add a screenshot from the game from the recent 25th Anniversary Edition of Commodore Zone, when I realised we didn’t actually have an entry for this Visualize title at all!
This was to be a sideways scrolling/flick screen game in the style of Fist 2, with backgrounds used at least temporarily from 10th Dan. The web author of this website was even at one point down to do the graphics for the game, but School/College work got in the way and nothing ever happened.
The game itself made relatively good progress, but was cancelled in the end when Jon Wells didn’t get sufficient support for his work. The Supportware scheme didn’t unfortunately work, so titles such as this were put onto the scrapheap.
It is unlikely now that the game will ever be completed or released, but you just never know. With the recent resurgence of the C64 market, Jon might be tempted to complete this along with other games. He is currently working on a C64 edition of Minit, so its plausible.
Hopefully we won’t see this one added into the archives anyway, unless Jon is sure that it will never be finished. For now, check out the music which has been in HVSC for a while now.
I was very surprised when GTW’s David Simmons contacted me in late May 2022 to see if I knew anything about a C64 conversion of Exorcist, a game that was released by Commodore on the C16/Plus/4 in 1984, programmed by Greg Duddle under the Mr. Micro label.
Certainly there didn’t seem to be any evidence in magazines that a C64 version was in the planning or offering, but yet a C64 version saw a very low number release in Spain. It has now only just been fully preserved after a copy finally surfaced.
We did wonder if perhaps Greg had originally written the game on the C64, to then just convert to the C16 – similar to what Anthony Clarke did for Dork’s Dilemma. However, the C64 edition has its own custom character set, improved graphics and titles in comparison – making it clear that a proper C64 release must have been intended.
So the mystery that now needs solving is to why this only saw a limited release in Spain, and why Commodore didn’t release it for the C64.
Thanks to Vinny Mainolfi (who contacted Greg to find out more), Greg could only recall a C16/Plus 4 edition being coded. Upon seeing this finding, it was all but a mystery to him. He believes he probably wrote it on the C64 originally, but then Commodore contacted Mr Micro asking for software support for their new C16 platform – so the game was converted over. It doesn’t quite answer why the C64 version wasn’t released too – but perhaps Commodore felt it was too simple for the platform?
Thanks to the efforts of Celiddoro, Kopsec and David – you can check out the full game for yourself, which also comes with a newly found and early David Whittaker tune for the next HVSC update.
Our next entry is a very early text adventure that was created by Ivan Venturi, who went on to produce a number of titles for Simulmondo. With thanks to Damiano Gerli for highlighting.
Ivan was just 14 years old when he wrote this game, and it was thought lost until surfaced via ready64.org. The game was primarily a personal effort, but attempts were apparently made to sell the game to publishers. It never happened, and so the game remained gathering dust.
So here it is now finally, and an early glimpse at Ivan’s earliest work thanks to Ready64. You will need to know Italian though to play it, so if not – then ensure you have a translator ready :)
A short entry for a simple BASIC puzzler that was actually due for release in 1985. The game was tidied up and released by Gruppo Editoriale Jackson/Super Commodore in 1990, but within the release were two earlier unreleased versions as well.
It seems that according to the credits on the screen, the game was due to be released by Load’N’Run, as Spanish tape magazine in the early 1980s that seemed to feature a lot of pirated games as well.
Was the game rejected by the magazine, or did the magazine go under before it could see release? Hopefully we will learn more soon, but at least you can check them out for yourself.
Only three games were released as part of Scott Adam’s Questprobe Series, but did you know that a 4th was on its way in the shape of X-Men?
The game would be started by Scott Adams, but was never to see the light of day when Adventure International went bankrupt in 1986.
It seems that it never got to the stage of a C64 version being started, with only a DOS version worked on at first as Scott built up the game. Interestingly, Scott passed on a copy to The Adventures Guild to take a look at and explore, showing you how far he got.
The article reveals that you would not play as a member of the X-Men, at least not in the early stages, where you instead control Magneto.
So unfortunately nothing to find or see for the C64 edition, and very much a case closed before we can really begin.
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