Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
Many of you will know and remember R.I.S.K! (or KRIS! as it was later renamed, probably due to legal reasons and connection with the board game) by The Edge back in the late 80s, created by both Chris and Tony West.
However, the game was taking a very different shape at the very beginning and wasn’t set in space at all. Within this early preview (which has been doing the rounds for years, but oddly we’ve overlooked it), you control a guy on planet earth who can get into a helicopter and jeep and fly around the map.
It seems the idea was to save prisoners in this early version by breaking them out of various prisons and taking them back home. This is compared to saving a set of scientists in the eventual released game.
What has become clear is that the West brothers were heavily inspired by Choplifter when they first embarked on creating RISK! and the game evolved from that point into something quite different that you may not have made the connection like now with the preview.
There isn’t a huge amount to do in the preview, but you can try out the vehicles and wander around the rather large map. It is an intriguing early glimpse at how the game could have been before a major overhaul.
Over a year or so, it seems that the game was constantly evolving, and we did a post some time ago regarding another early set of screens. We found another demo on Cory Kin’s disks, so we’ve pulled this here too in one place.
Hopefully some day we may get to learn more about it from the West brothers.
Controlling your little Pitfall Harry style character, in this early preview you can go between a series of simple PETSCII rooms and shoot a little laser gun.
That is pretty much it for this simple preview, and we wonder how much further it had got. It is likely the PETSCII graphics were just placeholder for something better. The question is whether anything else got done beyond this point?
We assume the game would have been an arcade adventure set aboard a space ship, where you would have had to solve a series of puzzles to progress or maybe escape back to earth. No idea beyond that.
A biblical adventure game that was being developed by the US based Three Rivers Software back in 1987 and was released on platforms such as PC.
A C64 version was advertised, but seemingly was never released and is still at large to this day.
We first learnt about this title when researching into another Three Rivers game called Prime Time which also was never released, but had a preview leaked at least. As you can tell from the title, this game was a Christian adventure game where you assume the role of Moses, who must free his people, the Israelites, from slavery in Egypt.
The game was a text adventure, with optional graphics. The game according to Mobygames the game “follows the book of Exodus very closely, and the “hint” feature usually directs you to read a particular passage. The game itself is quite short and relatively easy, with much of the important parts of the story presented as several screens of non-interactive text. Many of the early “puzzles” involve addressing places or people by name. Unintentionally funny at times.”
Thanks to contributor Strident, it seems after the initial Three Rivers advertising in 1987, First Row Software then distributed it. The First Row Software catalogues promote the game as being available for DOS, Commodore 64/128, Apple II, and Amiga. Strident says there are several mentions, throughout 1988, of the C64 version (see the CASA entry for some example links) which suggests that a C64 version was created and even released.
So perhaps this is just a game yet to be found and preserved, rather than unreleased? Can you help us find it?
Prime Time was an Amiga and MS DOS release by First Row software back in 1988 and it seems was due a C64 release as well.
Three Rivers Software was the team involved, who had also worked on a Moses game (of which the C64 version is also missing), and this strange early preview seems to be the result of that so far.
Just seems to be a short introduction sequence, and then goes to a screen where you can start a game – but it then crashes out before you can do anything. Not entirely sure how this snuck out, but perhaps it was leaked by a member of the team when the game was cancelled?
There is evidence that a C64 version was being done in the press too, with a mention in RUN magazine back in November 1988 (see scans).
A story to tell here, and one we can hopefully do in the future if we find members of the team that worked on this seemingly abandoned conversion.
Our next title reminds me of the classic Frosty the Snowman that was released several times by Your Commodore at its various incarnations.
The game has a split screen view where you must travel the furthest distance in the quickest time. The main character seems to have been inspired heavily by the pumpkin in Cauldron 2 as well.
Although not much to look at, the game is quite fun at this early stage, and as with any game that has been cancelled or abandoned, it is sad to see this join the pile.
The game was developed long ago in 1994 and we don’t believe anything more happened with it, though we would love to be surprised with a complete version some day. If you know anything more about this one, please do get in touch.
A strange release this one, where there are two releases of the title – another is named as Game 2, which just seems to be a corrupted version of this game.
There isn’t much to it, apart from controlling your space ship at the left of the screen and shooting enemies coming from the right. Very simple, and almost like it is a coding exercise rather than an attempt at a proper game release.
We think there was nothing ever more of the game and it was just that – a coding exercise. If you know anything more about it, please let us know.
Another more recent C64 title which may have been abandoned after an initial preview release.
The Fallen is quite a neat defence game where you control an archer who must pick off an advancing army of knights. It is simple, but addictive and it would be great to see more of this one.
Sadly nothing more has occurred by the looks of things since the 2017 preview release. Hopefully it will get picked up again and resumed.
Not much to say about our next game, as it is at a very early stage.
Cyclone Blower is a standard single screen shooter with various attack waves, but doesn’t seem to be playable at this early stage – even though there are enemy ships you can shoot at.
The game was being developed way back in 1988 and seems it was completely abandoned with no further releases or work done on it.
Not much else is known about it at this stage, but if you know anything more – please do get in touch.
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