Games That Weren't^®

When we couldn’t get Super Mario Bros on the C64, we instead had Great Giana Sisters or Terry’s Big Adventure, and they were lovely attempts at getting something similar. Of course, now we actually have a proper conversion of SMB on the C64, but none-the-less, its still great to look at the clones that were attempted.

Crazy Carson Cousins is yet another attempt, done back in 2015 and although being nothing like Super Mario Bros, and more like Hunchback in its gameplay – it has that familiar look/feel to it (albeit in a more simplistic way).

It’s quite a fun little game which seems to be fairly advanced, but nothing more has happened with it since. It is lacking proper sound and bosses, which the coder was to add in the future – but hasn’t got round to it yet.

Interestingly the game was written in C and compiled for the C64, and there is also a sequel which you can see at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZnkGEj3Zw and also seems to have been abandoned sadly.

Hopefully both games will be finished off and released in the future.

Cold Devil is a very early platformer, which is more of a technical demo at this stage – with a a few platforms and a single enemy that you can’t interact with.

It moves well and you want to see more as a result, but this is pretty much it. We’re not sure if the developer did anything more than this and if there are plans for more to be done. Unfortunately we’ve not heard anything more about it since 2017.

Hopefully its just in a temporary hiatus and will be resumed some day in the future.

Boost is a neat little title which has different segments, kicking off with a very simple sideways scroller and then going onto further screens where you control a space man.

Although it is very simple and basic to look at, it has a certain charm about it that I like and I was intrigued to see what was beyond that initial space shooter (and was surprised to find the new screen with the ship).

There could be more tucked away inside this, so let us know if you find anything more. It would be great to learn if more was done to the game and what the plans were for it.

Well, Lars Sneftrup got in touch via the comments, and explained that he was one of two developers on the game. This was their first ever game made in 1986, and was sent to a couple of publishers – but no one picked it up.

This as a result is very likely as far as the game got, with nothing more to find.   If you know anything more about it – please do get in touch.

Not too much to say about our next title which was being developed back in 2010.

Avoiditic was a very simple title where you must control a pumpkin and avoid the other pumpkins on the screen. At this stage there is nothing else to it.

Was this a proper development that was to be a lot more?  Or was it merely a technical demo to try something out with no intention to finish and release?

We hope to learn more soon, but into the GTW vault it goes for now after seemingly being abandoned.

Another Kingdom is a nice single character based RPG title that was being developed back in 2010.

Although seeming to come on well and shaping up nicely, it seems to have been abandoned with no further work completed on the game.

It’s a shame really, but this happens sometimes. Hopefully the developer will come back to the game and finish it off in the future, so that we can remove it from the archive or at least set its case to closed.

7DShoot is a nice and simple football game, where you have a ball that comes across the screen and you have to time your connection with it to shoot it into the back of a net.

The game was developed as part of the Mixed Game Competition ad the 7DX Demo Party in 2013, so its possible that this was all that was intended to be developed and nothing more.

As the game has no sound and hasn’t got much to it, we feel there may have been more planned for it or to be polished off. We’ve added an entry for now anyway and hope to learn more about it soon.

4 Emelet was a really lovely looking Hungarian graphic text adventure that was being developed back in 2012.

Great quality overall, but sadly seems to have been abandoned at this stage, with no further updates in almost 10 years at the time of writing.

We hope that this may just be tied up due to other responsibilities, and that it some day may be finished and released – so we can make this a case closed.

However, for now – take a look at the promise that it had and fingers crossed something will happen to it some day.

Ze-III is a sideways scrolling shooter, where you must clear various attack waves before moving onto a new attack wave.

It’s fairly simple overall, and nothing to shout about – but it has been nicely done and could have made for a good simple budget release back in 1989.

It seems the preview was released with promise of more, and then just disappeared with nothing more said about it. We’re unsure if the game was completed and released under a different name, so if you know anything more about it – then please do get in touch.

Thankfully this preview at least managed to sneak out, so check it out for yourself.

Yloa’s Complex is a nice Lady Tut clone which was being done by Marcus Oliver Wagner back in 1987.

Marcus did a number of C64 games that never saw commercial release, and very kindly released them into the wild on his website at https://sites.google.com/site/ccpcommodore64/

This seemed to be coming on well, and even had a level editor too, and it is a shame that it never saw a proper commercial release of some kind, as it probably deserved it overall.

Thankfully as a result of Marcus’ kind self preservation, you can check out the game for yourself. We hope to learn more about it some day and update these pages too.

This title seems to have been around for a while, but its the first time i’ve seen it.

A fairly early sideways scrolling shooter, with some basic attack waves and interaction to keep you busy briefly.  It seems that you would pick up money to then buy weapons to use later on.

Looks functional enough as a game and showing some promise, but would just disappear from sight as with many games in this archive. Did it get any further than this, or is this it?

GTW64’s researcher Gaz Spence suggests that the game seems to have some relationship with the demo group, Presence. There is a comment in relation to the SID tune entry on CSDB that suggests that the demo scener “Hawk” was involved or at least knew about the development of the game.

Fingers crossed we will get to learn more about the game via Hawk at some point soon, who suggests that this game was a “joke” of some kind.