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 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.
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.
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