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.
A short entry for an interesting title that was mentioned as being developed by John Feagans for Commodore back in the early 1980s.
John had said that there was a “Magic House” piece of kit and software where you could navigate and turn on BSR controllers for lights and appliances.
Not quite a game I know, but an interesting piece of unreleased Commodore 64 history which would be wonderful to try and preserve in some shape or form.
Do you know anything more about this hardware or the software behind it?
A short entry for a series that may or may not have ever been released.
This was an educational title that was to be released by Commodore on disk and supporting the Magic Voice module. The description of The Magic Workshop series was also in an advert:
(Ages 4-8) The Magic Workshop is a series of three animated Talking Books which helps your child read by using the Magic Voice Speech Module. Simply choose any word in the story and Magic Voice says the word. Each story shows how Mr Bits, the robot, uses his toolbox to help his friends through different problems. (Diskette)
Although advertised and listed, it doesn’t seem to have surfaced for reasons as yet unknown.
Do you know anything more about it and can you help preserve it?
Our next entry into the archives is an obscure sideways scrolling game where you control Eddie, whose great passion is hang gliding. The game got mentioned recently in a new thread on Lemon64.
The adventure begins with news of the kidnapping of his beloved Lisa, by a tyrant called Ozman who is the ruler of Kali Ambar. You must save Lisa by manoeuvring your glider past Ozman’s assistants, walls and repeatedly appearing faces. You collect bonus stars by kicking your feet, where 100 stars will get you an extra life.
Using different collectables, you can be immune to the background elements or even destroy them temporarily or get additional lives and points as you try and progress through 31 levels.
The game was reviewed in the German magazine Joystick and got average scores overall, but was praised at least for the cheap price. However the game was to completely disappear and only would see brief mentions in magazines.
64’er wouldn’t review the game, but mentioned that there was 13 pieces of music overall and a competition to find a hidden word on the last level.
The game should have been sold and released by a relatively unknown publisher called “U.L. Software”, who don’t seem to have done anything else. Was the game actually ever sold by mail order, or was it canned after the poor review?
A short entry for now, as we are not 100% certain if a Commodore 64 conversion was ever on the cards.
Stainless Steel was an arcade adventure game split into around four sections overall. You would start out on foot, then later progress onto driving around in your car, then going under water – before a final on foot event. You can checkout a walk through of the ZX Spectrum edition at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALShjQTjeE
The game was only ever listed as being developed for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, of which it was released for those platforms. No C64 version was ever mentioned from what we can see, hence its not been in the archive.
However, contributor @Arcachnar found a German review of the game, which lists the C64 as a platform. The review itself never mentions the C64 directly, and they only test the CPC/Spectrum version. Were they perhaps told that a C64 version was coming soon? Or was it merely a printing error?
We’ve included a page for now, whilst we try and get some kind of confirmation if a conversion was ever in consideration or not. It is entirely plausible, as Mikro-Gen did release games on the C64 and often saw conversions of their ZX Spectrum titles, like the Wally week series. Maybe this got caught up in the demise of Mikro-Gen in 1987?
Do you know anything more about a potential conversion?
Our next entry into the GTW64 vault is a very bizarre title that was leaked back in 1988 by Phoenix (PHX). This is a title which is based on James Herbert’s relatively less known sequel to The Rats, of which the C64 had already seen a strategy game released. In the sequel, London is suddenly nuked by 5 bombs (which corrolates to the start sequence in this game).
What is slightly odd is that the cracker refers to the game being published by Alternative Software. This is the first time that we have heard about the game or any such licence at all. It certainly doesn’t seem to have been released either.
Compared to the title that was released, this is an arcade adventure game where you run around picking up items to then further progress within London and the different rooms and areas.
It’s quite glitchy overall at this stage, and there’s a untidy overlap of the character on the game window before the screen changes. Thanks to Dan Warren, it’s been confirmed that it is a complete game. Here is a play through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFrM7U9wWCE
There are no credits or details within the game to give any clues as to who the developer was, though the music is clearly by David Dunn in their indistinguishable style. That could well be a possible lead to find out where exactly this game came from, as well as seeing if Alternative Software recall anything too.
Professor Chaos also suggests that the game could have been earlier than 1988, even 1986 – with the year referenced on the introduction screen as “London 1986” and David Dunn’s music routine lacking a few effects that would appear in titles such as Trapdoor (released in late 1986). This does seem a solid theory, so i’ve changed the year for now.
Interestingly as well, Professor Chaos spotted that the font is very similar to the small font used in the C64 conversion of Outrun that was released in 1986. Almost identical apart from some minor pixel differences on some of the characters. Co-incidence?
If you know anything more – please do get in touch, but for now – check out this obscure oddity for yourself.
Another combination entry for what might possibly be just a hunt for titles that are yet to be preserved. Thanks to Allan Pinkerton, its been highlighted that a number of Unicorn Software educational titles are still at large.
Check out the PDF of the catalogue below, but there are titles such as the following which still need to be found:
10 Little Robots (Found) <= PRESERVED!
Funbunch – College Board Preparatory
Funbunch – Elementary
Funbunch – Intermediate
Race Car ‘Rithmetic (Found) <= PRESERVED!
Ships Ahoy (Found) <= PRESERVED! Thanks to Onslaught and Genesis Project – See downloads!
Jumble Jet
Animal Kingdom (Found) <= PRESERVED! Thanks to Onslaught and Genesis Project – See downloads!
We feel that the games were all released, and got to completion (hence the screenshots in the catalogue), but they were sold in such limited numbers that they are hard to find currently.
Can you help recover and preserve the other games?
One of the things I love about unreleased games and the demos that are out there, is that sometimes you can uncover something hidden within which reveals something about the game. In this case, it was about another game entirely!
Hacking around in Technodream’s Dreamraider game, I came across some odd text that talked about a game called Zanga-duck and the gribblies. Same credits, but with some odd references to “stars” and “shockwaves”. Zach Townsend had previously done a conversion of S.T.U.N Runner for Domark the year before, which has “stars” and “shockwaves”.
It seems that Zach had seen an opportunity to re-skin his S.T.U.N Runner work to create a completely different game with a duck as the main racer. How this got to be mixed up within the build of Dreamraider is a bit of a mystery – though unfortunately it only seems to be text that is tucked away. No graphics or sprites from the development from what we can see.
Further in the code is a high-score table, with Zanga-duck referenced, as well as funny pre-set names. Now most of those names are actually from the high-score table in S.T.U.N Runner, with just the two top names changed. Essentially this confirms Zach’s intention.
So what happened? Potentially Zach may have found it too risky to proceed in case Domark spotted similarities, or they couldn’t find a publisher like with Dreamraider. As for finding a copy of the game, it will depend if Zach ever gets his work disks back from his brother (whom he gave his C64 gear to many moons ago). It’s likely to be long lost – unless Joe Brown happens to have anything.
A very short entry for now, for a simple text adventure game that has been recovered by GTW64 regular Csaba Virag and which doesn’t seem to be in Gamebase or elsewhere just yet.
It is a German language text adventure, which may or may not have been released. We know little apart from that it was by “Sargmacher Soft”. Do you know anything more about them and if this was a commercial release?
Professor Chaos has confirmed that the game was created in 1988, and there isn’t a huge amount to it. Under additional info, we’ve added unnecessary commands and walkthrough provided with thanks to Professor Chaos.
For now, check it out for yourself and good to see another game preserved.
Accilatem was an early attempt at an RPG created by a 15 year old LDX#40 in 1989 whilst operating under the handle of “Noggie” at the time. It is also “Metalicca” spelt backwards too :-)
Sadly the project was never finished, but 32 years later the disk with the final remains of the game was preserved and made available for people to check out for themselves.
The game is a bit fiddly to load, so you will need to read the notes text file within the archive for details on how to get it working.
LDX#40 got in touch to confirm that it was not considered for commercial release, and was making it up as they went along back in the day. Check out the “Creators Speaks” section where he talks more about the development.
Our next entry was flagged up by Gamebase64, as we’re not actually sure if the game ever saw a full release or not. Maybe you can help us?
The game has been within the digital archives since its supposed release in 1989 by Players Premier, but there seems to be no trace of a released copy or inlay at all. So was it ever released or did something happen to prevent its release? Maybe it was cracked like with Plotting before its release?
Warren Pilkington spotted that the game did see a release of sorts in Italy under the name of “Speedy“. There was quite a big thing with games being pirated and renamed in Italy, and this is indeed another. Question is whether it was from a leaked copy or from a commercial Players release of Roadburner.
It is certainly a strange one, as the game is pretty good for a budget title and reasonably playable. Check it out for now, but if you know more or have a proper copy – please let us know!
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