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.
When Keith Purkiss got in touch to confirm that he was the developer of Apprentice for Rainbow Arts, he also revealed that he had been involved on a Commodore 64 conversion of Artic Computing’s Alladin’s Cave.
This was a single screen arcade platformer, similar in ways to Manic Miner and also Tales of the Arabian Nights. Ironic really, as Keith’s team also worked on the Spectrum and CPC versions of that game for Interceptor.
This could well be the reason why the game never saw release. Interceptor had complained to Artic that it was a lot like Tales of the Arabian Nights at the time. Keith could not 100% recall, but believed that they had converted the Spectrum graphics and code across, so it was essentially a Spectrum port.
When we first added this entry, Keith felt he no longer had anything of the game. But then in 2024, Keith found all of his work disks, including a full copy of Alladin’s Cave. Games That Weren’t has now fully preserved it, and you can finally play this long lost and complete conversion!
It is very similar to the Spectrum version, but features more colours and a tune that gets quite annoying quickly. You can see why Interceptor were a little miffed too! This game allows you to explore, rather than have to collect all objects and it is a nice early C64 platformer overall.
A lovely surprise to end 2024 and yet another lost game fully recovered. Hopefully in the future we’ll learn why the game was never actually released compared to the ZX Spectrum version.
A recent recovery in 2021 and lost for well over 30 years, The Mad Scientist was sent to several major software houses at the time in the 80’s, such as Kele Line – who seemed most likely to publish. Unfortunately, when Kele Line went bankrupt, the game disappeared with them.
Thanks to the graphics artist Jens Christian Thomsen, the game was preserved from an old tape and released via CSDB. The game itself is a neat split screen helicopter game, which feels a heck of a lot like Elite’s Airwolf, and surely must have been inspired by it.
We hope to learn more about the title from the team in the future, but for now, check out the game for yourself and see a title that could have been a lot of fun with two players. Though of course with as much hair pulling as with Elite’s Airwolf!
Our next entry into the archives is a recent one, which was a sideways scrolling SEUCK title that was being worked on by JinxTengu in 2008.
According to Richard Bayliss, the game was aimed to be split into different parts, but sadly nothing happened. The complete game was to appear on to the TND contributor’s page, with some unreleased music made by Richard. Sadly nothing happened, the game never got finished.
Richard suggests that the author may have moved on from the C64, but has kindly provided what remains of the game, including a tidied up version which is easier to run.
Hopefully it may be come back to and finished off. We’ll see.
Thanks to Marco Das, we learn that Brøderbund’s early single screen shooter title A.E was apparently due for release on the Commodore 64.
Released on the likes of the Apple, Atari and Commodore Vic 20, a C64 version was referenced in an early catalogue (see scans), but when the Atari version was eventually released – it disappeared. Then oddly a Vic 20 release happened.
So was there ever any C64 conversion under way, or was it merely a printing error in the magazine of the time. It would have made sense to have had a conversion, so we believe something had been started.
Still early days, but if you know anything more about this potential conversion – please do get in touch.
A short entry thanks to Ross Sillifant, where Popular Computing Weekly reported in June 1985 that Longmans were trying to sign a deal to the computer game rights for Miami Vice.
In the brief news item, it is suggested that the publisher were discussing the project with Hewson Consultants, who it is hoped would do the development work once the deal was signed.
Well, the deal was never to be signed in the end it seems, and a year later it was Ocean Software developing the title. So the question is whether anything was ever started by Hewson, or if the deal only got as far as initial discussions?
A short entry thanks to Csaba Virag, who has found yet another early build of another piece of C64 software. This time for Stareggs, before it seems it was sold to Mirrorsoft or Happy Software for publication.
There might be more differences to discover, but the key things are with the in-game graphics, but also the following which Csaba has spotted:
Different start-up screen with instructions (separate in the final version)
No Happy Software logo
You can select from Level 1-2-3 instead of Lives 4-6-8
Different instructions / story
The intro is completely missing
The first shooting level completely missing
It is strange how the disks that Csaba has been going through have had so many earlier editions of some of the games – suggesting that it was possibly a leak by the person who had the disks originally. It’s a great little curiosity though which is worth checking out.
Of course, the game was completed and released, so it is a case closed already for this one.
As with Solider of Light, it seems even Alien Syndrome once had an earlier edition in production by a completely different team. However, with this entry – it was being developed for publication by a completely different company.
Similar to the situation with Airwolf between Ocean and Elite, U.S. Gold were intending to convert and release the game to home computers and had commissioned Adventuresoft (via Mike Woodruffe) to do the Commodore 64 conversion.
Assigned to the task was developed Mat Ellis, with graphics by Simon Dunstan. The team were sent the arcade machine for about a month, where the team got to work getting as much of the game converted as possible. However, after just a month of work – the deal had fallen through and The Edge/ACE had got the licence instead. Mat feels that had they been able to continue, their conversion would have been superb.
To try and make some money back and make use of what was a great looking engine coming together, the team decided to rework the game into an Alien Syndrome clone called Subclavian, featuring robots as main characters.
When asked if anything of the original Alien Syndrome edition had survived before it was changed, Mat sadly confirmed that he no longer had anything. Copies had been shipped weekly via Red Star, so it is possible that a few copies may exist somewhere – but nothing has been forthcoming. Mat sadly had all his work stolen from their offices in May 1991.
At the very least though, you can check out Subclavian for an indication of how it was shaping up. The name of the ship called “VEGA” being a subtle change from “SEGA” of course. There are bits of the Player 2 panel present at the top as well. Looking through the code, there seemed to be no other remnants left, of old unused sprites or similar.
Hopefully some day something of the earlier Alien Syndrome themed edition will be found.
Yet another Codemasters title within the GTW archives, and further proving the rumours that Codemasters were sitting on over 20 titles that never saw release.
This entry has been highlighted thanks to contributor Gennadiy, who spotted within the Amiga manual that a C64 edition was listed with Disk loading instructions. Under developer notes, it suggests that it was the same team as the Amiga edition – so we hope to find out more very soon.
As Codemasters were still releasing games into early 1993, we are wondering if it was problems with the development that stopped it from being released rather than them just leaving the market. We hope to find out more very soon!
Even after many years of GTW running, there are still many interesting titles and bits being uncovered, and this was been the case yet again in 2021 with a finding thanks to the preservation efforts of Csaba Virag who found this odd preview on a Hungarian set of C64 disks.
Much was unknown about the title, which is oddly was named just “Mask & Cook” on the disk. It may have been a clue to who was behind the title, though checking some sceners on CSDB didn’t bring anything up which could resolve what this game was and who it was for. However, going through the code and an end sequence was found that established the title as Operation Mindcrime Xertyn-X and the team behind it Novo-soft. This then established that the game had been out there for some time already and actually fully completed: http://gamebase64.com/game.php?id=8790&d=18&h=0
The game has a slight feel of Antiriad and Equinox about it, with some nice enough graphics which seem to suggest that it was from the late 80’s/early 90’s. The controls though seem to be a little bit broken at this stage with its controls, and its quite hard to navigate around the map.
It was a bizarre finding at the time, but good to clarify that it was released.
It’s not always unreleased games covered in the GTW64 archives, as occasionally we see the odd unearthed early preview or development version of an actual released game with some interesting differences or features.
Today we have an earlier build of Buffalo Roundup, which was unearthed by Csaba Virag from a disk that also contained an earlier build of Bird Mother. Both games were created in Hungary.
Csaba highlights that with Buffalo Roundup, the key differences are that the game doesn’t have a main title screen, does not display the level number you are on and also the high-score meter is only activated on the second level. We also noticed that the main character is in monochrome too compared to the final game, and there are no fences.
Then in July of 2021, Csaba found another beta – this time a lot more finished, but still not the same as the final game. Here a loading screen is added, which becomes the title screen in the final released game.
Thankfully as we know, the game was eventually released to the world, but these are interesting early curiosities worth checking out.
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