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.
Although we have been adding games to the archive for many years, we still continue to see various surprises and unknowns unearthed as time goes on. There i’m sure will be many more to come still.
In late August of 2021 – contributor Csaba Virag has helped to unearth what seems to be an early Tetris clone that is essentially complete, just lacking sound and a bit of polish. The game has come from a set of Hungarian disks and was due for release in 1988 via a company called Jules Software.
Now there are many Tetris clones within CSDB and Gamebase already, and from what we can see – this has not yet been preserved in any shape or form. If you know of a later version, please do let us know and we’ll correct the entry accordingly.
As Tetris clones go – this is relatively playable – though has an annoying instant drop mechanism which makes it a lot harder to place and work quickly. These might be minor flaws that would eventually be fixed.
We know little else about the game at this stage and what the intentions were, and why ultimately it was seemingly never completed and released. However, thankfully you can check it out for yourselves thanks to the preservation efforts of Csaba.
We’ve been treated to some great recoveries of late by Black Beard, and in August 2021 – we have got to see even more findings.
This time was a title that was originally released on the PET and VIC 20 in the early 1980s by Commodore. However, this strange C64 edition was found on a disk by Black Beard and preserved for release.
The game is a sort of Space Invaders clone with a twist. The invaders are not invading, but are trying to rescue their criminal friends locked up in a prison at the centre of the screen, and you must prevent them from doing so. Thanks to contributor Alan B, we have learnt that it was originally based on the 1979 coin-op Cosmic Guerilla by Universal.
What isn’t known just yet is where this particular conversion come from and if it was official or not. Was it potentially just a home conversion of the PET original?
Richard Bayliss picked up another copy of the game within a corrupt D64 image, and after tidying up and decompressing the files – he found that the source had 1984 as a possible year of development and “Cosmic Jailbreak, Author: DJH”.
The finding makes this even stranger – as if the game was developed in 1984, Commodore certainly wouldn’t have touched it. Perhaps it was just the author converting their old game to get familiar with the C64?
Early days, but in this case – you can play something of the conversion in its final and full form.
Our next game in the GTW64 archives is a title that was being developed in Norway during 1988 by the developer of Timecruncher, Matcham.
Datormagazin did a feature on a copyparty that was being ran in Stjørdal during October of that year. In the feature they showcased a screenshot of Matcham’s new game called Maximum Retaliation (just showing the loading screen). Here they described the game as being a very action-packed shoot-em-up where you move through underground tunnels with your spaceship.
The game was described as having a very healthy (and smooth) scrolling routine in 32 directions, with good graphics and self produced music. Matcham would be on coding duties, with graphics and music done by Olav Mørkrid and Henning Rokling who were at the copy party. According to the magazine, it was expected that the game would be finished by Christmas.
Unfortunately nothing more seemed to happen with the game and it would completely disappear. It seems staggering to think that this very promising game didn’t get picked up by someone – so what happened to it?
Thanks to Anonymous Contributor, we learn that the music was released into the scene in 1989 by the composers. This indicates that the game was likely cancelled by that point.
It’s early days, but we are hoping to hear from Matcham soon to find out more. Watch this space, and hopefully we’ll some day be able to bring you more of this promising sounding game.
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.
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