Games That Weren't^®

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!

Our next title is a graphic text adventure that was being produced by St. Brides and was started as far back as 1985. Featured in issue 45 of Sinclair User in particular when the School team was working on a new batch of games.

Thanks to an article at 8bitag.com, we learn that the original plan was for the software to be distributed with a comic book. At the time it was being developed using Quill and Illustrator, and was felt needed a new and more powerful system to write it. By the time it was released by GI Games in 1989 on the ZX Spectrum, it had already been moved over to Professional Adventure Writer.

It was heavily delayed, but eventually made it and was worth the wait – scoring highly in magazines, including a 9/10 in Your Sinclair. The plan though had been to always release the game on other formats. It was confirmed that Gilsoft’s Tim Gilberts worked on the conversion, but the company had gone bust before he was paid. The conversion was completed though, and used Gilsoft’s C64 PAW/Illustrator interpreter.

A document was shared with 8bitag.com which we have included in the “Creator Speaks” section below. Sadly though the conversion is still very much at large, but we hope to find out more from Tim soon and establish if anything has survived of the conversion.

Our next title is a little thin on the ground at this stage, but we believe there is a strong case that a Commodore 64 edition was on the cards.

Ixion was a SEGA arcade title that never saw release in the arcades along with its planned home conversions. The home conversions known at this stage are for the Atari 2600, Atari 800 and also Commodore Vic-20.

What is interesting is that the Atari 800 edition that has leaked includes credits to U.S. Gold, who released a number of SEGA titles on their label in the UK. Pretty much any SEGA title that saw release on the Vic-20 was also on the cards for the C64, so we’d be very surprised if there wasn’t one.

The question, who exactly could have been working on it? Perhaps someone who worked on one of the other SEGA titles of the time?

If you know anything more, please get in touch!

A slightly different and combined entry for a number of titles now, which was thanks to a suggestion by contributor Ken Knight.

Ken submitted two SEUCK titles which appeared to be magazine rejects – crediting Zzap and Commodore Force, but never appearing on the magazines. We thought it would be a good idea to slowly pull together various titles that were intended for a magazine covertape/disk (clearly outlined by the title screens for instance), but never quite made it.

Of course, we already have a number of titles in the archive which have separate entries, which we will just link below for now. Here is a list that we have so far:

• A Chance in Hell – 3DCK game that was intended for release on Commodore Format / Commodore Force.
• Drive – a Pipeline clone with cars that was submitted to Zzap, but also Team 17
• Vietnam (SEUCK) – Intended for Commodore Format in 1993
• SEGA Blaster (SEUCK) – Intended for Commodore Force magazine in 1993
• Dying High – Intended for Zzap!64 in 1992, but rejected due to a supposed bug, found and preserved by GTW
• House Case (SEUCK) – Intended for Commodore Format in 1995, but ran out of tape!
• The Absolute Beginning (SEUCK) – Intended for Zzap!64 in 1992, but rejected
• Alien Realms (SEUCK) – Another from the author of The Absolute Beginning that was submitted later on in 1994. This was sent along with Blue Encounter, a poorer game in comparison and sadly never used. Fully paid for but never used.
• Psyclaps (SEUCK) – Early entry by Richard Bayliss, credited Commodore Format 1994.
• Smasher 2 – A hack of Breakout Construction Kit, seemingly submitted to Commodore Format in 1994
• Speed Runner – A Tron game seemingly written for Commodore Format for 1994 publication.
• Galactic Chaos – The dev team had already done Relax and Battle Bars for Commodore Force, but oddly CF didn’t publish this neat little shooter done for them in 1993.
• Retro Torque – Paul Black jazzed up his old Turbo Kart Racer game with motorbikes and tried to sell it to Commodore Force in 1993. Oddly it wasn’t picked up.
• Dive Bomber – BASIC Blitz clone intended for the fanzine Commodore Cracker
• Moon Gods – vertical scrolling shooter that was being produced for the fanzine Commodore Scene. Never finished.
• Savage Platforms – single screen platformer by Mike Berry that was intended for release on the fanzine Commodore Scene. Lost in a burglary.
• Warspite – Neat Delta clone by Phil Ruston submitted to various publishers and never taken up. Was sent to Commodore Disk User, paid for but never published. It was later leaked via the Fusion cracking crew.
• Cyber Squidgies (SEUCK) – Very cool looking Creatures style game submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 and rejected for being too similar to Creatures in the graphics.
• Zanaton (SEUCK) – Submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 and rejected.
• Toys (SEUCK) – Submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 and rejected, later released to Binary Zone PD.
• Klaboom (SEUCK) – Submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 and rejected, later released to Binary Zone PD.
• Fly Pig (SEUCK) – Submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 and rejected, later released to Binary Zone PD.
• S.A.S – Saunders & Simpson in Operation Kuran – Submitted to Commodore Force in 1993 and rejected. Preserved and saved by Andrew Fisher for the SEUCK Vault from the submitted tape.
• Twin Tigers – Alf Yngve’s game was submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 by Kenz and rejected, later released on Commodore Format though!
• Tau Omega -Alf Yngve’s game was submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 by Kenz and rejected, later released in the Binary Zone PD library.
• Tau Zero – Alf Yngve’s game was submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 by Kenz and rejected, later released in the Binary Zone PD library.
• Tots TV – SEUCK Game (clone of Smash TV) that was seemingly submitted to Commodore Format, but never picked up.
• Alienator ’93 – Alf Yngve’s game was submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 by Kenz and rejected, later released in the Binary Zone PD library.
• Attack of the Mutant Ninja Turtles (SEUCK) – Alf Yngve’s game was submitted to Zzap!64 in 1992 by Kenz and rejected due to licence concerns, later released in the Binary Zone PD library with a slight tweak as Attack of the Mutant Ninja Blueberries.
• Rockus – Lost a competition, but usually would have been put on 64’er magazine’s covermount.

If you know of more, let us know – there will be a lot of obvious ones that we have missed – but the aim is to grow this list over time. Hopefully some day we’ll hear some stories about the submissions and rejections.

A short entry for what should have been a C64 game as well as PC and Amiga (with thanks to Allan Pinkerton for highlighting!). This SSI game saw release for various formats in 1989/1990 by Strategic Simulations Inc., but the promised C64 version listed in adverts as “coming soon” was never to be.

Why though? SSI went on to release Buck Rogers – Countdown to Doomsday and Champions of Krynn, so was there some kind of development hitch?

More research is needed, but we are for now replicating the credits of those other two games released around that time – as we believe one or more of them may have been involved in the C64 conversion of Sword of Aragon.

If you know anything more about the conversion, please do get in touch!