Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
Not a massively early version as such, but contributor Bruce Coates has highlighted that the Commodore User review of Target Renegade seems to have the baseball bat as a weapon in the other levels in the game.
In the version released, it seems that you can only pick up a baseball bat on the first level – and such pick ups don’t exist from that point on. In the CU review, there is even suggestion of being able to pick up a stick as a dropped weapon. Continue reading
OK, so not as big an update as last month, but still a sizable one none-the-less, and with two very important additions. A total of 14 completely new entries too to further increase the size of the C64 archive, along with 11 updates overall and two very special findings! Many of the new entries are for titles which may well be out there, just not yet preserved. Can you help us find them?
The big news of the month was the recovery of both the long lost first version of Total Recall from Active Minds (missing for 33 years), and a surprise start of a conversion of Wreckers by Denton Designs. Download both for yourself!
Blood Bath at Orc’s Drift, Intellectual Software titles, Island Software titles, JMH Software titles, Micro-Ed, Inc titles, Micrograms, Inc titles, Microphys Programs Inc titles, Moses Engineering titles, Quality Input, Inc titles, Resource Software International titles, Right on Programs titles, Teacher’s Pet Software titles, The Enemy Within, The War of the Worlds
Arsenal FC, Battlecars, Boston Educational Computing, Inc titles, Cyberdyne Warrior Intro, Judge Death, Krell Software, Pharaoh’s Pyramid, R.I.S.K! V1, Rastan V1, Runestone, The War of the Worlds
Considered vapourware, Denton Design’s Wreckers for the Commodore 64 has been recovered in its final build state.
Before you get too excited, sadly the game was only in development for a very short period of time – and essentially what we have is a tech demo showing a navigable game map. There are no playable elements and there is limited map collisions.
Though considering that just a year ago we were doubtful that a C64 conversion ever existed, this is a lovely surprise.
Check it out at: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/wreckers/
Following on from the recent recovery of Total Recall V1 – we today take a detailed video look at the prototype, the story of its search and how it was found.
Including highlighting of differences from the original Zzap!64 preview screens.
Lost for 33 years, we are pleased to announce the recovery of the original abandoned development of Total Recall for the Commodore 64!
So happy to finally see those old Zzap!64 screens in motion after years of searching!
Full story + download at: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/total-recall-v1/
It is perhaps unsurprising that a game as ground breaking as Lemmings would inspire a series of other inventive puzzlers, which seem to share some DNA in places. Diggers was one such title, where you control a mining team trying to get precious minerals.
Scoring well with magazines at the time, it comes as no surprise that a sequel was put into motion. The same developer, Toby Simpson would get to work once again to try and improve on his original success.
Many issues that were found with the original were set to be resolved for the sequel on the Amiga CD32, including have more reigned in level map sizes, so that most users would get to appreciate most of the game. There would also be better defined goals as well. Continue reading
Planned as a sequel to Sherlock Holmes: Another Bow, which was released by Bantam Software in 1984 on a variety of 8-bit platforms. Sadly it was never to be.
In an interview with Scott Stilphen, artist Michael Becker revealed that the sequel was using the same engine as the original game, and featured Al Capone, Babe Ruth, and the mob as Sherlock visited Atlantic City in the 1930s and solved some crimes whilst in his 70s.
Mark Hardisty spoke with Peter Golden in issue 11 of Classic Adventurer, where Peter recalled having completed his work on the title, though Bantam would leave the market before it could be fully released to the world. Continue reading
A much larger update this month, as there was a lot of corrections and fixes done to some old posts, but we also have 7 completely new entries too to further increase the size of the C64 archive. Won’t be long until we hit 3000!
New entries include details of a City Connection conversion, a great looking and recent Ghostbusters tribute, a cool looking wresting game, an abandoned graphic text adventure, two missing games that could well be out there and a post on an early Pac-Man clone by Andrew Trott. Enjoy!
City Connection, Code 3, Ghostbusters 2021, Nedime – The Caliph’s Daughter, Terragon, The Boring Hour, Unnamed Pac-Man clone
64 Tape Computing – Issue 14, Babylon, Ballisation, Bird Mother V1, Black Gold 2, Bobby Charlton Soccer, Bombzone, Buffalo Roundup V1, Butch – Hard Guy, CDU Games Disks, Danger! High Voltage, Dimension X, Drugbird, Dynaboys, Egy kis kiruccanás, Enforcer 2, Evil Garden, Fire & Forget, Flight Deck 2, Furry Knibble Girls 2, Gargantuan, Go Ape!, Hard Fire, Immensity, Imperium, Italian pirated games, Jumpy64, La Venganza del Toro, Mortal Kombat 2, Mythos, Panic Button, Proxima, Quark, Quark IX, Rex Hard, Sabian Island, Sankara Stone, Single Extreme Freedom, Squad One, Star of Africa, Sunburst Communications titles, Super C, Tank Battle Simulator, The Brainies, The Seven Gates Of Jambala, The Sixth Sense, The War of the Dragon, Toi Acid Game, Vietnam Gunboat, Xenodrome
Can you help Harry complete the five screens and escape? He must clear up the potions whilst avoiding the nasties, in order to gather strength for the next screen and to be able to survive long enough to get to the door out.
Well, that was the introduction set out by creator Chris Hester back in 1984, when building up ideas for a new game in his ideas book for the ZX Spectrum. Heavily inspired by Manic Miner, Chris set to work putting together his design, printing off screens using his thermal printer. Continue reading
Don Priestley created some of the most memorable 8-bit games of all time, thanks to his trademark large cartoon graphics within games. I lost many hours playing the likes of The Trap Door on the C64, which felt like I was controlling an actual cartoon.
One of Don’s early titles was a puzzler called Jumbly, a picture puzzle game, where you had to shuffle blocks into the correct order. It is very similar in many ways to Split Personalities by Domark which came out a little while later. Continue reading
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Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
