Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
CubeSim64 is a fairly recent game that seemed to have been abandoned from 2014 with no further updates. It is a rather nice looking Rubik’s Cube game, where you must use the keyboard to rotate the cube and match up the colours on each side.
Confirmed by Jazzcat to have been completed and released: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=185695
Case closed!!
Coloris is an early and nice looking Columns clone, where you must match up colours in a row or column to make the blocks disappear.
Sat within the archives for some years now (1992 to be precise), nothing more has surfaced apart from this preview, where it is playable to a degree – but continues to play when the blocks reach the top of the screen.
Did it ever progress further than this demo, or was this leaked version the final version from the developer?
Do you know anything more about this game?
Not much too say about our next entry in the database, with what seems to be a very early and simple beat-em-up with some nice looking sprites.
There isn’t much to do though apart from move the main character and avoid the advancing opposing character. It seems that the game never got any further than this either and has been seemingly abandoned since 2014. Perhaps it was just a sprite test?
Will the game be picked up and finished some day, or was it an experiment which was parked for good?
A perhaps bad taste name for a game, this is a simple puzzler with some nice music and graphics – but doesn’t seem to have much to do at this stage.
It seems that you are meant to just press the key that corresponds to the item that drops in the right column – but it doesn’t seem to add to your score or do anything in particular. When you press an incorrect key, it will tell you though.
Seems to have been abandoned very early on and the crack release of the game could be as far as it got.
Do you know anything more about it?
A very simple horizontal scrolling shooter at this stage, which has plenty of promise – but hasn’t got very far at all.
No attack waves and just a movable ship over a simple background. Did this ever get any further than this very old preview, or was abandoned early on?
Do you know anything more about this game?
An arcade game from a company better known for their text adventure games.
Stratos was advertised for the C64, Atari and TRS-80 – and seems to have been released for the last two platforms but the C64. They even have screenshots of the Atari and TRS editions on the advert, suggesting the C64 version wasn’t far along enough at the time.
We believe that the game was never actually released, and one possibility could be due to the original game not selling well. The advert has screenshots for the Atari & TRS-80 versions but only mentions Commodore 64 at the bottom.
The advert describes the game as follows:
“A Microcomputer experience for today.
Arcaders who’ve seen and played the ATARI and TRS-80 versions of STRATOS came to the same conclusions – these state of the art games were ahead of their time. After all, any program that boasts crisp graphics, punchy sounds, joystick compatibility and a full complement of extras, like high score saving and multi-player option has a definite touch of tomorrow.
THE GAME’S SCENARIO IS A REAL KNOCKOUT
The object is to successfully defend a futuristic city from waves of attacking alien ships. And these crafty alien critters are just part of a rapid-fire graphics bonanza that includes meteor swarms, multiple attack waves, and even a free-moving saucer that will repair your city’s damaged force field on the ATARI version.
GOOD NEWS
You don’t have to wait years for the spectacular – STRATOS is available now for the ATARI and TRS-80 systems. STRATOS. Entertainment of the future – today.”
Well, that was a load of old 1980’s hot air wasn’t it? Hopefully the game itself (if it can be found) will live up to the hyperbole of the advert, but regardless of that – the Atari and TRS-80 games look pretty interesting, so this would be a great curiosity to see. How far did it get, and was it ever completed though?
Contributor Glenn Stubberfield found an advert that lists Neil Larimer as the developer, who also developed the Atari version. Therefore its likely that the game is very similar to the Atari edition.
Neil got in touch via the comments to say that the Atari version had been selling well, but Adventure International went under when the industry “tanked” in the early 80s. Neil had received a C64 to develop a conversion, but never got the chance to start before things crashed.
So unfortunately, this is very much a case closed!
I can’t believe that in 2020, we didn’t have this game in the archives! I’ve known about it for years and assumed it was already there when I kept seeing the game listed in Commodore Format’s early warning scanner.
When contributor Ken Knight flagged it up – I went to fetch the link for him, and sure enough – it wasn’t here!
So here is a very quick entry for the title, which was mentioned numerous times on Commodore Format’s early warning scanner, but never appeared in the end. Was it ever started though?
There was never any screenshots shown or further details about the sequel, so it could well be vapourware. First place to start will be to track down the developers of the original and see if they were involved.
Do you know anything more about it?
A possibly cock up by Commodore Format, or was Gauntlet 3 originally set to be a far more ambitious title that intended?
Of course, we all know about the infamous tale of the C64 edition not seeing full release – but that was for an isometric 3D title.
Commodore Format in issue 1 stated that US Gold were planning to do a version of Gauntlet, viewed through the eyes of the characters in 1st person perspective. Surely this would have been too ambitious for the likes of the C64. So did Commodore Format take 2+2 and get 10, or were there serious plans for the game to go down this route – before a more sensible isometric approach was taken?
Hopefully we’ll get to find out soon, but an interesting curiosity that was spotted anyway!
It is with great thanks to our friends at Unseen64 and specifically Luca Taborelli and contributor MP83 that this title has been highlighted to us as yet another lost title for we believe the Commodore 64, but also ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.
The game was mentioned in Crash issue 23, but also within Popular Computing Weekly, Vol 4 No 26 from July 1985 as coming soon from Melbourne House, based on the Whitbread Round the World yacht race that would start in September of that year. Melbourne House declared:
“We hope to produce the definitive yachting simulation, with the same sort of detail as you would find in a flight simulation. The game should be available in the autumn to coincide with the initial stages of the race.”
Nothing would surface of the game at all, and it would be subsequently forgotten about.
Finnish computer magazine MikroBitti would though later have an interview with Denton Designs in 1986, where Ally Noble would confirm that Denton were behind the conversions of the game. She just mentions that the game didn’t get published and likely never will. The game was mentioned as being finished, but negotiations broke down between Denton and Melbourne House due to a change in the contract that was demanded.
So hopefully we will be able to find out from Ally a bit more about the game, and who worked on it. The chances of being able to find something could be quite slim, but you never know!
A short entry for what was a late C64 game that was aiming to save the machine commercially, by a team called Parallel Logic.
The game was created in the 3D Construction Kit and reviewed in Commodore Format issue 44, after a period of months without any new games released. The game scored averagely, but perhaps unfairly as it was put down mostly because of the limits of the engine.
In Gamebase64, the game actually exists and seems to be the complete game – but it features a very early score panel area, compared to the slightly jazzed up one in the review (which you can see in the scans). Creator Philip Boyce was surprised to see the first edition in the archives, but feels it was released in that form initially, before he decided to release with some visual improvements before Commodore Format reviewed it.
Sadly he no longer has the later edition, but it is very likely that someone purchased the game after the CF review. Did you perhaps purchase it? If so, can you help us preserve this later edition with the crystal panel? Or has it been lost forever?
We believe that its probably just the score panel which has changed, but its always possible that Philip made some amendments as well to the game itself.
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