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.
A game company that predominately produced games for the Atari, but also tried to get involved on publishing C64 titles too. They released the game Final Flight! (see advert) and also Trivia Trek in 1984. Phoenix Lair was another title which was described as follows:
“An arcade style game comprised of 10 boards and 10 speed levels. It is unlike any game on the market today. Multiple strategies, an interlude jousting challenge between boards, bright and lively colors and music add to the already superb play of this completely unique and different game.
Game Play: The game begins at board one and advances to higher boards after successful completion. Many obstacles are encountered on the various boards as points are accumulated. At the beginning of each board, the Phoenix must leave its lair in search of enemy eggs. The Phoenix flight is controlled in height by the joystick button, and in direction by the joystick itself.
After successfully destroying at least six of these eggs the Phoenix must return to the far right side of its lair. Points are awarded based on the total number of eggs destroyed and the time in which it took to complete the mission. A fast mission will result in additional bonus points. You begin with 5 lives and gain additional lives at boards 7,9 and 10. PHOENIX LAIR is all machine language. Requires 40K RAM, a disk drive and 1 joystick. Disk only available for COMMODORE and ATARI.”
It is unsure if the game ever managed to sneak out at all, but it is currently missing and unpreserved. The Atari version did however make it out, so did the C64 version perhaps hit difficulties during development?More details of the Atari version, including some better scans can be found at http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-phoenix-lair_3944.html
In August 2023, collector John Christian Lønningdal found an eBay listing of the game which proves that the C64 edition was indeed released. It just needs to be found by the right person and fully preserved. The only issue is that the copy listed was sealed, so it is doubtful that a collector would break it open willingly to preserve what is on the disk.
Please keep a look out for copies of this game therefore, and hopefully some day it will be found!
The advert mentions Atari, Com 64 and Vic 20. But the Commodore 64 version is nowere to be seen.”‹ The screenshot shown seems to be a mockup with a hi-res font compared to the Vic 20 edition, which could well be based on what the C64 version looked like.
It is plausible that all versions were developed by Don McGlauflin, so hopefully that is a lead to follow.
An educational game which might be out there, but has yet to be preserved. Or is it a title that never quite made it?
Monkeybuilder has a 256 word set, designed to increase spelling and vocabulary skills into 17 different work skill areas. The idea was to encourage children to combine word pieces correctly to form building blocks, and make a tree house for Marc (the monkey?). The advert shown even gives a screenshot. The other two games, Monkeymath and Monkeynews were released and can be found within Gamebase.
Thanks to one of our contributors within the comments, it has been confirmed that the game was sold – but just limited numbers it seems. A copy surfaced on Ebay in August 2023, and the game has now been fully preserved! See scans and download below.
A short entry for a collection of games that are currently missing.
Advertised in Compute! July 1983, the four games were to be:
Head On – A daring and dangerous death race
Alien Invasion – 4 players. Creatures descend.
Atomic Man – Super hero rescues a city.
Serpents – 2 players. Snakes entangle each other.
It is believed that Head On and Alien Invasion are in Gamebase already under the label of ComputerMat. However, the other two titles seem to still be at large.
A quick entry for a title flagged up by contributor Atari Frog, which was an educational game about the stock market. It was released on the Atari 400/800 around 1981 and was advertised as being available for the Commodore 64.
Was this sold at all for the other platforms, or was it cancelled due to poor sales of the Atari version? We believe that it is out there, but likely sold in just limited numbers, as mots educational titles did.
Yet another aborted Double Dragon conversion for the C64, and this time this was for the Ocean Software development of the game from the early 1990s. Although it could just be a different variation of the current and limited cartridge release that was made.
Graphic artist Anthony Rosbottom recalls working at Imagitec on the conversion with Psy The Hero (Part of the famous Compunet duo, Psy and Mat), aka Simon Hulbert. The conversion featured monochrome graphics, which we’re not entirely sure why that decision was made exactly.
After finishing work on the graphics, Anthony went on to work on Viking Child for the Amiga, ST and DOS. He later heard that Ocean had rejected the development from Imagitec due to the monochrome graphics that were present.
It seems that Imagitec then threw extra resource onto the development to get it re-done and re-developed into the colourful version that Ocean eventually released. Well, sort of released. The game only got a very limited release at a show on cartridge, and in really quickly knocked up packaging. It’s likely that Ocean still weren’t happy with the end result, probably just made up a few cartridges for shits and giggles… maybe?
Simon is still credited, but it seems he only now had a bit part on the development. The original game was just Simon and Anthony working on the title overall, and the development was actually complete. So we believe that there is a vastly different development out there yet to be discovered.
Sadly Anthony no longer has anything of his work, so its now down to hopefully tracking down Simon and seeing if he may have anything of his original work.
Not the official title of this game. It’s likely a final title was never made in the end, and it seems this title was abandoned very early on.
This preview was only released in 2019 after Hedning/GP found it on some development disks and was the only version found. It seems that it never got past this early phase where you have a split screen display and two helecopters.
Its likely that the idea would have been to fight each other across a scrolling landscape, but much of the logic doesn’t seem to be in place.
Could more exist? And what were the plans exactly for the game? We hope to learn more soon.
This was to be a text adventure release in a nice large clam box by Classic Quests around 1986 time. This was something that was done to a few Supersoft games written by Brian Cotton, so we believe that Brian was also the author of this game. It seems some of his adventures were enhanced slightly for release under the Classic Quests label (part of Supersoft), which was the case for Forestland that had a release in 1983 by Supersoft.
This was likely to be an enhanced release of the game, in similar fashion to titles such as Goblin Towers and Witch Hunt.
It was due for release overall on the Commodore PET, 64, 128 and Plus 4, Amstrad CPC, 6127, PCW, PC and IBM PC compatibles. A CPC version seems to have surfaced, which may have been the Classic Games version. It seems no other versions have surfaced, but contributor Strident has done some investigations which show evidence that the Classic Quests versions of Catacombs and Forestland were released on multiple platforms: http://8bitag.com/info/catacombs.html
So is this just an obscure release waiting to be found? At the very least you can check out the 1983 game for now.
Not to be confused with The Catacombs by Anirog that was released a few years earlier, this was to be a text adventure release in a nice large clam box by Classic Quests around 1986 time.
This was something that was done to a few Supersoft games written by Brian Cotton, so we believe that Brian was also the author of this game. It seems some of his adventures were enhanced slightly for release under the Classic Quests label (part of Supersoft), though this one doesn’t seem to have surfaced before under Supersoft.
The catalogue entry details the game as follows:
The old Gothic church, so the locals say, used to have a veritable labyrinth of passages beneath it, but the whereabouts of the entrance to the passages has long since been forgotten. The church itself has fallen into disuse for a variety of reasons, the main one being the sinister aura that surrounds one of the large tombs in the church graveyard. The church’s treasures have long since disappeared without a trace.
An ancient local legend, all but forgotten now, tells of a vast underground land inhabited by weird monsters guarding wonderful treasures. Could there be any connection between this legend and the lost treasures? By the way, if you do find any treasure, take it back to the church, and lay it on the altar – after all, it doesn’t belong to you!
CATACOMBS is a large and complex adventure which is definitely not for beginners. Many of the puzzles to be solved are unusual, with ingenious solutions, and will stretch your imagination to its limits.
It was due for release overall on the Commodore PET, 64, 128 and Plus 4, Amstrad CPC, 6127, PCW, PC and IBM PC compatibles. It seems no other versions have surfaced, but contributor Strident (see comments) has done some investigations which show evidence that the Classic Quests versions of Catacombs and Forestland were released on multiple platforms: http://8bitag.com/info/catacombs.html
Was it completed or released in any way? Or was it cancelled early on?
A short entry for a title that we know little about at this stage, apart from the developer that was behind it (who don’t seem to have done anything else on the Commodore 64), the musician and the basic premise of the game itself.
The game was flagged up by contributor Radd Maxx who found a demo showing the title screen and playing Michael Winterberg’s music (which has been out in the wild for some time). The game clearly involving having to apply Graffiti somewhere, possibly not quite Jet Set Radio in 1986, but who knows.
A quick search trying to find the developers proved fruitless, but we hope that they may see this page and get in touch to shed some more light about the game itself.
For now, check out the loading screen demo and music from Michael Winterberg.
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