Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
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.
A very quick entry thanks to Peter Weighill for a game that was advertised by American Eagle in 1984.
The Elysian Fields was released on the Apple 2, but the Commodore 64 edition of the game seems to be completely at large.
The game was an educational graphic adventure game which was likely being converted from the Apple version. American Eagle were employing external Commodore 64 developers to convert a number of their games.
Thanks to contributor Asphodel for flagging up that a C64 version of Apple classic Kukulcan was seemingly produced, thanks to this entry on a museum website:
Unsure if this was a mistake, we contacted the original author Michael Giltzow to ask if he ever started a version or might know more. He didn’t develop a version himself, but very kindly checked his archives and found that American Eagle’s advertising indicated that a Commodore 64 version did exist.
Michael didn’t know who wrote it and has never seen a copy unfortunately. He tells us that Mr Savatini who owned the company, did have programmers contracted to convert the code that Michael had written. However, we are not sure if this was ever done or not.
Thanks to Peter Weighill, a number of scans have been added.
Could anything exist out there? Is it even complete? Early days overall for this conversion, but confirmation that it was indeed started!
Another title highlighted by Peter Weighill which seems to be long lost on the C64, with Pop Quiz 85. A title created by Independent Software and sold via mail order between late 1984 and early 1985.
The game was advertised in Your Computer Dec 1984 on page 216 and Jan 1985 on page 132. The Spectrum version is known to have been released and has been preserved on the World of Spectrum.
Was the C64 edition ever sold at all? Do you maybe have a copy of it?
In the Gallery are the adverts and a scan of the inlay from the Spectrum, which will be the same for the C64 edition.
A small entry thanks to Peter Weighill, who highlighted this advert (see gallery) in Your Computer Nov 1984 on page 215 & Dec 1984 on page 58 for Learning and Training Systems.
In the advert, they have 3 educational games listed:
Mathemagic Land
Your Adventure
Space Adventure
Unfortunately they seem to be completely missing for both the Commodore 64 and also the ZX Spectrum. Were they ever actually released, or were they just sold in limited numbers?
Hopefully these will turn up some day, but if you find them in your collection, please do preserve them and let us know! :)
I’ve cheated a little with this entry to save time, but I had an email from Francesco Milioni today, who helps with the site Edicola 8 bit and looks to find out the original titles for pirated games in Italy.
He highlighted a number of titles which he could not find the original game for. Some are SEUCK efforts and are probably just the same named game. But there are some original titles which could well have been intended as something else.
Rudy … Alberto Frabetti confirmed that the game is his own work. It was originally called “Rudy Hummer”, and the hunt is on to find the original version.
A short collective entry thanks to the efforts of Martin / Stadium64, who found an Avant-Garde catalog full of titles that don’t seem to have been preserved or may not have seen a release.
Not all are games, though we try and preserve whatever we can sometimes. Do you have any of these in your collection and can you help us preserve them?
At the moment, only 3 titles exist in Gamebase. Others might already be out there.
A short entry which has been highlighted thanks to Brian Bagnall, which depicts a game which eventually would turn into Lord of the Rings, another game that never saw the light of day (on the C64 at least!)
Towards the end of the 1980’s, Brian Fargo had employed Jennell Jaquays to design a fantasy adventure game for them. She created a title called “Secrets of the Magi”, which was primarily targeted for the Commodore 64. She designed game play and wrote design documents. The game was planned to be a fast-paced and real-time game, with free scrolling movement replacing grid-based movement. Action orientated combat would replace turn-based combat.
After a while, it was decided to turn the project into a new Lord of the Rings game (volume 1), which was apparently a result of the commercial failure of Dragon Wars and the 8-bit market collapse.
It is not yet clear if any actual code was started, but Jennell kindly posted some designs on a forum for the original game, which you can see here. We hope to find out more soon about whether any actual code or assets existed. The chance of seeing things may still rest with having to find the Lord of the Rings game which is still at large.
A very short entry for a title which may well be out in the wild somewhere. Pontoon was as you’d expect, a computerised version of the popular card game that can be played with one or two players.
The game was being developed (likely in BASIC) by C.P.White Services back in 1983, but doesn’t seem to have surfaced anywhere yet. Was it even released?
C.P.White did release their other game called Haunted Castle, which can be found in Gamebase already. So hopefully there is a chance that Pontoon could be preserved soon.
A very short entry for a game that eventually saw release, but actually was meant to be a fully licensed game.
If you ever played Novogen’s Battle Island, then you may have noticed that the sprites look rather much like Commando’s sprites. But also, the musician was Elite’s main musician Mark Cooksey.
According to Commodore User magazine, the game had started out as a Commando 2 development (aka Commando ’88). They had previously attempted a sequel before with Commando ’86, and when that fell through – the game was renamed and released as Duet. Elite clearly thought they could try again, but this time US Gold had apparently now got the licence – so the title was sold to Novogen and renamed as Battle Island.
It sounds legitimate, though we hope to confirm from those involved that this was the case. All the evidence seems to be there though! Maybe there is a version named as “Commando ’88” waiting to be found?
Sword of Sodan was a hack and slash game that was released in 1989 on the Amiga, as well as the Sega Megadrive in 1990.
It featured very large characters and did fairly well at the time. Reviewed in CVG, it was stated that there were vague plans for ST and C64 conversions of the game. Sadly neither of the conversions would ever see the light of day.
The question is whether either of the conversions were actually ever started, or were just talked about?
Hopefully Søren Grønbech, Torben B. Larsen will shed some light some day soon.
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