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.
Our next entry in the database is thanks to contributor Asphodel, who has flagged up a title which is 30 years old this year and one that we haven’t yet added to the archives.
Race with the Devil is a scrolling platform game, similar in some ways to Blagger. It is very tough to play, and a demo was given we believe to Floppy Magazine 64 in 1986.
The final game was never to appear though for some reason, and Harri didn’t seem to do any other games after that point. So what happened to the game? Did Harri get bored and move onto other projects?
We hope to find Harri to find out more and confirm what happened to game. Maybe there is a full version that exists somewhere?
A cheat entry for now, as its possible that all 4 of the games were actually released – so this is more of a call to try and find these games and get them digitally preserved and available.
Piper Software was flagged up to GTW64 by contributor Håvar (who kindly loaned us Pluff for preservation a while back). He has mentioned that there were four titles due for release by Piper Software called Dinosaurs, Birds, Astronomy and Aircraft.
They were all educational titles, and were part of Piper Books LTD. Each title came with an information book, so the game was likely sold in book shops.
Dinosaurs was fully preserved in May 2020 and can now be found on this page we’ve added:
Birds is also available in Gamebase64 too. Håvar has informed us via the comments that the rest have also been found and will be preserved in the near future!
Part of this included source code files which were donated by Anthony J Clarke, which included some C64 source files for two Gremlin Graphics games – Dork’s Dilemma and Tycoon Tex. Hokuto Force have pieced everything together and have made these available for people to check out in an emulation form.
Tycoon Tex is pretty much the C16 game code and graphics, with no hardware sprites used. It is essentially a complete conversion, but with no sound.
The game was constructed on the C64, and then wired down to the C16 to run and compile. This is why a C64 version of the code was available, which could be compiled to get running – but the intention was always for a C16 only title.
Overall, it is a great piece of history preserved thanks to Anthony, Mark Hardisty and Hokuto Force. Check it out!
Part of this included source code files which were donated by Anthony J Clarke, which included some C64 source files for two Gremlin Graphics games – Dork’s Dilemma and Tycoon Tex. Hokuto Force have pieced everything together and have made these available for people to check out in an emulation form.
Dork’s Dilemma is pretty much the C16 game code and graphics, with no hardware sprites used. It is essentially a complete conversion, but with no sound.
The game was constructed on the C64, and then wired down to the C16 to run and compile. This is why a C64 version of the code was available, which could be compiled to get running – but the intention was always for a C16 only title.
Overall, it is a great piece of history preserved thanks to Anthony, Mark Hardisty and Hokuto Force. Check it out!
A very short entry to essentially store a record to what was an earlier edition of Netherworld. Originally named as Abyss Zone, this was to be a 300 screen game with surealistic graphics.
Eventually the game morphed into Netherworld, but after seeing the transitions that Zamzara went through – its very likely that the game was quite different at first.
Unfortunately Jukka Tapanimaki passed away back in 2000, so we may never find out for sure what was different. All of Jukka’s disks were preserved, but there was no version of Netherworld found with different titles or maps.
A short entry, where Namco/Atari’s Final Lap was to be converted to the C64 and other 8-bit and 16-bit platforms according to PowerPlay magazine from December 1988.
The conversion was listed alongside news of conversions of Xybots, Vindicator – which were released eventually by Domark. So was Final Lap really another title that was on the cards?
There was no news about the game in the UK press, so was anything ever started?
Tangram was to be an interesting puzzler released for the PC, Amiga, ST and C64 back in 1990 time by Kingsoft, where you would have to use various shapes to complete a shape puzzle.
The Amiga version was actually reviewed in PowerPlay 9/90 and scored an average score – so its possible the C64 edition never got released as a result (perhaps?). Interestingly the Amiga, PC and ST versions are at large as well, but Thalion released a game of the same name in 90 for the Amiga. A c64 game was also released in the very same year by CP Verlag – so was this also related in anyway? … http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=2194&d=18&h=0
So was either version the same game as from Kingsoft, but with enhancements? What happened and why were there three very similar developed games in the same year with the same name (well, with Digital prefixed for CP Verlag’s title – but close enough!)?
As well as the C64 game itself, there seems to be a mystery to solve as well with the Kingsoft release as a whole across all formats first. It may well be that Thalion took over the game – but we need more information. Can you help?
Lenny suggests that PowerPlay was very trustworthy and never reviewed unreleased games, so it could be that it was just separate releases that clashed, and Thalion’s edition came out on top? As Alex rightly points out in the comments, the name wasn’t unique and was for a common puzzle game, so it could just be a co-incidence.
Many of you may remember the very cool Bomberman clone that appeared in the early days of Protovision, in the shape of Bomb Mania.
Not only was it a great little game, but it also supported up to 4 players simultaneously with a special adapter.
A sequel was actually put into production around 2002, this time coded by Stefan Gutsch – which would also feature music by Glenn Rune Gallefoss (which you can download from here in .SID format). Glenn was doing music and sfx, and had previews of the introduction screens and game menu – but sadly lost all of the files.
The intro screens were pretty well done, though we’re not sure just yet if there was any game running at all. Hopefully Stefan will still have all of the files relating to the game and will be able to fill us in on what happened to the game.
Briefly mentioned in Aktueller Software Markt (05/1986), it was stated that Quazatron (the Spectrum version of Paradroid), was to be released also on the Amstrad and CPC. Mostly as it was practically a different game!
One issue later however, the magazine mentioned just a Spectrum edition.
So did they get it wrong perhaps? Was anything ever started?
Eventually, the sequel Magnetron did make it onto the C64 – so maybe this could have started out as a conversion of Quazatron?
More details needed, but potentially just vapourware.
According to an article Aktueller magazine (05/1986), Nu Wave’s ID game was not only to be produced on the Spectrum, but would later get converted to the Amstrad and Commodore 64 platforms.
It didn’t quite happen though – possibly due to poor sales of the Spectrum title.
The question though is whether anything was actually started on the C64 version, or if it was merely a plan that never came to any kind of fruition.
With a distinct lack of info in the press about a C64 version, we assume it was canned before it was even started. Can you help confirm?
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