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.

Latest News and Posts

Eskimo Eddie

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A short entry for what we believe is a missing conversion of Eskimo Eddie, and highlighted thanks to Vinny Mainolfi at FREEZE64 after doing a feature on the game.

Vinny had covered the game Ice Busters, and found that there was also an entry in Gamebase64 for Eskimo Eddie. However, there seems to be no evidence at all that Ocean released the game, so we’re not sure where the GB64 entry has come from and if it was a leaked version. The loading screen is a conversion from the ZX Spectrum version, which was released (but only featured the Pengo style of game).

If you look at the title screen for both released versions, there is clearly an area where the Ocean logo would have been, and this has been modified to “Firm” or “Cascade” – though it is still the distinctive blue looking text/outline.

David Selwood (developer of the game) had worked on a number of titles for Ocean Software, including Mr Wimpy, so we believe that this was indeed a proper Eskimo Eddie conversion. Now its a question of finding out what happened and why Ocean decided not to release. Hopefully David will be able to shed some light.

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Robot*Link

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Our next entry into the GTW64 archives is a missing title by Computer Magic Ltd./Tomy, where you could use your computer to control robots such as the Omnibot, Omnibot 2000 and Verbot.

Recently, the software used to control the robots was preserved at AtariMania for the first time, but what is very odd is that the box says that it is for Commodore 64 and Atari – suggesting a dual release.

However, the packages that have surfaced have only contained the Atari version. So what has happened to the C64 edition and does it exist? Was it released and can it be saved?

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Wacky Races V1

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

NOTE: This game is (c) Hanna Barbera, and is distributed freely without any profit as part of a digital preservation project. With thanks to David A Palmer productions.

Yet another surprise addition to the archives, and one we had no idea about. Before you say anything, Wacky Races was indeed released on the Commodore 64 – but not THIS Wacky Races. Did you ever notice the strange Richard Rinn tunes lurking in HVSC under the same name?

Well, it seems that Enigma Variations were the original development team for the game, creating a full game based on the very same design in 1991. The team apparently hit some problems finishing the game off, and so Keith Purkiss was brought in to help tie things together.

For reasons as yet unknown, Hi-Tec Software decided not to release the game and got in Rave Developments (Nick Taylor and Jason Brashill) to re-do the game, with music by David Spicer this time round. Hopefully we will learn more from the developer Jon Barry about what happened.

Thanks to Keith, we have been able to fully preserve the complete development, and also the source code too – which we’ve also included in the archive. As you will see, it follows the exact same game design, but has much larger characters and score panels.

It plays relatively well, and its hard to see why Hi-Tec rejected it (far worse games had been released by them). However, I did find that it was difficult to know what was coming up due to the size of everything on screen. There was little time to react to anything. In Nick’s version of the game, the sprites are much smaller and you can see more of what is ahead (it is a better version as a result).

Interestingly, contributor Stevie Aaron has found that the game is actually almost identical in design/style to the released Amiga version, which was done by Enigma Variations too:

Same large scale sprites – but this version was deemed ok to release. Might be more to it all than we think. It seems the other 8-bit versions are also scaled down (but not so much – almost like a half-way house between the two C64 versions), so perhaps a decision was made to bring those versions in-line. Or there are ZX + CPC versions out there of the larger car version too!

This is a wonderful curiosity and finding, and we’re pleased to have saved it from obscurity. Enjoy!

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666 – The Number of the Beast

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A surprise entry into the archives which is thanks to its creator Keith Purkiss. This was a game that was being developed for Alternative Software in 1989 and was created whilst in between projects for Probe Software.

According to Keith, the game was converted from a Spectrum game by Daren White. Originally we believed it may have been some kind of conversion of Demon’s Revenge, but it turned out to be something quite different. It means therefore that the ZX Spectrum version original by Daren is currently missing.

666 is a flick screen adventure, which feels a little bit like Feud with its graphical style (although everything is much smaller). You can move your player around a map with some annoying enemies that drain you quickly – but there isn’t much else you can do at this stage and there is no sound at all. There is a neat book effect when you press T, suggesting some kind of spell making would have been present in the final game.

Thanks to Retroboy (see comments), there is more tucked away:

“Pressing “P” on the empty/black landscape tiles, picks up spells and gives points. You can turn the spell book pages with “T” and use the spells with “S” which decreases the spell energy bar right. Touch water fountains to replenish the spell energy.”

Overall – we consider this to be unfinished and needing a lot more work – but there is a significant amount of map to explore. Keith could not recall why the game was never finished, but considering the ZX version isn’t out there either, we can only think that perhaps Alternative Software rejected it.

Gerard Sweeney very kindly got hold of Daren White to learn more about the title, and he didn’t remember it. He recalls being in talks with Alternative Software, and that the game looked vaguely familiar. He has a feeling that it was a game that Alternative wanted him to convert – so perhaps Daren was to convert the work that Keith was doing? It seems sadly nothing was started anyway.

Here it is though – a glimpse at a title we never knew about until a few months ago. If you know anything more about the development, then please do get in touch. We don’t believe it was mentioned in the press.

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Bundesliga 2

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to Csaba Virag, yet another obscure piece of Commodore 64 software has now been saved with the recovery of Bundesliga 2 . This is a Football management software written by Werner Krahe in 1986. Werner is credited in a lot of later football management games.

We guess this is a sequel, though the first game is missing (there are plenty of similar named games in Gamebase, but none are related to Werner’s work). Written in BASIC, we believe that the game is complete – but are unable to play due to the game being in German.

Was it ever released? We’re not sure. If you know any more details about it, then please do get in touch. For now, check it out for yourself.

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Goofy’s Word Factory

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

It is with thanks to contributor Lance Ewing that we learn about a game called Goofy’s Word Factory, which was being worked on by Sierra Online in collaboration with Disney in 1984.

As Lance understands it, the game was being worked on during July 1984 on the Apple 2, but never shipped. After that, Disney released three other titles towards the end of 1984.

On a Sierra registration card, there is a page with prices for all their products, and Goofy’s Word Factory is listed under both Apple 2 and Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 version also doesn’t seem to have been released either.

Oddly, references to the game continue to be made up until 1987, with an Apple 2 advert for the game in a Disney catalogue (see gallery). An interview with John Williams in Commodore Magazine in 1987 sheds some light on what happened:

“In terms of unreleased software, Goofy’s Word Factory opened a whole new can of programming worms. Goofy™ is a Sierra/Disney collaboration which helps children learn about the parts of speech. When we started the project with the Disney designers, we didn’t know what we were in for.

Our people thought that Goofy’s Word Factory would evolve into an arcade game, or something along that line of thinking. We had failed to take into account the Disney attitude towards writing educational material. After all, they’ve been working on school courseware for almost 30 years, and have their own opinions of how children should be taught.

So here we went to them with a proposal for four arcade games, featuring Goofy sorting out nouns, verbs, and so on. They examined our work, but asked us if we could write the program in the form of a story construction set. Children could input sentences and make them animate on the screen. We decided to develop this concept of the program, but it also presented some interesting problems.

It’s hard to generate a program that takes in and understands information like “The space shuttle danced to the moon.” The software actually contains a small space shuttle with legs that performs a jig. During the evolution of the program, we’ve taken about 100 different objects and given them the ability to walk, run, dance, and cry. It was also difficult to create program commands that the average child could understand. Once the initial program was completed, it was so large that we’re not sure it will ever be officially finished.”

So it seems that the game was originally intended to be a simple arcade game, but Disney wanted more of a story construction set. John suggests that work was still ongoing and not actually complete at the time.

Sierra’s contract with Disney ended at the end of 1987 and stopped selling their educational titles. It seems that they simply ran out of time. However, it is clear that a significant amount of work was done on the title – so could anything of either the Apple 2 or Commodore 64 version be saved? Did Peter Oliphant or Al Lowe have any involvement perhaps?

If you know anything more about the title, then please do get in touch.

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Footy game

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A very short entry for an unknown Football game that was possibly in development or to be developed by Mike Lyons. Basically, we found a set of sprites on a utilities disk, which Mike isn’t very sure about their origins. He certainly doesn’t recall ever working on a football game.

They could be from the time he was working at Maelstrom, Active Minds or even briefly Denton Designs. I did wonder if they were anything to do with the World Class Rugby game that Denton had done, but they don’t quite match up, but they are close.

footy sprites

Thanks to Joshua Dove in the comments, he found an entry from Martin Smith (long time contributor to GTW) on Mobygames that suggests that during the development of World Class Rugby by Audiogenic as Sports Action Rugby, Denton Designs were planning on using the same engine to make an American Football game, but it never happened.

It could suggest that perhaps Mike had been tasked originally with doing the game engine, but after leaving – it was handed to Roy Bannon to do instead. It might explain why the sprites are quite similar and have an American Football look to them.

If anyone knows more, please get in touch. For now we’ve added the title as an alternate name, but with a question mark for the time being.

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Grand National

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

A short entry now for yet another Elite game that never quite made it, even though it was advertised in magazines at the time for both Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.

Grand National of course was based on the famous Aintree horse racing event, and Elite had a game which was promising the following:

  • Strategy – You study the form
  • Planning – You choose your napp
  • Tension – You place your bet
  • Action – You ride your mount
  • Reward – The acclaim of winning the World’s Greatest Steeplechase

Advertised in 1985, only the ZX Spectrum version would see a release – but there was nothing to surface for the Commodore 64.

Did it get far, and was it done by Chris Harvey, Neil A. Bate and Rory Green perhaps? If you know anything more, then please do get in touch.

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Super Hang On (US edition)

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Following on from the recent look at the strange earlier (or later?) version of Super Hang On with larger bikes but less of them, Martin/Stadium64 highlights that there was a strange late US release which was to include a Commodore 64 edition.

Advertised as late as 1991, it was due for release in Summer 1991 (which is very late for a Commodore 64 release in the US). The game was however already promoted in a 1989 catalogue too. See gallery below.

So why not just release the Euro version? Well, that could be pretty obvious. Either they were developing a new version, or they just hadn’t anticipated how bad the UK version was before deciding to actually cancel the release.

Martin looked at the US box releases online, and it seems like Data East produced at least 2 different boxes. One has PC & Amiga screenshots on back, whilst the other has Macintosh screenshots. And at least one of them seems to have Commodore 64 system information – on the box front/long side. The Orange part present on several other C64 Data East releases.

In the gallery, you can see parts of that orange bit it on some of the pictures that Martin has provided. One front box – you can see the orange part behind the Amiga Sticker. So seems at least that a Commodore 64 box was produced.

So the question is whether a different development was started, or if it had been planned to use the Euro version all along (before they saw what it was like). One theory from Martin is that perhaps Enduro Racer V2 was intended to be the enhanced game.

Check the entry, but Nick Pelling oddly put “Super Hang On” in the score panel, even though it was clearly an Enduro Racer game. He also said the following:

“Yup, I worked on a version of Enduro Racer for Activision/Mediagenic: as I recall, it was intended as an enhanced disk-only version of the game for the US market (simply because at that time sales of the 1541 disk drive were low outside of the US). I can still remember the game’s version of the arcade music (though was that done by David Whittaker? I can’t remember). :-)

However, I’m reasonably sure that it got canned very close to completion and was never released. I certainly don’t recall getting any royalty statements. :-(“

Did Nick originally perhaps start doing the enhanced version of Enduro Racer after poor reviews before it was canned, and then resurrect the engine to potentially re-use for a new Super Hang On game? It seems unlikely, but with the odd “Super Hang On” mention at the top of the page – who knows if there is some bizarre twist about to surface.

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Gee Bee Air Rally – tape release

(GTW64 entry)
Posted: by Frank Gasking

Another strange entry into the GTW64 vaults, where Activision had planned to release a tape version of Gee Bee Air Rally. Magazines of the time even reviewed the game and mentioned a tape version in the price list. Of course, the disk version was released.

However, for reasons as yet unknown – it didn’t happen. Unless you owned the Big Box 30 collection from Beau Jolly. Infamously, the compilation included earlier builds of games, and the infamy continued with Gee Bee Air Rally, which is found to just be a frozen copy of the Disk version with one segment (which is why the game starts with the player in the mud field).

To be honest, I never really twigged that it was frozen back in the day – but it makes perfect sense now that Martin/Stadium64 has highlighted it.

So what happened – both Martin and I feel that its likely that they just had problems trying to convert it into a tape version (like they did with Pyramid of Time) and just ran out of time before deciding to can it (especially after the poor reviews).

When it came to adding to the compilation, they probably assumed it was available and had probably already done all the packaging, so just froze out a level in a panic to say that something of it was on the compilation. Bit sneaky, but nothing unusual it seems – just look at Further Adventures of Alice in Videoland.

So was anything started? Is there anything to preserve or just a case closed very early on?

Posted in: GTW64 archive | 2 Comments