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 short entry for what is a significant earlier version of Paradroid, which was revealed by Andrew Braybook via Twitter.
The screenshots below come from Andrew’s negative archive, showing an early version with the player’s gun-sight that moves along in front of the player, or independently. It allowed for instant hits, but it was not easy to get it to hit moving targets during testing. Andrew had two different gun-sight variants before it was swapped out for a more standard firing system.
There are also many different screens showing the abandoned “fish-bone” design that was originally created. Also a series of other screens – some of which were from the final game, perhaps with minor differences.
Andrew had passed on the screens to Fusion Books to include within the excellent The Graftgold Story book. We respectfully held back from adding the fish-bone design screens to this page until the book was published at Andrew’s request – and now we’ve been given the go ahead thanks to the book’s designer, Steven Day.
The question was whether anything of these earlier builds may still exist today, and Andrew wasn’t so confident. They didn’t tend to keep old builds, as there were bug fixes and tuning alterations all the time. There is the possibility that a demo does exist on a disk somewhere, but it could well be gone for good.
However, these polaroid scans are a fascinating look at how Paradroid evolved up until its release and Gold Medal review.
A short entry for a Mastertronic title that never was called Planet 10 – a late title that was due for release back in 1989.
It is thanks to a great article by Simon Plumbe about the game on the ZX Spectrum (which was also unreleased) that we learn about the title for the first time and a potential C64 conversion.
The game itself was created by Davor Magdic, and was reviewed by most major ZX Spectrum magazines of the time but disappeared without a trace and never made it out onto shelves. It was essentially a 3D version of Pac Man and each level was a recreation of the original Namco mazes.
According to records from Anthony Guter, there were 9 copies of the ZX version distributed (probably to magazines and media) and about 5 apparently of a C64 version. Was this an error, or did a C64 edition really exist (it certainly didn’t get reviewed!).
Via Simon’s review, Davor Magdic got in touch and wasn’t aware of any C64 conversion. This means, if it was done – then it was done by another developer.
We hope to learn more soon – for now, check out Simon’s excellent article about the ZX version. It is suggested the game may have been cancelled due to licencing concerns over the Pacman links.
A very quick entry for a potential missing Ocean Software release of Road Frog, which was flagged up thanks to Vinny Mainolfi.
Vinny spotted an advert which showed a glass filter over a Commodore monitor. On the screen was a Frogger game, which was listed as being “Road Frog by courtesy of Ocean Software”.
However, on further inspection – the game is a dead match for Frogger 64 by Interceptor Software that came out a year earlier.
Was it just simply a mistake by Romag CEAF, or had there been a Road Frog on the C64 which was essentially an adjusted/hacked version of Frogger 64? Perhaps that is why it never got released after being found to be a rip off?
We mention this, as Ocean’s previous label “Spectrum Games” had released a game called Rocket Command on the ZX Spectrum which was a hack of Silversoft’s Orbiter from 1982.
Once we get any further proof that a C64 version was on the cards – we’ll let you know.
As you might expect from the title, this was to be a clone of the Williams arcade game – Sinistar, and was due for release by Merlin Software back around October 1984 time.
Your 64 oddly described it more of an Asteroids game, where you have alien workers who has to nip around the screen collecting crystals which (when mixed in appropriate quantities, spells and prevailing wind) make up some sort of superior and virtually indestructible being known as a ‘Sinister’.
So your job is to search for special bombs to destroy the thing if that happens, or to shoot the workers before they have the chance to complete their tasks.
The game appeared briefly in adverts and had some mentions in the press, but then it completely disappeared. Just how far did the game get, and why was it canned?
We are confident that the game was created by Jason Perkins, so we hope to learn more from them soon about the title. If you know anything more, please do let us know. Thanks to Scott Breon for flagging up and the advert scan.
Another combined entry to search for titles which may have been released, but have not yet been preserved. Thanks to Bertrand / Atari Mania, an advert was flagged up from Home Computer Magazine in 1984 with a list of tiles on sale. These titles were also on sale for the TI-99 and Atari 8-bit computers too:
Bible Trivia
Bible Questions for Children
Commando Raid
The Battle of Antietam / Sharpsburg (Not sure if this is related to the SSI title of the same name)
Treasure Hunt
Dungeons of Peril
If you know anything more about them, then please do get in touch!
“MONSTER BASH is a fascinating cartoon theme game featuring colourful graphics in three exciting scenes of hunt-and-hide adventure. Light-hearted, suspenseful music and audio sounds add to the fun, and heighten player interest and intrigue.”
Unfortunately there seem to have been no updates since 2010 – so it is possible the idea of a conversion has been abandoned. On the Lemon64 forums, it has been suggested that Luigi has taken a break and paused his C64 projects. We hope someday that he’ll come back to them.
In the meantime here is a video of the progress made so far:
Mission Extreme is a promising Commodore 64 conversion of the pc side-scrolling platform shooter by Deadheat and was being converted by Luigi Vicari. Development started around 2010, and Luigi described the game as follows on his site:
“It starts with your nameless hero being dumped out of a helicopter and into the jungle, with a short summary of his mission. America is being threatened by a terrorist cell with a mega-weapon able to destroy the Earth. Our mission is to defeat all enemies over 4 stages and to rescue the 20 hostages that they have littered in the jungle.
Graphically, the game looks great with blocky, retro sprites and colorful backgrounds. The palette is impeccable and there is little animation to speak of. However Mission Extreme is highly enjoyable and does what it does very nicely.”
Sadly, the game seems to have been abandoned – even though it was looking promising. Here are some videos of it in action:
According to Lemon64, Luigi has taken a break from the game due to a lack of time. We hope that he is able to come back to it, and so it can escape from the GTW64 archives.
A very short entry for a title that was advertised within the manual of Aliants at the very end. Time Capsule was listed as “Coming Soon” and was a strategy action game.
Nothing else is known at this stage, and no version seems to have surfaced for any other platform. If you know anything more – please do get in touch.
This is a very short stub entry for now for a game called Unknown four-part game, which was a concept for a Commodore 64 game that was highlighted on Viktor T. Toth’s website.
We know very little at this stage apart from that the concept was by Robert Bekesi and don’t know if it got to a development stage. If you know anything more, please do get in touch.
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Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
