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.
Our next entry is a rather interesting Maniac Mansion style game written by Francois Blanchette back in 1986.
The game in 2014 has been resurrected in its final state in 1992, restored and properly named by Atlantis/F4CG. Unfortunately this is all that remains of the game, and a second development disk went missing a long time ago. This particular version which has been fully preserved contains two lost title pictures, level packing and some additional information stored away in the documentation file.
It is great to see something of this game preserved, but this will be it – with the programmer confirming that they checked all their disks and could not find any later copy. So unless someone comes forward with a disk which Francois had forgotten about, then what you see here is the definitive version.
Overall, its not bad and certainly worth a look to see what might have been. Hopefully at some point the coder will pop by to give their recollections about the game’s development – as we have no idea what the intentions for the game were. Also, it seems to be a sequel – but what of the first game?
Another title gets added to the archive of Firebird/Silverbird games that never were. This time with a conversion of a pretty naff Gauntlet clone in the shape of Droidz from the Zx Spectrum platform.
The game was royally panned in the magazines at the time as being very dull to play and glitchy as hell. Even at the price of £1.99 – it wasn’t really seen as a bargain.
No adverts seem to ever have surfaced for a C64 version of the game, but it was recent contact with Andrew Graham in 2014, where it was revealed himself and his brothers Robbie and Stewart Graham (known as The Highlanders) had done a conversion. And it seems a completed conversion too!
For reasons currently unknown, Andrew suggests it is another title along with their Software Projects title Heebie Jeebies, which was oddly never released. It is very plausible that the game was not released due to the very poor scores it had received in the likes of Crash magazine. It would be good to confirm this some day.
It is hoped that Andrew might be able to find something of the conversion, which could even feature music by Steve Barrett – who did a lot of tunes for their C64 based games. It is very much a case of watch this space!
Yet another educational set of titles which are at large it seems, and highlighted thanks to Sean O’Neill.
Ironically, it is within a Zzap educational article back in 1992 alongside the Fun School series where our next set of titles get a mention. Ironic, because some of the Fun School titles have been “fun” to try and find over the years.
Prisma Software (or was that Prism?) had apparently released two titles called Prof Plays a New Game and Prof Makes Sentences. There were meant to be another 2 titles in the series, but the details on these are sadly lacking.
A contributor called Simon got in touch via the comments below, and mentioned that he worked on a title called Pepe’s Garden. It was a conversion of the 16-bit title, and seemingly was finished. It is hoped that Simon might be able to find something of it. Here’s what Simon had to say:
“I worked on the C64 port of another Prisma title, Pepe’s Garden. Never released. I remember having to use all kinds of tricks to fit the disk-based 16 bit title into a single load 64k. Got vague memories of having to compress stuff and stash it under one of the ROMs. Think I also did some stuff with dynamically creating sprites from the character set data, and maybe even some sprite raster tricks too, because obviously 16 bit machines had access to hardware like a Blitter, and all the little ol’ C64 had was 8 sprites.
I don’t have a copy of it any more. I think I managed to port most, perhaps all, of the original 16 bit game, but I don’t recall if I finished it. Don’t remember coding any sound or music. Slim chance the source code may be on an old floppy somewhere, but no idea where.”
The first title in the series was meant to have come with an audio cassette that you played whilst going through the educational parts. The second part was apparently released later in July of 1991 (Zzap 80 was January 1992), so it suggests that both titles were sold – maybe just in limited numbers?
For more details about the titles, check out the Zzap write up scan. It is very likely that the games are out there, but now it is the task of trying to preserve them fully. Can you help us?
Yet another Thalamus title goes into the archives after a feature in Zzap Italia on the company. Here it was mentioned that Restrictor was coming to the C64 – with the following (translated thanks to Luca Bertoldi):
“Arc decided to work on an original game, Restrictor, in which you can have fun by driving and flying. Since the game is in an early development status, we do not know if we will first see the 8-bit version or the 16-bit one, but you can see in the picture that the game will let you control a super car and a flying vehicle along a 3d landscape. There will be 4 planets to explore and many alien waves to fight. Right now the scrolling looks very smooth, who knows what we can expect in the final version.”
Well, Arc Development’s Richard Underhill set the record straight in early 2021:
“There was never any C64 version in development and as far as I remember it was never considered. After the disaster trying to get something substantial in terms of sprite scaling on C64 Overlander at the cost of good gameplay, I’d have considered it a non-starter.”
Shadowgate was a very popular point and click adventure from 1987 on the Apple II, Mac, PC, Amiga and ST, and was released later in 1989 on the NES.
Contributor Luca Bertoldi however found that a C64 version was on the cards too – thanks to a Mindscape catalogue advert. And we don’t believe it is a red herring, as the developer ICOM Simulations have had C64 titles released, including Deja Vu and Uninvited from that same era (which are also mentioned in the advert as some of their titles).
So what happened exactly? We’re not quite sure just yet. The C64 was still popular in the US at the time, so it seems odd that Shadowgate was cancelled.
We believe that the game was very likely to have been in production by Fred Allen & Joe Gaucher – who did Deja Vu (and likely Uninvited too).
So the hunt begins! Can you help us recover the C64 version of this classic game?
Amazon Tales was to be something a little different from two game creators – Richard Bayliss and Alf Yngve. Richard was firstly doing a side ways scrolling game with a running man as a main character. Alf on the other hand was branching away from SEUCK on the C64 for the first time.
The 16kb cartridge competition ran by RGCD was coming up, and Richard decided to write a new game based on Jungle Story (and building on the Bionic Granny Returns game). As time went on, the idea blossomed into a completely different type of game where you play the vet from a tribe who accidentally has released an elephant from its pen into the jungle. You have to go and find it and bring it back to safety.
The game was a sideways scrolling game, and Alf produced all the graphics in SEUCK – which Richard later ported over to Charpad and into a completely new engine coded by Richard. The graphics produced were fantastic as usual by Alf.
However, sadly the game still very much felt like a SEUCK game that had been enhanced due to not quite getting to the stage of completion as planned, and as a result the game didn’t score greatly at the competition. It had some problems unfortunately with a few compilation problems, but Richard just about managed to get it submitted in time.
After the competition and at a 75% complete state – Richard was due to go back to the game and add features such as falling boulders, monkeys dropping coconuts and adding in collectible objects. Free time was limited though, and mixed in with a dipping motivation or enthusiasm for the game, Richard decided to call it a day on the game.
Richard has kindly passed on all the remaining resources on the game for us to add. It is pretty much a final version and completable, but we have still listed it as a preview, as there was certainly more to come for the game over time.
Then for Christmas 2019, Richard decided to actually finish off the game once and for all – so we’re pleased to add it here and also close the case. Creator Speaks has been updated to include details from Richard about his work!
Our next game is a title which was due for release in 2010 by Richard Bayliss. Richard as you know is a prolific game creator, and Ultimate Stunt Boat Challenge was to add to the impressive list of game titles under Richard’s belt.
The game was to build on the ruins of the Real Speed We Need title, which had graphics by myself, making use of the boat sprites in particular and moving from road to sea.
The idea was that you were involved in an action film and are a professional stunt man. You would have to jump over ramps and shoot bad guys in a typical sort of James Bond ‘esq title. It sort of had shades of Super Stuntman or Sky High Stuntman by Codemasters.
Whilst making good progress, Richard hit disaster and lost a load of work from his PC. He would have to start from scratch pretty much (only having a very early set of source files backed up), but before that – he went onto several other projects first. When coming back to the game – the mess of the code at the time was problematic for Richard to go back to. Feeling completely lost, Richard decided to put the game to sea.
Here you can download a preview of the game which is very early and features RWSN’s graphics lifted and plonked straight in. It feels a little rushed so far, and there is little to interact with, but it gives an indication of the direction where the game was going.
It is likely that Richard would have added to my original graphics and gone from there, as I had no involvement in the game directly.
Check out another piece of C64 gaming preservation…. preserved….
Thanks to Witold Bryndza for the heads up for our next entry, which was to be a stylish Hangman game produced for Eagleware International in 1995 by Faith Design
The game was to feature some very polished intros and graphics throughout to give the ultimate game of hangman on the C64 (trouncing no doubt the version that came with the Introduction to Basic pack!)
Unfortunately for reasons as yet unknown, the game was never completely finished off – with only a preview surfacing of the game in its early’ish stages.
Recently, the game’s author Marcin Guzik had put up a YouTube video showing the game with some more advanced intros and screens.
Is it possible that we may get to see these later versions of the game? For now, check out the preview and soon we hope to find out more about the plans for the game and what happened to it.
In 2020, Marcin mentioned that the intro was finished and published on CSDB. This has now been added to the site.
Device for Alien Destruction (D.A.D) was to be a game produced by a company called Dynamic Developments back in the late 80’s. Dynamic Developments were the same team who were looking to publish Bobby Bounce Back, but went under before it could be released. We believe Dynamic Developments had Richard (Players) Jones involved too
It seems that sadly the same fate befell D.A.D.
We got to know about the game thanks to Mark Wilson, who was asked to produce music for the game by the head of Dynamic Developments – Stuart Robb. He produced a series of tunes which featured cool samples.
There was no recollection about what the game was about – so this may require some further digging to get the full details. Was it a standard SEU type affair?
In the meantime, as part of Mark sifting through his work disks – he discovered the tunes he produced, and has kindly allowed GTW to release them here. Ian Coog also provided a rip of the tunes in SID format, which you can also download.
Now the hunt begins for those involved in the development of the game itself. Is this something you can help us with?
Outpost was to be a new game from a new software house called Frontier Games.
The game was briefly mentioned in a news item by ACE magazine for issue 16 in 1989. The preview shows a screenshot, which could very well be the C64 version itself.
The game’s main format was the C64 – and was to follow on the other formats at a later date. The game in the news snippet was described as a tactical game, where the aim would be to move four marine units and infiltrate a guarded enemy outpost.
Detailed characterization was promised, along with six interlocked missions per game. Here you would have to plan your strategy, polish up your tactics, make the moves and then sit back and watch the outcome in an arcade style animated sequence.
Unfortunately nothing was ever seen of the game, and it disappeared without trace. Initial searching didn’t find anything regarding the other versions or about the game itself. It was like ACE was the only magazine to ever hear about the game!
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