Abattoir in Cosmos
Abattoir in Cosmos was an unreleased shoot-em’-up game developed around 2000 by the Russian shareware game company AxySoft (known for creating the relatively popular 3D Qix/Xonix clone AirXonix). Continue reading
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Shutter Jack
Founded in 1997, RingZero Game Studios is a game development company based in Thailand . The studio is often known for making casual and family-friendly games on iOS, the Wii, and the PSP. Back in the PS3 era, however, they attempted to break away from their usual mould by thinking bigger. That opportunity arose when they began work on a mysterious game known as Shutter Jack. Continue reading
Garfield Gets Real
Most people will be familiar with the Nintendo DS adaptation of Garfield Gets Real, released in 2009 and based on the animated film of the same name. What is less well known is that a Wii version was also planned, but never saw release.
Very little is currently known about the cancelled conversion. A single music track from the game, titled “Studio”, has surfaced online, but no prototype builds, screenshots or gameplay footage are presently known to exist. Although a Wii cover image circulates online, the available sources identify it as fan-made rather than official. Continue reading
Madballs
Now many of you will know that Ocean released a game based on the licence of Madballs in 1987, though what you might not know is that another version was in development for Ariolasoft before Ocean had got the licence confirmed. What is even better is that you can now check it out for yourself!
Developed by Ian Munro whilst at Millside Software, this particular take of the licence was very different to the final Ocean Software design, and took a pinball game approach. Oddly, there is no actual Madballs branding at all in the game at this stage either. Continue reading
Two Lost Atari 5200 Prototypes Recovered from Frank Cohen’s Archives
News of another fantastic preservation story to share, this time for the Atari 5200. Thanks to a collaborative effort between several members of the Atari community, two long-lost prototypes by prolific Atari programmer Frank Cohen have been recovered from original source code. Continue reading
In: Atari 5200, News 2 Comments
Rimini, Mare Azzurro
Before Simulmondo became famous for sports titles, comic book licences and adventures, the company had grander ambitions for its debut line-up. One of the earliest announced projects was Rimini, Mare Azzurro (also referred to as Rimini, Blue Sea), a graphic adventure that unfortunately never progressed beyond planning stages.
The title appeared in previews during 1988, including MC Microcomputer issue 73, where it was presented alongside several of Simulmondo’s other forthcoming projects. At the time, the game was described as being well underway, featuring digitised graphics in the style of Déjà Vu and taking place in the Italian seaside resort of Rimini during the 1950s. The intention was to create a murder mystery or thriller with a distinctly Italian setting, something quite unusual for the period. Continue reading
Games That Weren’t C64 – July 2026 updates
As predicted, a bit quieter this month, but we still have a new entry in the Commodore 64 archive and 18 various updates to existing entries to check out (see “History” tab for changes). We’ll have more again for you next month! Continue reading
In: GTW64 news, News 3 Comments
World Geography C64 disks preserved
Allan Pinkerton has been busy once more, preserving World Geography 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993 editions which you can check out with full scans here:
https://archive.org/search?tab=all&query=commodore+bobco&sort=-publicdate
These are the English editions, and there are other language versions out there that need preserving. Allan has also flagged that 1986 and 1989 are missing, so please get in touch if you can help with those! Continue reading
Eye of Horus pre-release disk (Commodore 64)
Something a bit different for the Games That Weren’t archives today, with preservation of what seems to be a strange pre-release version of Logotron’s Eye of Horus on the Commodore 64.
The disk was discovered at Level Up Games in Canterbury last year from a collection that was saved from Ashford, Kent. I thought the disk label was particularly curious, as it states a version number on the label and even suggests a built-in cheat mode.
Was the disk potentially a review copy that was sent out to magazines back in the day? We’re not 100% sure. The disk label doesn’t match any of the released versions.
There could well be very minor differences, and in particular bugs that were ironed out before the final release. If you find anything interesting of note, please let us know and we’ll update the page. Continue reading
Two Commodore Plus/4 Educational Titles Preserved
Thanks to Csaba Virág, we’ve learned of two more pieces of Commodore Plus/4 software that have thankfully been preserved. Dino Daddy is an English language learning program where players translate words, whilst Matek Robi is an educational mathematics title. Both programs were provided by Imre Lóránth and digitally preserved by László Bozsó.
Interestingly, the software was written by the same author behind the commercially released Rabló Rulett, though it isn’t currently known if either educational title was ever commercially published themselves. Continue reading
