Cancelled, Unreleased and Lost Video Games for the Commodore 64 Since 1999
Apologies all – its a very small GTW64 update this month, as my Dad sadly passed away at the beginning of the month. As a result, i’ve been busy making funeral arrangements and sorting out bits and pieces.
Normal service will hopefully start to resume from next week onwards and for next month. Thank you everyone for your support!
Arthur, Born In Space, Chinese Juggler V1, Game Maker
Dedicated to my Dad – Charlie Gasking (27/06/37 – 03/07/24)
Now in the middle of 2024, a bit of a slow down with new entries with just the one (a second Gremlins adventure game), but also 18 updates to pre-existing entries (check the “History” tab for each for more details), including some major findings on EastEnders (sadly not good news!).
Alien Vs Predator, Arthur, Beat Em Up, Corporate Raider, EastEnders, Eleroo, Galencia Khaos Sphere, Gremlins, Gunboat, Inside Trader, Maximum Retaliation, Paranoid Pete, Space Raider, Splish Splash, Squad One, Stargate, Sword Of The Samurai, Vietnam Gunboat
See you all next month!
As we near the middle of 2024, work continues in the Commodore 64 archive of Games That Weren’t, with more new entries added and also 23 titles updated in total. Much more on the way too for next month! (Apologies to Anonymous Contributor, whose recent set of new contributions I’ll add for next month).
Centurion Software titles, Das Reich der Toten, Dragon’s Lair, Tron, Unnamed Star Trek game
Many more entries updated – each entry contains a “History” tab to explain what has been updated.
Arthur, Bacillus, Bubbles, Eleroo, Epsilon, Galencia Khaos Sphere, Halloween, Halo Jones, Judge Death, Lock On, Murder!, Operation Thunderbolt V1, Paradroid V1, Space Raider, Storm Warrior, Strider USA, Time Scanner V1, Toms Revenge, Top Wrestling, Trojan, Virus, Winnetou, Wonderboy V1
See you all next month!
It is a big week, as we celebrate our 25th Anniversary of Games That Weren’t. It’s also our monthly update to the Commodore 64 archive, with plenty of new and updated materials for you to check out.
To tie in with the 25th Anniversary celebrations which are due on the site this Wednesday, we have also hit a significant milestone with 2,500 entries now available within the GTW64 archive. Since 1999, we have been building the archive and recovering many unreleased games for the Commodore 64 for you to check out!
Ok, I admit – to get up to that magic number, I may have made sure that I added at least 6 new entries this month. This includes news of a possible US version of Strider and some other promising titles which sadly seem to have been abandoned.
Bacillus, Beat Em Up, Bruce Lee 2, Galencia Khaos Sphere, Infared, Strider USA
Then we have quite a few updates and changes to 24 titles, with a lot of updates thanks to Anonymous Contributor. Each page has a “History” segment which explains what has changed.
ABC, Arthur, Breaker, Bushido Warrior, Chart Breaker, Euchre for Four, Field of Fire, Goremium, Habitat, Horror Drive, Koshimo, Lotya, Mindsmear, Orbital Run, Piracy, Quest for Cyrus, Starfighter One, Starglider 2, Super Elite, Super Pinball, Super Stardust, Time Scanner V1, Twintris, Ultra Games
See you all next month, and look out for the 25th Anniversary post coming up in a day or so!
Bushido Warrior (or potentially just Bushido) was a new oriental themed Gauntlet clone that was due out for a wide number of platforms, published by Ariolasoft/U.S. Gold. The Commodore 64 edition is already well documented via our GTW64 page.
Although a Gauntlet clone, it was more than just a clone – and it seems that the entire 16-bit editions may have been based off the Gauntlet conversion codebase. Computer and Video Games magazine spoke with the ST developers, Graham Lilley and Teoman Irmak in August 1987. Continue reading
A slightly smaller update this month, as we focus efforts on preserving the rest of Archer Maclean’s disks and also the Micro-Antics collection for the VIC-20. However, still plenty of new content to take a look at – including the recovery of the lost Breakdown loading screen, a number of educational title findings, a strange Ocean Software game done for TV and more.
Missing for over 30 years, the lost loading screen for Breakdown that wasn’t included with the Zzap!64 covertape game, but shown in the magazine pages has been recovered thanks to Icon / The Preservers:
Many preserved titles and a nice new Ocean oddity too:
Angler, Software for Schools titles
Body Slam, Caveman Ninja, Chariot Race 64, Last Ninja V1, Quizer, Race Through Space, Sunburst Communications titles, Undead, Field of Fire, Piracy (C128)
Already into the second month of 2024, and plenty more updates for the GTW64 archive. So here is what we have for February 2024:
Thanks to Csaba Virag, two more seemingly unpreserved games have been found. It isn’t clear if they were actually released or not, but here they are:
Then we have a new batch of titles added to the archives thanks to our contributors (each credited in each piece). The archive continues to grow even today!
3D Killer Piller, ABC, Bndrsntch, Bombuzal editor, Curse of the Pharaohs, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Euchre for Four, Field of Fire, Quest for Cyrus, Ruba e fuggi, Two hearts and a chickenpot
Then as usual – we finish with a series of updates to entries already in the archive. Details of what has changed/been added can be found in the history tab for each title.
Chain Reaction V1, Delphian, Forbidden Planet, Further Adventures of Alice in Videoland, Metal Piramid, Morgol, Pirates of the Ocean, Pulsator, Speed Fighter, The 4th Dimension, Tyger Tyger, Who Dares Wins
Allan has been helping out GTW64 for many years with various preservation efforts, and he is now uploading many more over at Archive.org, so be sure to check things out:
A quick post thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog, to highlight the recent recovery of an unpreserved educational title for the C64 called Matchmaker: Grammar. Released in 1983 by American Educational Computer.
The disk was preserved by SoulBuster on the AtariAge forums, who has prolifically been preserving many a Atari 400/800 title. With Matchmaker, there was an Atari version one side, and C64 the other. The download can be found below.
Matchmaker Grammar (1983)(American Educational Computer)(US)[disk]
A new year, and to hit the ground running we have had a large amount of updates to the Commodore 64 archive this month. Here goes:
In case you missed it, this month thanks to Csaba Virag, we added two lost full games and a preview, one of which is a neat little platformer.
Metal Piramid, Jump People, The Spirit
A bit of a strange one, where this odd sequel to Alice in Videoland was released by Bug Byte on budget, but was incomplete. A game where there is much more to find!
Further Adventures of Alice in Videoland
As well as the above, we have 6 other new entries added – some of which might be titles that are out there and just need preserving.
Chemistry Tutorial, Global Conquest, Gumby, Heckle and Jeckle, Istar Crossword Jr., Morgol
Then almost last but not least, we have 17 entry updates, with new information, scans and more – including a number of missing titles that have been preserved under the likes of the Dynacomp catalog, Orbyte Software titles and Sunburst Communications thanks to Allan Pinkerton!
19 Boot Camp – Part 2, 2400 A.D., Bomb, Car Game, Derek Bell’s Le Mans, Dynacomp catalog titles, Grubz, Infection, Jaceman, Laser Disc to C64 interface, Mad Planets, Murder!, Orbyte Software titles, People from Sirius, Sunburst Communications titles, The Ronin, Undead
And finally we have preservation of a vehicle advertisement/catalogue disk from Allan Pinkerton which we have shared on the site.
Enjoy and see you next month!
Contributor Allan Pinkerton is on fire at the moment with his preservation work, and he has preserved a large bundle of educational titles from Kidware and also Bible research files for the Commodore 64.
There is also a Quiz Minder title which Allan has tried to dump, but has been having issues with so far. We’ve added what Allan has preserved so far.
We haven’t created GTW entries, as these titles were actually released – but we are sharing the preservation work that Allan has done, so here you go and please feel free to add to any digital archives:
In March 2024, Marco Das then preserved some more Kidware titles, which you can find links to below:
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Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
