We cover Cancelled & Unreleased Video games for the Commodore 64 computer. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public, as well as prototypes and the odd preservation of released titles. Our aim to share history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late. GTW has been preserving lost video game history since 1999, and long before that offline.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host and have saved over the years.
Our third update of the year has more Commodore 64 goodness in the form of 4 new entries and 14 pre-existing entries updated (check ‘history’ tab for details of changes). This includes the wonderful recent Codemasters recovery of Magnum Force, an early Ocean game that transferred to Cascade,recovery of the PHM Pegasus – Advanced Battle Disk (thanks to HOK/Remember) and a mega ton of development assets added to Mag Max V1!
Enjoy and see you next month!
Mag Max V1 asset scans added
Thanks to developer Sean Townsend, over 300 items have been added to the gallery, showcasing the development of the long lost Mag Max V1 by Canvas:
Video is now live of the recent Games That Weren’t talk at The Retro Collective. Hope you enjoy it and thank you so much to The Cave for hosting us. A fantastic place which I hope many of you will consider visiting and supporting!
Right under our noses all along! The long “lost” Commodore 64 Codemasters game Magnum Force has finally been fully preserved today thanks to Nostalgia, after being hidden on the Codemasters CD compilation and undetected for over 30 years.
Our second update of the year has more Commodore 64 goodness in the form of 7 new entries and 11 pre-existing entries updated (check ‘history’ tab for details of changes).
Just had the most fantastic weekend at Retro Collective with my wife, Tasha, giving a talk on Games That Weren’t and the digital preservation of unreleased games over the past 25 years or so. A huge thank you to Neil and the team for inviting me – I was completely blown away by how many people had paid to come along (some from quite far, including the Netherlands!) just to hear me ramble on for just over an hour. It was especially great to see my friends Paul Drury and Paul Savage, who had traveled a long way – mostly to heckle me!
I was incredibly nervous at first, especially with a few hours to wait before my 2 PM talk and the challenge of cramming everything into an hour. But Neil and the whole Retro Collective team made us feel so welcome, and the crowd was fantastic – laughing at the embarrassing photos and bad jokes, asking loads of questions, and generally making it an interactive and fun experience. I even managed to sneak in some audience participation to give them a breather from my voice!
Afterwards, there was a book signing and some great chats with people who had come along. I couldn’t believe it when Neil told me that all the copies had sold out! Continue reading →
Not quite unreleased games today, but some preservation work with the full set of the Commodore 64 fanzine: Commodore Cracker added to Internet Archive. It should be pretty much the full set, though some extras are unfortunately still missing.
It’s a new year and our first Games That Weren’t Commodore 64 digest update. We have 6 brand new entries into the archive, including a lost Robin Hood game and what seems to be a lost Ocean game too (but thankfully is out there!). Then we have another 6 that have seen various updates.
Platforms: Commodore 64 (GTW64 entry), Apple II and possibly DOS
A short entry for a title highlighted by contributor Ricky Derocher, and which was due for release back in 1985 by Windham Classics – the same team that created classics such as Below the Root and Wizard of Oz.
In a catalogue that came with Swiss Family Robinson, there is a very small advert for a Robin Hood game that is coming soon, along with Wizard of Oz and to be available in the spring of 1985.
Of course, sadly the game was never to arrive, leaving us wondering what type of game it may have been. Our guess is that it would have been a graphic text adventure in the same format as The Wizard of Oz or Swiss Family Robinson – so potential candidates of people involved could include: Howard Boles (Musician), John Pierard (Graphics), Michael P. Meyer (Code), Daniel J. Mydlack (Graphics) and Seth Godin (Code). Continue reading →
Our next Christmas 2024 update sees Games That Weren’t take a look at a series of early concepts and prototypes from the late Archer Maclean’s disks. This includes the first ever look at concepts for an abandoned Atari/Commodore sequel to Dropzone, a special A8 Arcade version of Dropzone, early pre-release Dropzone materials, International Karate A8 prototypes + assets and various IK+ graphical assets.
Archer had previously spoken about working on a sequel to Dropzone, where the main character would drop into a cavern environment and go underground. Perhaps he was inspired by Atari’s Major Havoc?
We found nothing playable, but we did find a series of graphic files where Archer was playing with the idea, and you can see all of these concepts below in the gallery for the very first time. Continue reading →
Our final update of 2024 for the Commodore 64 archive. This year has gone in a flash as always, as we pass our 25th year of Games That Weren’t. We hope to finish with a bit of a bang, and have some surprise findings for you. We hope you enjoy them – here goes:
Wacky Races V1 recovered!
A surprise recovery for the GTW archives to kick things off, with a completely different and full version of Hi-Tec Software’s game (created by a completely different development team).
The complete conversion of Artic Software’s Alladin’s Cave has finally been recovered in its final and complete form. Check out this neat clone of Tales of the Arabian Nights:
Alternative Software’s 666 – Number of the Beast recovered!
No, we had never heard of it either! A complete surprise and incomplete development by Keith Purkiss of a flick screen arcade adventure, similar in some ways to Feud. Very early, but a very large map for you to explore!
Thanks to Csaba Virag, a full football management game has been recovered and which doesn’t seem to have been preserved. Still much to learn about this one, but here it is for now:
Mario Bros hacks added – Insect Kill and Clean All
Thanks to Marcin ‘Tenchi’ Świętoniewski, two strange 1994 Polish hacks of Mario Bros have been saved, which contain different sprites and added music. An interesting set of curiosities!
Keith has very kindly these past few months allowed us at Games That Weren’t to preserve all of his work disks that he recently found (which has resulted in our first four findings above). We have also preserved his master/work disks for the likes of Tiger Road, Rygar, Little Puff, Dragon Spirit, It’s a Knockout, Kenny Daglish Soccer, Lazer Tag, Last Mission, and Snoball in Hell:
Then finally, we have been busy making a lot of updates to various entries already in the archive. Please refer to the “History” tab for each entry to see what has changed and been added:
And that is it for 2024 for the Commodore 64 Games That Weren’t archive. Thank you everyone for all your help and support this year, in what has been a tough year for many reasons. I look forward to bringing you a lot more new discoveries in 2025!
DISCLAIMER: We are a non-profit digitisation project, aiming to digitally preserve software and history which would otherwise be lost for good. If for any reason there is anything that you do not wish to be on the website, please contact us for removal.
Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
