Welcome to Games That Weren't 64!
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.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host and have saved over the years.
Latest News and Posts
GTW64 October 2024 update
Its now getting cold, but the updates are still coming – and quite a few this month in the Commodore 64 archive with the following:
Alleykat rare non-playable demo preserved
A nice little bonus to kick off the update thanks to Marco Das, with a rare non-playable demo added to our prototypes area. Could it be made playable perhaps, and does it contain anything not in the final release?
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2024/10/alleykat-non-playable-demo/
22 new entries added
Ajax, Around the World in 80 Days, Back in the USSR, Blood’n Guts 2, Cuthbert in the Tubes, Enchantress, Football Boss, Goodnight Cruel World, Mad Mission, Mars Cops, Paradroid V1, Parisian Knights, Penitentiary, Racer, Raid on Romaro , Road Frog, Sinister, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Red Carnation, Unnamed Ice Fishing Game, Unnamed Shoot’em up, Warp One
46 updates added
There were a lot of updates to pre-existing entries this month. More details can be found in the history tab for each title.
3D Formula One, Alternate Reality – Missing parts, Bamboo, Battle Truck, Chronic the Badger, Crystal Castles V1, Daxis, Deadly Summer, Diabolik, Donkey Kong Jr, Dropzone 2, Eagle Storm, Erik The Destroyer, Escape 2, Euchre for Four, European SuperLeague, Geister, Giana 2 – Arthur And Martha In Future World, Goremium, House of Changes, Hydrogenese, Joust, King Of Chicago, Lasertrain, Logger Mania, Mario Bros, Missile Command, Mission Extreme, Monster Bash, Ms. Pac Man V1, Neiw, Planet 10, Psyclapse, Reach For The Moon, Stargate, The Magic Roundabout, The Ronin, Tran, Typo Attack, Unicorn Software titles, Unknown Educational game, Unnamed Game, Valley Of The Source, Vanguard, Vietnam Gunboat, Warriors
See you all next month! It might be a shorter update whilst we prepare for the end of year update – we’ll see how things go.
Alleykat non-playable demo
A lovely curiosity added to the archives today thanks to Marco Das, with the preservation of a very rare non-playable demo of Alleykat distributed by Hewson back in the day. It was likely for shops to showcase the game in their stores, or for magazines to get a sneak preview before release.
The tape was purchased from a Norwegian retro gaming site by Marco and has been fully preserved as a TAP image, and with the original DMP images too. Below are the downloads and a video of the demo too.
I wondered if the demo may actually still contain any joystick related code to make it playable once more, and if there could be content that was cut from the final release. Well, Martin Piper came to the rescue and produced the following:
Below is an added download for the playable version that Martin has very kindly created. It seems that the game is pretty much the final game, just had the demo/preview code adding in. If we’re wrong, please do let us know.
A huge thank you to Marco Das for saving the demo and for Martin Piper for making playable!
Download
- Demo_Alleykat
- Alleykat demo play – thanks to Martin Piper!
Gallery
Bug Blitz (C64) prototype
Just a short post to add a slightly earlier prototype of Ariolasoft’s Bug Blitz which has been recovered thanks to Csaba Virag and Janos Szeitz (who digitized the turbo tape where it was found).
Contact form issues
Hi all – just a heads up that our contact form had a few issues over the weekend. If you have contacted us, then your message may have got lost. Apologies in advance! Should be all fixed now.
Frank
It Came From The Desert
1989 Cinemaware
Platforms: Atari ST, Commodore 64, SEGA Mega Drive
A pretty famous Cinemaware title which was originally released on the Amiga and PC, but also had other versions planned that never saw the light of day. The Commodore 64 version we are already covering within the C64 archive, which has had mentions of being in development – but there is little evidence at this stage that anything was started.
For the Atari ST – ST Action mentioned in issue 11, 1990 that the game was coming soon for the platform, and may have showed a screenshot for that platform. It is very likely it could also just be a screen from the Amiga version. Continue reading
