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, and long before that offline.

Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host and have saved over the years.

Latest News and Posts

International Karate prototypes

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1986 Archer Maclean / System 3

Platform: Commodore 64 (Atari to come)

In late 2023, Games That Weren’t was tasked with trying to preserve all of the late Archer Maclean’s work disks – including Atari and C64 formatted disks. At the time of writing, work is still ongoing, though we have been given permission by Chris Wilkins (Fusion Retro Books) to add any executable/early prototypes to show you that we find along the way.

ikproto large

First up are a small selection of prototypes from the first International Karate game, including a non-playable demo with two fighters interacting, and with no score panels or sound. There is a more advanced second prototype with the same kind of thing, with music and no sound effects.

Continue reading →

Posted in Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news, Prototype | Tagged | 3 Comments

IK+ prototypes

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1987 Archer Maclean / System 3 / Activision

Platform: Commodore 64

In late 2023, Games That Weren’t was tasked with trying to preserve all of the late Archer Maclean’s work disks – including Atari and C64 formatted disks. At the time of writing, work is still ongoing, though we have been given permission by Chris Wilkins (Fusion Retro Books) to add any executable/early prototypes to show you that we find along the way.

ikplus large1

Next up are a selection of prototypes from International Karate + (aka IK+), which show how Archer’s early idea for creating a 3rd fighter would start to blossom and build up into the IK+ game that we all know and love. If you haven’t already, we recommend checking out this great documentary on how both IK and IK+ were created: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRFZS9wzt7s

Continue reading →

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Polar Bear in Space prototypes

Posted: by Frank Gasking

2023 Silvan Reinhold / Psytronik Software

Platform: Commodore 64

If you haven’t seen Polar Bear in Space already, then you are missing out on a wonderful shooter/platformer which has elements of Wizball, Retrograde and even Dropzone with the explosion of the main protagonist.

pbis large

At the time of writing, a new Black Edition of the game is immiment, which features new music by Jon Wells and a specially produced loading screen by Robin Levy. Silvan has also written a brilliant book that details how the game was all put together, which we recommend you keeping an eye out for. Continue reading →

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Various C64 educational titles preserved

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A huge thank you to Allan Pinkerton, who has preserved several educational titles from Micro Labs and Cymbal Software for the Commodore 64.

As they are not unreleased game entries, we have just made this post to make them available to all, and hopefully over time they will get integrated into various other digital archives, including Gamebase64.

Here are the links below and a huge thanks once more to Allan for all his hard work!

Downloads
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Linkword German (C64) preserved

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Just a quick post to share some preservation work by our friend Allan Pinkerton, with Linkword German by Artworx on the Commodore 64.

As it was released, it doesn’t warrant creating a GTW64 entry, so we’ve done a post with it instead for people to grab.

With thanks to Allan Pinkerton for preserving and passing on.

Download
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GTW64 October 2023 updates

Posted: by Frank Gasking

With Autumn well and truly under way and the nights drawing in, there is less time outside and more time trying to update the archive as best as we can. This month we have the following for you:

5 new entries added

Details about an earlier build of Chain Reaction, a possible sequel to Special Agent, an April Fools and more.

zak1

Chain Reaction V1, Daniel Shutters games, Special Agent 2, TJ, Zak McKracken 2

16 updates added

Plenty more updates to the archive too, including some rare screenshots of Curse of the Mushroom People added, more scans added to Bomb and a lot more.

mush1

Amok, Bomb, Curse of the Mushroom People, Nedime – The Caliph’s Daughter, Operation Mindcrime Xertyn-X, Operation Thunderbolt V1, Orbyte Software titles, Phantomas, Plan 9 Outer Space, Super C, The Critters Company, The Western Game, Twilight Beyond, Unicorn Software titles, Unnamed Andrew Braybrook game, Wild Women Of Wonga

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GTW64 September 2023 updates

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Well, seems like summer doesn’t want to end and if anything it feels hotter than August! Whilst we melt away, the updates continue within the GTW64 archives with the following additions and updates:

7 new entries added

As well as a strange (early?) version of Poltergeist, we have a number of previously unpreserved Hungarian games thanks to Csaba Virag and also some new titles highlighted by Baracuda:

Poltergeist V1, Raceday, Sakkozo Elefant, Strike Back, Szigethy Quest, The Stock Exchange, Time Quest

19 updates added

As well as the usual updates, tucked away is the recovery of Monkeybuilder and Bible Baseball and joining the dots for Ash and Dave’s car game – Switchblade (nothing to do with the Gremlin game!):

Anty Up, Bible Baseball, Bomb, Brain Death, Combat Chess, Deadhead, Diskovery titles, Donkey Kong Jr, EastEnders, Matterhorn, Money Minefield, Monkeybuilder, Murder!, Pharaoh’s Pyramid, Phoenix Lair, Switchblade, Typo Attack, Vanguard, Vapour

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Gamebase64 needs you!

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Gamebase64 has been a hugely important digital archive for the Commodore 64 for over 25 years now, bringing together all of the games that have made the platform so special.

Webmaster and developer Steven Feurer tragically passed away suddenly in July 2023 which has hit the team incredibly hard. Steve was a great friend to all the team and was the glue that kept everything together and running for so long. Without Steve, there is no web presence – which is important to promote the site and encourage submissions/corrections.

Leaving the team without a web developer and maintainer has now put the project at huge risk of losing its online presence. Michael Plate (Database project leader, creator and maintainer of the collection) has put out a plea via the Lemon64 forums for any help to keep this great project going.

I wish personally that I could step in to help, but we have too much going on at the moment with preservation work and Games That Weren’t.

If you feel you might be able to help, or know someone who could, please do get in touch via the forum at: https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83094 and help save this amazing digital archive.

Posted in GTW64 news, News | 3 Comments