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

GTW64 July 2025 update

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Our seventh update of the year is a special one, as July featured one of our holy grail titles finally being found with the release of Nigel Mansell World Championship. There were also seven new entries added to the archives, including the full recovery of The Mystic Zone graphic adventure and the sad inclusion of the very promising Moonspire 2.

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Then to conclude, we have 12 existing entries updated, including confirmation that Runestone was the work of Sensible Software, and that Special Agent 2 sadly was merely vapourware. See you all next month!

The Mystic Zone full graphic adventure (Hungarian) recovered!

Thanks to the amazing recovery work of team member Csaba Virag, yet another full game has been recovered – this time a complete Hungarian graphic adventure game called The Mystic Zone.

The Mystic Zone

7 new entries added

1944, Bug Off, Get Ready to Think with BJ the Bear, Get Ready to Write with BJ the Bear, Mega Race, Moonspire 2, Magic Voice Vocabulary

Nigel Mansell World Championship recovered!

Posted separately during July – we recovered and released the full remains of the long lost Gremlin racer that many of us had been waiting for since 1992

Nigel Mansell World Championship

12 updates added

Castle Capers, Counting Bee, Delta Mission, Dominion, Magic Workshop series, Nefarious, , Obliterator, Project Sparkk, Runestone, Special Agent 2, The Magic Garden Talking Book Series, The Spelling Bee

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GTW64 June 2025 update

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Our sixth update of the year for our ever-growing Commodore 64 archive is mostly updates this month, with 3 new entries, including Dominion (a long lost shooter), details about a Stephen Hendry snooker game from Zeppelin that fell through and a rather risqué adventure game which many feel could have been a fake.

All finished off with 16 updates with various new scans and also new updated screenshots for the Mega Games entry after the recent better quality BBC Commercial Breaks upload, and news of an Alien 3 prototype. Oh, and keep an eye out on the site tomorrow! ;)

Dominion – a full shoot-em-up recovered!

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Thanks to Hedning / Genesis Project, a surprise and complete Delta-style budget shoot-em-up has been recovered from the strangest of places, written by the team that did Black Tiger for U.S. Gold. Check out a fun little shooter!

Dominion

2 new entries added

Stephen Hendry Snooker, Ifigonia

16 updates added

3 2 1 quiz game, Castle Capers, Commando 86, Covermount casualties, Crystalopis, Drive, Elevator, Intruder, Jeeps, Mega Games, Mindstone, Night Walker, Psyclapse, The Last Stuntman, Ultra Games, Unknown Educational game

Alien 3 prototype recovered

In case you missed it the other week, Sailor/Triad has recovered a rare prototype of Alien 3 for the C64 which has some minor differences compared to the final version.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/alien-3-c64-prototype-recovered

A surprise for tomorrow!

An extra surprise is coming hopefully tomorrow morning for the site. Watch this space ;-)

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Alien 3 C64 prototype recovered

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to Sailor of Triad, a rare prototype of Alien 3 for the Commodore 64 has just been discovered recently. This was a demo that was seemingly produced for producer Joe Bonar to take a look at back in the day to see progress with the project.

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It is possible that it could have been also passed onto magazines for screenshots – which makes it a shame that it wasn’t included as a demo on the likes of Commodore Force or Format at the time. Continue reading →

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Ifigonia

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1985 Quickly

Platforms: ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 (GTW64 entry)

Our next entry into the GTW archives is a slightly controversial title due to its rather risqué advertisement that featured in the Italian press at the time. Ifigonia was an erotic/adult themed text adventure, with graphics created by artist Mauro Mazza. The game was based on a poem from 1928.

After a few adverts for the ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC – the game disappeared without a trace, and some even wondered if it was a hoax of some kind. One magazine (Sperimentare) showed a rather different looking cover-art case and talked about the game. We don’t think they actually review it, as the details about the title are quite vague. It is mentioned though that the graphics would be a mixture of comic-like graphics and animations throughout. Continue reading →

Posted in Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 (C64), ZX Spectrum | Tagged | Leave a comment

Podcast appearance with Mamemeister

Posted: by Frank Gasking
I had the pleasure of being a guest on the “Nice and Nasty Gaming Podcast” with Mamemeister recently! We chatted about Games That Weren’t, how I first got into gaming, and picked out three games I’d take to a desert island… and three I’d happily launch into the sun!
 
If that sounds like your thing, you can have a listen here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5hZzC1TwOxahT569p5ETyX

Or you can also listen via YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW81sZ90DG0

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GTW64 May 2025 update

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Our fifth update of the year has a number of new entries added, including a game that was once submitted to Zzap and just disappeared, beginnings of a Pacman game that never was intended for Mastertronic, and Elite’s strange Commando-themed game that would eventually be renamed to Duet. We also have some updates to existing entries (details of each update in the history notes). More for you again next month!

8 new entries added

Commando 86, Drive, Miner 2049er, Miner on Mars, Politique Economique, The Honeymooners, The Pacman Strikes Back, Twilyte

9 updates added

666 – The Number of the Beast, Airwolf 2 V1, Charlie Chaplin, Moonshadow, Rim Raiders, The Last Stuntman, Twilight Zone, Undead, Whuppie Tale

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Rare Italian bootleg of The Quill preserved!

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Whilst at Zzap Live in May 2025, we met up with the legendary Tim Gilberts, who set up Gilsoft at the age of just 17. Tim flagged up that he had a very rare Italian bootleg of The Quill which didn’t seem to be out there and preserved called “Adventure Writer (Creator 2)”. Unfortunately it wouldn’t load for him.

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An hour or so later, Tim excitedly informed us that the adventure creator had suddenly loaded for him – but he had no mechanism of backing up. We attempted to back up using a 1541-Ultimate 2 from Andy Spencer (Retro Computer Museum) – but it wasn’t having it. So Tim very kindly agreed to loan the tape and manual to Games That Weren’t to preserve. Continue reading →

Posted in Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news, Preservation | Tagged | 7 Comments

Games That Weren’t talk at Zzap Live 2025

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Just had a fantastic time at Zzap Live in Kenilworth over the two days with my friend Brian ONeill, catching up with lots of friends old and new (and a bit of gaming). Thank you everyone who came to heckle at the Games That Weren’t talk (and even kindly laugh at my crap Total Recall reference) and to Paul Drury for being a great wing man.

Well done to Chris Wilkins and the rest of the team of putting together yet another amazing event. There is now a video recording live at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlOGKwrN7uk thanks to Paul Davies (Back to 8-bit with Hermski). There is a surprise reveal for the Commodore 64 at the end ;-)

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Posted in Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore Amiga, Commodore VIC-20, General, GTW64 news, News | 2 Comments

Rock Star Goes Bizarre (C64) recovery

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to Fliplift on the Lemon64 forums, a very rare promo edition of Rock Star Ate My Hamster on the Commodore 64 has been recovered. This was released through The Sun newspaper, and has been missing for quite some time, though a ZX Spectrum version has been recovered a while back.

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According to Luca/Fire on the forum thread, Codemasters and The Sun ran a competition with ten runners up prizes being special editions of the game. The special edition includes 7 additional stars, with Kylie Minogue renamed as Koily Mynose instead of Bimbo Baggins. Continue reading →

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