Games That Weren't 64^®

Not to be confused with the Commodore VIC-20 game of the same name – this particular Garden Wars was developed in Italy and to be released by a company called JCE.

Andrea Pachetti revealed the game in a great blog post in November 2022 and that the game was first cited back in mid-1984, and remained in the publisher’s catalogue until at least 1986.

So was the game actually ever in existence? Did anyone buy it? The game was unfortunately at large, even though it was sort of reviewed and is seen in physical forms in catalogue images. A screenshot of part of the game was shown too.

Thanks to Andrea’s post as the original source, the game is described as follows:

Romeo , the protagonist of our game, is the victim of a spell cast on him by the old witch of the woods, since some time ago he had collected magical seedlings destined for mysterious spells. To free himself from the spell that oppresses him, Romeo must go through eight enchanted gardens that separate him from the wall beyond which he will find salvation.

During this adventurous and dangerous journey he must collect all the lucky charm plants he encounters in his steps, while avoiding the poisonous ones planted by the witch in his path. But his escape is also hampered by horrendous monsters who relentlessly pursue him, and if that weren’t enough he must avoid falling into the many bewitched wells .

Once he has reached the ladder , he cannot enter the next garden without having collected all the lucky plants and having touched all the gnomes of the wood which will help him escape. Once he reaches the eighth garden, to pass this last test that separates him from freedom, he will have to contend with six monsters, and once under the wall he will have to look for the ladder blindly , since he will not be able to see it. Find it, it will come down automatically, and Romeo will be free.

Andrea has done a very detailed search and investigation, and so far hasn’t been able to match up the game to any other releases – and was so believed to be at large.

Two years later in 2024, Silvio got in touch via the comments to say that they had a rare copy of the game in their collection and was willing to sell to see it preserved.

As Silvio was based in Italy and because this was Andrea’s original search, it made sense for Andrea to be the one who recovered the game – so we linked the two up, and this was the result:

https://quattrobit.substack.com/p/garden-wars-jce-1984

Andrea collaborated with Ready64 to ensure that the game was fully preserved, and you can now check it out for yourself. Then in November 2024, Ready64.org produced an article that talks about the game and its copy protection which you can view at https://ready64.org/recensioni/leggi_recensione.php?idrec=38

A very early and simple game, but yet another recovered and case closed!

Contributions: Andrea Pachetti, Fabrizio Bartoloni, Silvio, Ready64

Supporting content

• Downloads
• Gallery
• History

Available downloads

• garden_wars_tap (zip)
• Game_Garden_wars (zip)

Gallery

Update history

• 08/11/24 – TAP image added + link to detailed write up on the game from Ready64.org
• 10/10/24 – Game fully preserved and case closed!