Games That Weren't^®

So where did 2015 go? Only feels like the other month I was doing last years special update :)
It’s been a massive year, with one of the most important lost C64 games finally found amongst one of our most busiest years – and yet there is still plenty more to find and are continuing to be found!

We hope you all have a great holiday and new year, and we’ll see you again in 2016 with more discoveries (of which we have some brilliant ones lined up!). But for now, enjoy today’s offerings:

Sigue Sigue Sputnik found

The legendary (and almost thought to be mythical) title has been found in believed to be its final state. This long lost Tony Gibson game is pretty wacky and sadly never got picked up by any publishers at the time to be completed.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik

Worron, lost Firebird game found

Richard Paynter’s long lost Firebird game that never was, from probably the last remaining copy in existence.

Worron

Firefighter Mario found

A long lost unofficial Mario game. Possibly released commercially (to be confirmed), it hasn’t yet been digitally available.

Firefighter Mario

Urban Warrior final edition added

Richard Bayliss has fixed up Video Images’ Urban Warrior game, so that it is now as originally intended. Complete with linked loading screen, map fix and music.

Urban Warrior

Enemy SEU remains found

An early phase rolling demo of the R-Type clone by Stuart Cook and Ned Langman has been found, including a loading screen and test ship sequence.

Enemy

Various early Ash and Dave games

Ash and Dave were working on a few titles that didn’t get very far at all. For most, we have managed to find some graphic assets which you can check out for the following:

Bob’s Full House V1, Croc, Switchblade, Unknown football game, Unknown tennis game

Quantarallax preview recovered

A game by Quantum Designs which was the beginning of an interesting Delta clone.

Quantarallax

Nuker final edition recovered

A glitch fixed edition, and what is the very final edition of the game has been recovered and added to the rest of the Nuker versions that have been recovered previously

Nuker

Wildfire, Starlight game remains found

A very early preview of Wildfire, which is believed to be the Starlight/Destiny Software game that never was.

Wildfire

Stellar 7 graphic assets found

Some quick assets for the lost Hades Nebula sequel has been added

Stellar 7

Various Video images and Post-Clockwize concepts added

A brief glimpse at some titles and their graphic assets, thanks to Dean Hickingbottom!

Cavey, Molecale

Various Marcus Wagner titles added

Marcus was a prolific developer on the C64, which meant that there were inevitably some that got away…

Girl Guard, Jupple Dust, Onion Yupy, Paratron, Wizerior 2 , Yloa

Flimbo 1 + 2 bits and pieces added

Firstly, a new Flimbo’s Quest V1 entry has been added with a slightly different title screen, game movement and sfx. Also the proper C64 files for the Flimbos Quest 2 tunes have been added.

Flimbo’s Quest V1, Flimbos Quest 2

Ash and Dave assets page added

Part of our digital preservation work with Ashley Routledge’s disks, has been to find any unreleased demos or graphics by the duo. This page gives an overview of what has been found so far, which you can download for yourself.

Ash and Dave assets

Many lost music files, demos and graphics added!

As a larger part of general preservation work over a series of collections, we have extracted a number of lost music, Compunet demos, graphics and other pieces of interest – which are not really GTW material, but things you may find interesting.

Lost music, demo and graphic assets

3 other new entries added

Beatle Quest – Parts Two and Three, Little Knight Arthur, The City of Ehdollah

And… 9 entries updated…

Atlantis, Dempsey & Makepeace, Ilogicall, Murder!, Outside, Quadrofender, Speed Fighter, The Greedy Dwarf, Zamzara V1

Another big finding for 2015!….

Soul Gem Of Martek recovered

Unfortunately not the full game (which may not have existed), but GTW is proud to present remains of a title that has been missing for over 30 years.

Amazingly, not just remains of the game were found – but the actual inlays and tape were present and have been preserved via scans:

Soul Gem of Martek

1 new entry added

Tobor

9 updates added

C64GS cartridge titles, 3-2-1 Quiz game, Captain Stark, Haunted, Knuckles, Laser Cycle, Last Ninja V1, Myth 2, Twister, Your Computer Software Exchange

We’re back after a short break with some more C64 recovery work with the following new findings and updates:

Quadrofender full game found and released

A complete 1990 budget title from Clockwize has been recovered from disk and released for the first time, including unheard Sonic Graffiti tunes.

Quadrofender

Quadrant 4 full game found and released

And yet another full budget game from Clockwize – this time a simple 1989 Uridium clone which never saw the light of day until now!

Quadrant 4

Urban Warrior full game found and released

And to complete a hat trick – here is a commercial SEUCK title from 1988 that was due for release by Video Images, but never made it due to a design bug which made it unplayable in places. Who fancies fixing it? ;-)

Urban Warrior

4 other new entries added

Day Of The Pharaoh, Fight Night V1, Rob’n Run, Time Fighter

And also 13 updates have been made:

Alien Vs Predator, Chess, DDT: Dynamic Debugger, Daffy Duck, Go Ape!, Heavy Barrel, International Karate Deluxe, Murder!, Psyclapse, Rhyme Land, Speed Fighter, Twilight Beyond, World Cup Carnival V1

More to come soon! Watch this space!

Another surprise finding, this time of an aborted early conversion of Codemasters’ Tarzan Goes Ape game, which looks very different to the final released version, with far better graphics.

It isn’t sadly too playable, but you can sort of move the character around and use Q and A to scroll the map. Download the preview and checkout the story behind its finding here:

Tarzan Goes Ape V1

Not seen even by Simon since 1989, we are proud to present the infamous road routine which Simon produced to prove a point to Mark Kelly after seeing Turbo Outrun.

It’s not playable, but was all that was produced and a great finding! Read more about how it was found in the entry!

Simon Nicol’s Car Game

Yet another PAL developments game has been fully recovered and released, and its another full game.

Thanks to sterling work by Dean Hickingbottom to recover the game from his C64 disks and recompile it after 26 years, we are proud to present this conversion of a Spectrum/Amstrad game that should have been released across all formats by PAL developments, but for reasons unknown, never got out the door. Enjoy!

Shutdown game