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 February 2022 update
Another month, and another GTW64 update with a bunch of new entries, including some new downloads for you to check out that haven’t been previously preserved as far as we can tell. These are Ladders 2, Ex Simultan and Maerzi 2 (all thanks to Csaba Virag). Also finally the Anirog version of Rhyme Land has been added! Hope you enjoy the update, and see you all in March!
7 new entries added
Enforce, Lifespan, Shoot Out, Top-Hole Golf, Ladders 2, Ex Simultan and Maerzi 2
13 updates added
Balla Balla, Charlie Chaplin, Heebie Jeebies, It’s Rory!, Joust, Knights of Legend Expansion Packs, Mattie Goes Mining, Ooops Up, Pulsator, Rockball, Rhyme Land, Spooky, The Magic Roundabout
GTW64 January 2022 update
A new year and a new update to the GTW64 archives, with the following new entries and updates – including a bizarre title that may or may not have existed called Vector Chickens.
5 new entries added
Alcatrax, Ironoid, Sight Attack, Tank Division, Vector Chickens
11 updates added
Bamboo, Deathstalker, Jet Boat Simulator, Miner Willy Meets The Taxman, Moses: Old Testament Adventure #1, Murder!, Myth 2: Dawn of Steel, Pirates of the Ocean, The 4th Dimension, The Soul Gem Of Martek, Winter Camp V1
GTW64 Xmas 2021 update
Thank you to everyone for their continued support to Games That Weren’t this past year, as we conclude with our yearly update (and larger than our usually monthly update). Plenty to digest and check out and hope you enjoy it!
Gyro Shoc released
A little Christmas present to you all, thanks to Sailor and Taper of Triad. This is a game based loosely on ideas from Dropzone and Wizball, and was developed by Chris Young.
This release and update is dedicated to our friend Jason Kelk, who passed away in June this year and who was originally going to tidy up the game for GTW to release.
GTW64 November 2021 update
A bit back to normality this month, with a lot more new unreleased game entries and updates in our penultimate GTW64 update before the end of 2021. We hope you enjoy it!
8 new entries added
Anna, Core, Gape, Pixie and Dixie, Popeye V1, The Lost World, Unknown SEU, Unnamed game
25 updates added
Allo Allo, Alvin and The Chipmunks, Bloid Bros, Chopperman, Clod Jumper, Commodore Juicer, Dimension X, Dungeons, Amethysts, Alchemists ‘n Everythin’, Force Of Four, Fungus 2, Future Bike Simulator V1, Hex-Bert, Huckleberry Hound in Hollywood Capers, Lethal 2, Lord Mc Sun, Paranoid Pete, People from Sirius, Qrazy Qber, Razzmatazz, Sooty And Sweep 2, Spy vs Spy III – Arctic Antics V1, Tears of Rage, Thomas The Tank Engine 2, Typhoon Thompson, Undead
Whole Brain Spelling preserved!
A quick post to highlight another C64 title preserved, thanks to the efforts of Allan Pinkerton, who has been slowly helping to recover a large number of unpreserved educational titles for the platform.
Today we see the release of Whole Brain Spelling – General Word List, which was an educational title from Sublogic.
We believe there may be others out there to preserve by the company, so we are adding a single entry in GTW64 to try and hunt for these. Here are the links for Whole Brain Spelling:
- Manual – Whole-Brain-Spelling_Manual_Sublogic-Corporation
- Disk and registration card – whole-brain-spelling-gwl_mhi
- Download – whole-brain-spelling-gwl_mhi
NO – Never Outside! prototype
Not an unreleased game entry, but an early demo/prototype of this Commodore 64 graphic adventure game that was released by Ordilogic/Lankhor back in 1989.
This was found on a set of disks by Csaba Virag, and was likely sent out to companies at the time to try and get publisher interest. Continue reading
Gyruss C64 prototype
1984 Parker Brothers
Platform: Commodore 64
Not quite a GTW64 entry, but an earlier build of the released Gyruss (a brilliant Konami arcade conversion) for the C64 – recovered thanks to preservationist Ken Van Mersbergen.
This prototype dated 2nd May 1984 was found within the collection of disks/materials from the archive of a retired programmer who used to work for Roklan and On-Time Software.
There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of differences that we’ve found so far apart from slightly different attack waves.
Professor Chaos got in touch via the comments to say that there are two differences to the final version and described by him as “theoretical or VERY rare glitches”. One in particular was where it goes straight to a level complete animation when all the enemies finish exploding.
In the final version, an extra check is added to make sure you are still alive (as you could still run into an enemy shot for example). Another difference was the removal of some code that when an enemy’s sprite block is blank, it’s y-position is set off-screen. Professor Chaos suggests that maybe this was unnecessary and removed to make room for the above fix in the first difference.
So, not a major difference to the final version at all – but good to see these different builds preserved, as you just never know what may surface.
A huge thank you to Ken Van Mersbergen for his fantastic preservation work and for preserving this prototype. Thank you to Professor Chaos for checking through the code and highlighting the minor differences present.
Download
Gallery
GTW64 October 2021 update
Apologies all, a bit manic at work and home this past month – so this month the update is a bit quieter than normal. Hopefully we’ll have a bit more time before the Christmas break to build up our usual large update of unreleased gems. So for this month we have:
2 new entries added
People from Sirius, Unnamed game
7 updates added
Base, Bloid Bros, Tiger Road 2, Typhoon Thompson, Undead, X-Men, Zrenite
GTW64 September 2021 update
Another month already, and not entirely sure where the time has gone! A slightly busier update this month, as we have gone through and tidied up some of the pages and removed a load of broken links, as well as adding our usual scan additions and small updates over the past 4 weeks. Hopefully in some way this will provide a highlight of some titles you may not have seen or read about yet.
Undead to be “resurrected”!
News just in, with Undead to be put into development once more after 31 years since its cancellation. Yet another title that could escape the vaults!
2 new entries added
109 updates added
Accilatem, Ace In The Hole, Acid House, Ala Software, Alien 8, Alien Syndrome V1, Alternate Reality – Missing parts, Appointment With Fear, Arcade Wizzard, Atic Atac, Atlantian Continue reading
GTW64 August 2021 update
As the summer starts to draw to a close, we preserve an early Hungarian Tetris clone thanks to Csaba Virag. Then we take a look at what seems to be a long lost Commodore 64 conversion of a PET/VIC 20 title, two other Magic-series sets of titles that are at large, a long lost and promising game from Norway and a potential conversion of a late Mikro-Gen title. This along with 16 updates to existing entries, with a few findings and additional details added. Enjoy! Continue reading
