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
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.
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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
Mega Twins
1991 U.S. Gold
Platforms: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC
Mega Twins (known as Chiki Chiki Boys in Japan) was a sickly cute platformer produced by Capcom in the early 90’s, a slight sideways turn from the likes of Strider, Final Fight and Ghouls n Ghosts, no doubt to tap into the younger players and their 10 pence pieces. Many of us probably would have vomited at the sight of it and went back to kicking several barrels of crap out of bad guys in Final Fight.
The game consisted of you controlling two twins who carry swords and had to cross various platform levels to kill the dragon which killed their Father and find the Dragon Blue Eyes stone and save their world. The game was predominantly a sideways scrolling platformer, but with some vertical scrolling portions and a later castle level, where you would climb vertically to mix things up a bit. Large guardians would feature throughout as well to provide a fair challenge to even the most hardened of gamers. Continue reading
GTW64 July 2021 update
Slightly slower month as the days get hotter, but here is another GTW64 update for the month. This month we take a look at an Alternative Software game that never was, but has been out there for some time. Details of a strange planned reworking of S.T.U.N Runner with a Duck protagonist that was found lurking around in the code of Dreamraider. An obscure early German adventure game that is missing from GB64 and much more. Enjoy!
4 new entries added
Domain, Jungle Adventure, Unicorn Software titles, Zanga-duck and the gribblies
17 updates added
Accilatem, Adam Caveman, Ah Type, Alvin and The Chipmunks, Aquablast, Astrodome, Astromine, Aurum, Buffalo Roundup V1, Dune 2, Murder!, Pang V1, Plotting, Questerious, Quo Vadis, Rigor, Spy vs Spy 4
My tribute to Jason Kelk
Recently my good friend of 27 years, Jason Kelk, sadly lost his 15 month battle with COVID. It’s still sinking in that he’s no longer with us, so to try and help process things I wrote a blog post about my memories of meeting Jason and the time we spent over the years.
It’s been written freely and from the heart, so its quite a long piece, but hopefully gives an insight to what a good friend he was.
https://fgasking.wordpress.com/2021/06/27/my-memories-of-jason-kelk/
GTW64 June 2021 update
Still just about managing to sit at the computer long enough in the heat to produce another GTW64 update for a new month. This month we have a 30+ year long lost Kele Line game recovered, a 32 year old RPG preview recovered, details of an Artic game conversion never released and a big list of updates to pre-existing entries. Certainly check out the updates to Worron if you have missed the other news posts this month. Enjoy!
6 new entries added
A.E, Accilatem, Alladin’s Cave, Hungry Dead, Roadburner, The Mad Scientist
16 updates added
Aurum, Blood Bowl, Covermount casualties, Force Of Four, Future Bike Simulator V1, Ladders To Learning, Murder!, Mutant Zone, Mythos, Otherworld, Penguin Tower, Super Thief, Tiger Road 2, Time Crystal, Trooper, Worron
Shao Lin’s Road C64 master disk
There are some nice surprises that turn up from time to time in the C64 scene, and one recent one has been the surfacing of the Tape / Disk masterer of Edge/Softek’s conversion of Shao Lin’s Road on the C64.
Thanks to Nawfal Firas who found the disk in their collection, it was passed onto archivist John Watson, who has produced a G64 image of the disk for posterity.
Below you can find a download of the image, plus scans of the disk itself and instructions on how to run and compile the master. It is very likely to be exactly what was mastered as the final game, and therefore no differences. However, this is an important preservation of what was used to create the final copies of the game that people loaded up. And as fellow preservationist Havar Bruvold Hojem perfectly summed it up – “A peak behind the curtain”.
Thank you to Nawfal Firas and John Watson for their fantastic work.
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Scans
