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
Total Recall V1 found!
Lost for 33 years, we are pleased to announce the recovery of the original abandoned development of Total Recall for the Commodore 64!
So happy to finally see those old Zzap!64 screens in motion after years of searching!
Full story + download at: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/total-recall-v1/
GTW64 April 2023 updates
A much larger update this month, as there was a lot of corrections and fixes done to some old posts, but we also have 7 completely new entries too to further increase the size of the C64 archive. Won’t be long until we hit 3000!
New entries include details of a City Connection conversion, a great looking and recent Ghostbusters tribute, a cool looking wresting game, an abandoned graphic text adventure, two missing games that could well be out there and a post on an early Pac-Man clone by Andrew Trott. Enjoy!
7 new entries added
City Connection, Code 3, Ghostbusters 2021, Nedime – The Caliph’s Daughter, Terragon, The Boring Hour, Unnamed Pac-Man clone
50 updates added
64 Tape Computing – Issue 14, Babylon, Ballisation, Bird Mother V1, Black Gold 2, Bobby Charlton Soccer, Bombzone, Buffalo Roundup V1, Butch – Hard Guy, CDU Games Disks, Danger! High Voltage, Dimension X, Drugbird, Dynaboys, Egy kis kiruccanás, Enforcer 2, Evil Garden, Fire & Forget, Flight Deck 2, Furry Knibble Girls 2, Gargantuan, Go Ape!, Hard Fire, Immensity, Imperium, Italian pirated games, Jumpy64, La Venganza del Toro, Mortal Kombat 2, Mythos, Panic Button, Proxima, Quark, Quark IX, Rex Hard, Sabian Island, Sankara Stone, Single Extreme Freedom, Squad One, Star of Africa, Sunburst Communications titles, Super C, Tank Battle Simulator, The Brainies, The Seven Gates Of Jambala, The Sixth Sense, The War of the Dragon, Toi Acid Game, Vietnam Gunboat, Xenodrome
GTW64 March 2023 updates
By complete fluke, we’ve matched last month’s tally of updates, with 1 new entry and 20 updates for the C64 GTW archive. This includes a rare screenshot from the C64 edition of D-Day and also an original TAP image preserved for Money Minefield.
Thanks to all our contributors for their help this month and see you again next month! Enjoy the updates!
1 new entry added
20 updates added
2Pac, Blockie, Bugs Bunny: Private Eye, D-Day, Lemmings V1, Mad Crash Racing, Moebius Strip, Money Minefield, Murder!, Necromancer 2, Nefarious, Neiw, New Clowns, New Pasqua, On Table, Panic Button, Parallax, Telekommando 2, The Attack of the Blue Bomber, Zuid
‘La Venganza del Toro’ C64 recovery
A new recovery thanks to Retroboy – an unfinished and early bullfighting game for the C64 called ‘La Venganza del Toro’.
This has been added today into the GTW64 archives, which you can now check out for yourselves at https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/la-venganza-del-toro/
Enjoy and Happy Friday!
GTW64 February 2023 update
A shorter month, so our monthly update to the GTW64 archives has come round fast. This month we have 1 new entry and a total of 20 entries updated overall. Thanks to our contributors for their help and enjoy!
1 new entry added
20 updates added
Balls Of The Scrolling Thunder, Black Knight 2, Blinky In America, Bod Squad 2, The, Bugs Bunny, Chainsaw Warrior, Daybreak Software titles, Dreadnought, Educational Activities, Inc. titles, Gauntlet 3, Imperial Bodyguard, Mad Crash Racing, On Table, Parasol Stars, Reader’s Digest Software, Solar Jetman, Star Maze, Sunburst Communications titles, The Attack of the Blue Bomber, Trantor 2
Blockie: C64 game finished and released
Richard Bayliss has been working hard the past few months to finish off an abandoned Columns clone which was infamously released into PD and onto Commodore Format’s covertape in an incomplete form around 30 years ago.
This has now been fully completed and you can download a playable version of the game, with proper scoring and with the ability for the game to end.
Check it out at: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/blockie/
GTW64 finds and more
Thanks to the brilliant preservation work of Paladin of Genesis Project, and kindly passing his work over – we are proud to present a large list of educational game recoveries and preservations.
Some titles are listed within our GTW64 archives as missing, and others were not on anyone’s radar. Here is the complete list:
- Alphabet Zoo (Floppy Disk Version)(Spinnaker) – Paladin found the floppy disk version which includes 2 other games not available on any other versions found online, including the version on GB64 (because those versions are cartridge dumps).
- Dragon Games (Daybreak)
- Math Baseball (Daybreak)
- Keyboard Crazy (Waveform Corporation) – This one seems to require the Colortone keyboard or a keyboard overlay
- Mastertype Training Grounds – The version on GB64 isn’t cracked and is a g64 so Genesis Project have cracked this one for the site.
- Puzzle Mania (Readers Digest)
- The Factory (Sunburst) – Differs from the HESWARE version on GB64 and has been listed on our wanted list.
The full archive can be downloaded below, and we will quickly update the relevant entries to point to this post. A huge thank you to Paladin of Genesis Project for recovering these titles and allowing them to be crossed off the preservation list.
Download
GTW64 January 2023 update
Just missed posting in January I know, but we’ve been busy the past month or so just tidying up some of our pages and adding a few quick updates along the way. No new entries, but plenty of updates instead and hopefully highlighting some titles that you may not have read about before. Enjoy!
Rare C64 Screenshots added for The Black Onyx
44 other updates added
Arena, Armalyte V1, Billy Boulder, Bod Squad 2, The, Car Game, Chainsaw Warrior, Combat 2004, Delphian, Dungeons Of Death, Force Of The Vulcan, Gamma Strike, Gotcha Maths, Halloween, International Soccer Challenge, Italian pirated games, Kid Saviour, Kobayashi Naru 1994, Light Cycles 2004, Make My Day, Manhatten Dealers, Mutant Zone, Nimitz, Paranoid Pete, Pegasus, Populous, Primary Maths Tutor, Project Sparkk, Quark, Shard of Inovar 1994, Spellcast, Star Maze, Star of Africa, Starglider 2, The Godfather, The Seven Gates Of Jambala, Toddler Tutor, Tour De Force, Toyota Rally, Trailrunner, Viaje Al Centro, Video Images game, War Of The Worlds, Worron, Zorakk
The Legend of Billy Boulder
1990 U.S. Gold
Platform: C64, Atari 400/800, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC
Our next entry into the archives was thought to have been both a C64 and Atari 800/400 development for Databyte back in the 1980s. Billy Boulder was flagged up to us by developer Ron Rosen in late 2022, a game that was in fact seemingly due for release on Amiga, ST and PC – but in a bizarre twist, it was indeed also an 8-bit title too after all.
The game was known in full as The Legend of Billy Boulder, and had artwork created by Art Huff, who worked on a number of Atari 8-bit and C64 titles during the 1980s. Previously, Art had worked on a game called Adam Caveman, which was also never released. Continue reading
GTW64 Christmas update 2022
Time has come round quickly once more, with our yearly Christmas update – and as always, we have something for you in the shape of a previously unseen and unreleased C64 game (lost for 38 years), some recovered C128 titles and important new information on some key GTW entries.
Lordsfire – full game recovered after 38 years
Lordsfire – entry and download
Ron Rosen confirms as developer of two long mysterious titles + a new one
Adam Caveman, Billy Boulder, Mumbles – Super Spy
Mike Lyons sheds light on more important GTWs
We finally speak to the developer of Total Recall V1 about what happened + chances of recovery, along with input on a number of other titles he worked on. Two surprises as you will notice:
19 Boot Camp – Part 2, Total Recall V1, Whirligig, Wreckers
2 C128 titles digitally preserved
Thanks to Csaba Virag, here are two German C128 titles that have been digitally preserved.
B-1 Bomber and Spukschloss – page and download
9 brand new entries added
A number of other new entries have also been added to the site:
Aerial Arithmetic, Asteroids, Campaigns of Napoleon, Commando V1, Garden Wars, Spider Snare, Syntax tape, The Battle of the Bulge, Zany Golf
33 other entries also updated
Then finally a whole raft of other existing entries in the archive have been updated. Details of each update can be found in the “History” tab for each page.
4 Games, 48 Hours, 64 Tape Computing – Issue 14, Abandon Ship S.O.S., Arcadian, Cosmax, Diskovery titles, Double Dragon V1, Dungeons Of Death, Eye Of The Beholder, Flyspy, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Gamma Strike, Gem-X 2, Greenhouse (MAX edition), Heartbreaker, Lost Robot 2, M45, Magic, Nuclear Nick, Outrun Europe, Proteus, Race Drivin’, Scooter, Stratos, Sturmtruppen, Sword Of The Samurai, Terminus 2, The Magic Roundabout, Undead, Xane, Xermaid, Xoanon
We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and wish you all the best into 2023!
