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Commodore VIC-20 games, but it’s such an
arduous undertaking that only asmattering
of discoveries have been documented on his
websitefor other computers and consoles.
That said, Gasking doesn’t operateentirely
alone,and the team includes Andrew Fisher,
Dave Simmons, Adrian Simpson, Alex Ross
and PeterWeighill. At one point, he was
encouraging others to set up their own
platform-specific Games That Weren’t
websites, hoping theywould sit under an
umbrella sitethat reported news across
multiple formats.
“Wehad 3DO,PCand Amiga archives,
though the maintainers sadly foundother
commitments and had to move on,”
Gasking laments.
computers, consoles, arcades and mobile
platforms in anew,lavishly produced book
calledThe Games That Weren’t.
Spread across ahefty644 pages, it covers
the period between 1975 and 2015, and
includes unreleased games such as Rolling
Thunder on the Atari Lynx, Virtual Tank on
the Nintendo Virtual Boy, andHalf-Lifeonthe
GameCube and Dreamcast. In doing so,ittells
many astory with the aid of developer
interviews and, where there are no actual
screenshots or assets, there are artists’
impressions of what could have been.ACCOUNTED OUT
Does that mean pretty muchevery unreleased
game has been accounted for, then? Not by
any stretch of the imagination. Mire Mare by
Ultimateiscoveted on the ZX Spectrum, while
fans of the BBC Micro yearn forNemesis.
Ballblazer is the subject of much heartache
on the Atari 2600 and owners of the Atari ST
would love to playSnow Bros (a ROM image
of this game was leaked online in 2006).
“One major frustration on the
Commodore 64 has been atitle called
Pulsator by Martech, which was written by
acompany only known as Softeam, which
re-hashed the same engine forother games
such as Addictive’s Metaplex,”Gasking says,
by wayofastarter.
“Wehavecontacted many people,who
have no idea who Softeam was exactly.
The only possible clue is that theymay have
been based in Brighton, and it’s particularly
sore because there’s along-lost RobHubbard
tune attached to the game,which would be
very special indeed to recover.”
Games developed by Beyond Beliefand
released lateinthe Commodore 64’sEven so,others systems haven’t been
neglected. In June this year,anNES game
based on the 1990 filmDays of Thunder,for
instance,was located within apile of 40
floppydisks thanks to the diligence of digital
archivist Rich Whitehouse,who details his
task attinyurl.com/392retro1.Acopyof
Chase HQ II forthe Amstrad GX4000
console also emerged in 2010, one of just
two cartridges thought to be in existence.
It sold on eBayfor £906.87.
Gasking hasn’t entirely neglected other
systems himself,either.Hetakes alookat
more than 80 unreleased games across home⬆Rolling Thunder,anunreleased game for the
Atari Lynx⬆According to games magazineC&VGin 1986, Martech’s Pulsator was due to be released on the C64 but it
only saw aSpectrumrelease,leading investigators to ponder how fardevelopment got