https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/trigger-happy/

Huge thanks to Hedning/Genesis Project for the heads up.

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64

Ninjanimal was one of the more curious titles listed in Titus’ 1990 release schedules. Planned for the Commodore 64 on tape and disk, the game never surfaced on any platform commercially, leaving many to wonder just what it was meant to be.

Thankfully, unlike many unreleased projects, we do at least have a glimpse of what was planned. Prototype builds of the Atari ST version have surfaced over the years, whilst screenshots from the Amiga edition also survive. They reveal a colourful side-scrolling beat-em-up with some similarities to Ninja Rabbits, though with a rather unique twist.

Development actually began much earlier, in late 1988, at Legend Software. According to one of the original developers, the initial concept came from the studio’s art director Didier and took inspiration from Sega’s Altered Beast, with players controlling a ninja who had the ability to transform.

Several backgrounds were produced and a prototype was programmed to demonstrate the project to potential publishers including Titus and Ubisoft. The developer even added a few demo scene inspired flourishes, including colour raster effects and low overscan graphics, purely to help make the presentation stand out.

Unfortunately, although the prototype impressed, Legend Software’s financial situation rapidly deteriorated. An unpaid debt from one of the company’s distributors, particularly relating to sales of Les Portes du Temps, left the studio without enough funds to continue development and it was ultimately forced to close its doors before the game could be completed.

Although the Atari ST and Amiga prototypes suggest the game had reached a respectable stage of development, it seems likely that the planned 8-bit conversions, including the Commodore 64 edition listed by Titus, had yet to properly begin. With the 16-bit versions cancelled before completion, there was little reason for work on the C64 version to progress.

As a result, it seems very likely that there is nothing of a Commodore 64 conversion to recover. Unless evidence ever surfaces that work had quietly started elsewhere, this is probably one that can sadly be considered a case closed.

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni for highlighting the surviving prototypes and history, Crashdisk for saving part of the Amiga version, AtariMania for the ST download and Abandonware Magazines France for the magazine scans.

Downloads

• Preview_Ninjanimal(Amiga)
• Preview_Ninjanimal(ST)

Video

Gallery

Until now, only later Commodore 64 releases of the games were known to survive. The original PET versions were believed lost until Colin Haynes came forward with his original disks, allowing them to be carefully preserved using original Commodore hardware.

As well as imaging the disks, Marcel also investigated the clever protection system built into Catacombs, which was designed not to prevent copying, but to stop players listing the BASIC source and cheating their way through the adventure.

Just goes to show that you never know what might still be sitting in a collection waiting to be rediscovered. You can read the full story, download the recovered games and watch Marcel’s excellent documentary here:

https://www.commodoregames.net/catacombs.asp

Platforms: Amstrad CPC, IBM PC, Commodore 16

Masters of the Universe – The Super Adventure and The Arcade Game were two games based on the Filmation cartoon Masters of the Universe, released by US Gold in 1987.

The games have you as He-Man, who fights to deal with the evil forces of Skeletor, who is determined to take over Eternia. The franchise has received a cult following over 40 years, culminating in the release of a new live action movie in June 2026 by MGM Amazon.

The Super Adventure is a graphic adventure on the Spectrum and C64 but text only on the BBC. The Arcade Game is an exploring game but received pretty badly – at the time, it was voted 2nd Worst Game of the year by readers of Crash magazine.

Adverts for the game indicate releases on the Amstrad, Spectrum, C64, C16, BBC Micro and IBM PC. The Arcade Game, in the same advert, mentions the CPC, C64 and Spectrum.

However, neither game came out on the Amstrad CPC for some reason and the C16 and IBM versions never came out either for the Super Adventure version. The lack of the Commodore 16 version is understandable as the C16 was a failing format, but it is interesting that the Amstrad CPC version never came out as 99% of U.S Gold’s output came out on the Amstrad.

Looking through issues of Amstrad Action, there seem to be no mention of either of these two games, nor were any adverts printed for them, only the one based on the 1987 movie (see further down in this article).

According to Spectrum Computing, Mike Woodroffe, Stefan F. Ufnowski, Graham Lilley and Teoman Irmak were behind the Spectrum versions of both games so it would be interesting to find out if they were due to code the CPC version too and if so, was anything made of it. At the time, the cartoon series had been cancelled and sales of He-Man toys were in decline but that wouldn’t explain the lack of a CPC, C16 or IBM version.

Ironically, Masters of the Universe would make it onto the CPC that same year when Gremlin Graphics released their dire game based on 1987’s Masters of the Universe live action movie starring Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella.

FRANK: Luca has very kindly flagged in the comments that they have a page regarding the missing C16 game, which we have added the evidence they gathered into the gallery below. As you will see, the C16 edition is clearly marked in the instructions, as is the IBM PC and Amstrad editions. Can anything of them be found as a result?

With thanks to Spectrum Computing for the advert and Luca / https://plus4world.powweb.com for additional evidence of plans for the conversions and news snippets.

Gallery

The discovery came completely by surprise. Shortly after our Raiden feature went live, Amiga legend dlfrsilver got in touch to say they had an archive containing an old Imagitec hard drive image. Digging through it revealed source code for both Raiden and Space Junk, originating from an Atari Falcon development system.

The archive itself was originally shared by “tomseddon” on the Atari Forum back in November 2025, but seems to have largely gone unnoticed. According to the forum post, an ex-colleague rescued an Atari Falcon hard disk from an Infogrames/Gremlin storeroom in the late 1990s, with the Raiden and Space Junk development folders still intact.

The Raiden archive looks particularly promising. Although nothing appears to be supplied as an executable, there are multiple source trees, one of which seem to contain around eight levels for the Amiga version, together with additional material for the Atari Falcon edition beyond the three level shareware build already circulating. At first glance, this could represent most, if not all, of the unreleased Amiga conversion, though much more investigation is needed before that can be confirmed.

Space Junk is a little different, appearing to contain the familiar Falcon demo that has been available for some time, but now alongside the original source code, what may be a more advanced introduction sequence and additional assets. Hopefully the recovered source will help uncover more about the game’s development and perhaps reveal content that never made it into the surviving demo.

For now, we’ve added the recovered source code to both archive pages, along with newly extracted graphics and assets found within the archive. We very much hope that developers familiar with Atari Falcon development may be able to take a closer look and perhaps compile the projects or uncover further surprises hidden away within the code. If anyone manages to get anything going, please do get in touch.

A huge thank you to tomseddon for sharing it with the community on Atari Forum and  dlfrsilver for bringing the archive to our attention.

• Raiden: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2026/06/raiden/
• Space Junk: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/07/space-junk/

Platform: IBM PC

To coincide with the launch of Richard Hewison’s excellent new Kickstarter project, “Memories of Rainbird and Beyond Software“, we are taking the opportunity to preserve and share a fascinating piece of Rainbird history. If you have an interest in Rainbird Software and the people behind it, we highly recommend supporting the project and helping bring it to life.

One of the more intriguing projects from Rainbird’s archives was R.A.I.L. (Rainbird Adventure Implementation Language), a sophisticated text adventure authoring system created by John Jones-Steele. The intention was for R.A.I.L. to be used in-house to create a number of commercial adventures before eventually being released to the public as a complete adventure creation package.

Development began following the 1987 PCW Show and continued for around seven months between November 1987 and June 1988. Jones-Steele was already well known for his work with Abersoft and had recently collaborated with Level 9 on the KAOS adventure system used in Knight Orc and subsequent releases.

R.A.I.L. was an ambitious project, featuring a powerful parser and a highly flexible object system. Objects could possess a wide range of attributes including size, weight, volume and colour, whilst more advanced concepts such as intangible “ghost” objects and visibility across multiple locations were also supported. The system was designed to compete with the likes of Infocom and Level 9 and had the potential to produce some very sophisticated adventures.

Another impressive feature was its ability to heavily compress descriptive text, helping developers maximise available memory. There were also plans to support graphical illustrations and potentially expand the language further with additional libraries and routines after release.

Sadly, despite the promise shown by the system, R.A.I.L. was cancelled during 1988 when the commercial future of text adventures was becoming increasingly uncertain. By that point, graphical adventures were rapidly becoming the dominant force in the genre and there were concerns that a programming-based authoring system would struggle to find a broad audience compared to more menu-driven alternatives.

Thankfully the story does not quite end there. Thanks to the generosity of John Jones-Steele, the unfinished v0.31 development version of R.A.I.L. has survived and was previously made available via the Bird Sanctuary website. With permission, we are now preserving and sharing the package once again, including the interpreter, compiler tools, source files and example adventure materials.

The source code has also been included. However, it should be noted that certain components required to fully build the project are currently missing, believed to be commercial libraries which were not retained with the archive. Even so, there is still a fascinating amount here for anyone interested in adventure game development, programming languages or Rainbird history.

Who knows? Perhaps one day someone may even pick up where development left off and continue the work that John started almost four decades ago.

With huge thanks to Richard Hewison for helping preserve Rainbird’s history, and to John Jones-Steele for allowing R.A.I.L. to be shared and preserved for future generations.

Download

• Source_RAIL

Gallery

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, Atari Falcon

Few arcade shoot-em-ups made as much of an impact in the early 1990s as Seibu Kaihatsu’s Raiden. First released into arcades in 1990, the vertically scrolling shooter quickly became a huge hit thanks to its fast action, varied weaponry and relentless challenge. Players took control of the Raiden Supersonic Attack Fighter in a desperate battle against an invading alien force, blasting through waves of enemies whilst collecting weapon upgrades and avoiding an overwhelming barrage of bullets.

The success of the arcade game saw Raiden converted to a wide range of platforms over the following years, including the PC Engine, Mega Drive, SNES, FM Towns, DOS, Atari Jaguar and many others. However, two planned computer conversions would ultimately fail to make it onto shop shelves.

During the mid-1990s, Imagitec Design began work on versions for both the Commodore Amiga and Atari Falcon. The Amiga edition was intended for AGA machines and appeared to have been based largely upon Imagitec’s DOS conversion (not quite the case – see below) which did see release. Development progressed well and the game was reportedly completed, even receiving coverage and reviews in several Amiga magazines of the time.

Yet despite apparently reaching such an advanced stage, the Amiga version was never released. According to information shared over the years by one of the developers, the arrival of newer systems and changing market conditions ultimately led to the project being shelved. A one-level demo would eventually surface online, allowing players to experience a glimpse of what might have been and it seems it was going straight to the KIXX budget label too.

The Amiga version is a relatively decent effort, capturing much of the feel of the arcade original whilst maintaining smooth gameplay and the trademark Raiden action. Although some visual effects and features appear to be missing compared to other versions, it remains a great curiosity to check out.

It’s suggested that the Amiga version is complete too, and developer Adrian Hirst may have remains of everything on a DAT tape. It’s been many years now, but its hoped that some day Adrian will be able to dig out something of the game to be saved by the community.

Work was also carried out on an Atari Falcon conversion, though this version appears to have progressed less far. Reports suggest that only the first three levels were completed before development ceased. Thankfully surviving builds have since circulated, ensuring that at least part of the Falcon version has been preserved.

Thanks to Andrew Seed, we learn that the Amiga and DOS versions were actually both ported from the Atari version. It was started off on the Falcon, but halted when the programmer was moved to the Jaguar version as a launch title. The Falcon edition would end up being released in its final state as shareware when it was decided not to go back to the game.

Today we are adding both surviving versions to the archive, though it is hoped that more can be found of at least the Amiga edition and something with more levels. If you know anything more about the conversion, please do get in touch.

Just a day or so after our post, Amiga legend dlfrsilver got in touch to say they had an Imagitec image which contained source code for Raiden for Amiga and Atari Falcon (possibly PC too?), containing what seems to be 8 levels overall and could well be most of the game (if not everything) for the Amiga edition at least. We’re not sure how this compares to the data that Adrian may have on the DAT tape. The Falcon edition has less levels, but there are 2 extra levels that might be present, which don’t feature in the Shareware release of 3 levels (they may or may not be in a complete state).

There seems to be about 2-3 different source states of Raiden (one folder might be completely identical), nothing compiled and ready to run like Space Junk. We assume that the code may have to be compiled up in an Atari Falcon environment and might need some work to get compiling elsewhere. It is hoped that all includes and binaries are present. NOTE: This is from a quick scan through the files and isn’t by any means a proper deep dive evaluation.

If anyone is able to take a look and see if they can get anything going, please do let us know – it would be amazing if this is essentially most of the game.

So, where did it all come from? From “tomseddon” via https://atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=488647 and missed by many of us, as it was posted back in November 2025. It was our Raiden post that prompted taking a look. One of their ex-colleagues picked up some old junk from an Infogrames / Gremlin store room in the late 1990s, and the folders for Raiden (and Space Junk) were found on the hard disk of a Falcon that was saved.

For now, we’ve extracted all the graphical assets out and added to the gallery below, showcasing content not seen before until now and have added the source code here for you to download. A great end to the week and hopefully more to come.

With thanks to H0ffman and Karl Kuras for suggesting that we cover the game (sorry for the delay!) and helping bring these versions to our attention, dlfrsilver for sending over the archive and especially to tomseddon via Atari Forum for sharing the source archive, Rygar and Andrew Seed for further information about the game, Abandonware Magazines France, Ross Sillifant and Archive.org for scans and AtariMania for the Falcon download.

Downloads

• Preview_Raiden(Amiga)
• Preview_Raiden(AtariFalcon)
• Source_Raiden

Video

Gallery (screenshots + press)

Gallery (Assets)

Arcade Wizzard (U.S. Gold) found at last!

Missing for almost 40 years, and one we’ve been hunting for 22 – the obscure Pinball game from U.S. Gold has been recovered, and its much more advanced than you might think!

Arcade Wizzard

Full Void game recovered and added to the archives

As part of the above recovery, Tony Smales has shared his unreleased budget shooter, which is a sort of sideways scrolling Xevious clone. Very close to release, but sadly not to be. But here it is for you to now enjoy after 39 years being locked away:

Void

Aussie Games (Australian release) prototype added

The game never got a proper full European release, and an extra twist is to now present you with remains of the unreleased Australian edition. This may feature missing scenes, different content (especially the bottle shooting level) and bugs not yet fixed. A great curiosity to explore:

Aussie Games (Australian release prototype)

Two early obscure titles (including one earlier prototype) preserved

Just before the above were recovered, Games That Weren’t preserved some released software that hadn’t yet been preserved. An American Football game, and a prototype of a flight simulator with some minor differences:

IFR (Flight Simulator) and Co Pro Football

3 more new entries added

Then we have our usual set of additions and new entries:

Bad Max, Danger – High Surf, Zorro

14 updates added

Followed by updates to the following 14 titles with scans added and new info. Please check the history tab for details of what has changed.

City Warriors, Dungeons and Magic, Hagar The Horrible, International Karate V1, Mindbending Aliens From Hyperspace, Nimitz, Ninjanimal, Parasol Stars, The Sanctuary, Thunder Light, Trazers, Tycoon Tex, Universal Military Simulator, Virus

Might be a bit quieter next month, but we’ll see. We’ll see you again next month for the next digest!

• Personal Skills
• Money Power
• Disk Tools
• Perfect Typing
• Personal Publisher
• Expert Filer

We weren’t searching for the titles, but have done this post to flag up Allan’s work which you can check out here at his Archive.org area:

https://archive.org/details/@1madmax?query=expert+software

Platform: Atari ST

The Three Stooges was a minigame collection that was developed by Incredible Technologies and published by Cinemaware starring the titular Stooges, Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard, with the aforementioned minigames being based off of the short films starring the Stooges (e.g. the Punch Drunks boxing minigame).

The main plotline involves the Stooges trying to find ways to raise money for an orphanage to prevent the evil banker (modelled off the creator of the Stooges, Ted Healy) from foreclosing it.

It was released on the Amiga, Commodore 64, IBM PC and Apple IIGS with an NES port coming later down the line, with two remade versions coming out in the 2000s for the PS1 and Game Boy Advance, and another version coming out on Windows and Mac OS. An Atari ST version was advertised, but it appears to be vapourware as no sources can be found like box art or screenshots or manuals or prototypes.

FRANK: The manuals also don’t seem to contain anything about the Atari ST version either – suggesting it was possibly canned very early on.

With thanks to Lemon Amiga for the scan.

Gallery