Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
We are an Cancelled & Unreleased Video games archive with prototypes, developer history and assets for many computers and consoles of all ages. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public. Sharing 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 for many different platforms.
And that is a wrap for 2024. Merry Xmas and happy holidays to everyone! Thank you all for your kind support in what has been a tough year and hope you have enjoyed the archive this year. Having a well needed break now, so see you all in 2025!
If you want to check through all of our updates for the Christmas period, then please see: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/tag/xmas2024/
Whilst processing Archer’s Atari ST disks, we found a few bits of software and prototypes which are believed to be missing, or are at least marked as so at our friends at https://www.atarimania.com/
First up is a strange prototype of Karate Kid 2 that was found lurking, containing a slideshow of some images, but pressing F5 will bring up the main character:
Our next Christmas 2024 update sees Games That Weren’t take a look at a series of early concepts and prototypes from the late Archer Maclean’s disks. This includes the first ever look at concepts for an abandoned Atari/Commodore sequel to Dropzone, a special A8 Arcade version of Dropzone, early pre-release Dropzone materials, International Karate A8 prototypes + assets and various IK+ graphical assets.
You can also catch our YouTube video of the various bits and pieces, with commentary. Lets kick things off:
Archer had previously spoken about working on a sequel to Dropzone, where the main character would drop into a cavern environment and go underground. Perhaps he was inspired by Atari’s Major Havoc?
We found nothing playable, but we did find a series of graphic files where Archer was playing with the idea, and you can see all of these concepts below in the gallery for the very first time. Continue reading
As part of our Christmas updates, we present a set of preservations of various titles for the Commodore VIC-20 and ZX Spectrum. Many of the VIC-20 titles have already been preserved, but there are quite a few bits and pieces not yet preserved until now.
This was part of a lot preserved when we backed up and saved Monster Muncher on the VIC-20. It is a huge thank you to the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester, who kindly allowed us to borrow the tapes to preserve. Continue reading
Our next Christmas 2024 update for the archive (and covering the late Archer Maclean’s work) takes a look at the early beginnings of Jimmy White’s Whirlwind Snooker, before Jimmy had any ties at all to the game. This includes an early 1989 test using GWBasic for the 3D routines for the table.
There are also a number of Atari ST prototypes, showing the evolution of the game and also various hidden modes and unused content that never made the final cut. Check out our video to see some of these hidden bits and pieces that we found.
There was an ST preview present which unfortunately had a code protection on it. Thanks to Galahad, this was very quickly cracked and you can find the unprotected and tidied up version below. If you want to know the code – it is AC and then from the numpad: 0 and 4.
The 3rd prototype is much more advance, and more playable – though some of the collision is off in places, where you can’t pot the balls into some pockets. Hidden in the build is the text “THIS COPY TO NICK DAWSON 13;8;90 BY A;M” which can be revealed by holding down the “#” key. There doesn’t seem to be much else like hidden objects or debug views like with the previous proto. If you find anything else tucked away – please let us know.
We also have a number of different PC builds, which seem close to final, though one of them doesn’t run for us. We found an early MIDI file, which we believe was for Archer Maclean’s Pool. There are also a stack of NeoPaint files, showing the evolution of the game’s interface and different ideas and icons that never made it to the final game.
Check out the downloads below, but also our video that showcases much of the above if you don’t to fiddle around with emulators and DOSBox. We hope you enjoy it all!
With huge thanks to Chris Wilkins (Fusion Retro Books) for the loan of Archer’s disks to preserve and permission to add executables to the site, Alan Hammerton for hardware help and Mat Allen for the flippy PC drive loan. A huge thank you also to Galahad for breaking the protection on the 3rd prototype, which you can download a version of below!
In memory of Archer Maclean – 28 January 1962 – 17 December 2022.
Our final update of 2024 for the Commodore 64 archive. This year has gone in a flash as always, as we pass our 25th year of Games That Weren’t. We hope to finish with a bit of a bang, and have some surprise findings for you. We hope you enjoy them – here goes:
A surprise recovery for the GTW archives to kick things off, with a completely different and full version of Hi-Tec Software’s game (created by a completely different development team).
The final prototype of Rainbow Art’s Apprentice on the Commodore 64 has also been saved. An early and promising glimpse of what could have been.
The complete conversion of Artic Software’s Alladin’s Cave has finally been recovered in its final and complete form. Check out this neat clone of Tales of the Arabian Nights:
No, we had never heard of it either! A complete surprise and incomplete development by Keith Purkiss of a flick screen arcade adventure, similar in some ways to Feud. Very early, but a very large map for you to explore!
Thanks to Csaba Virag, a full football management game has been recovered and which doesn’t seem to have been preserved. Still much to learn about this one, but here it is for now:
Thanks to Marcin ‘Tenchi’ Świętoniewski, two strange 1994 Polish hacks of Mario Bros have been saved, which contain different sprites and added music. An interesting set of curiosities!
Keith has very kindly these past few months allowed us at Games That Weren’t to preserve all of his work disks that he recently found (which has resulted in our first four findings above). We have also preserved his master/work disks for the likes of Tiger Road, Rygar, Little Puff, Dragon Spirit, It’s a Knockout, Kenny Daglish Soccer, Lazer Tag, Last Mission, and Snoball in Hell:
We take a look at what seems to be an earlier build of Super Hang On which snuck out, and also a lost US edition of the game:
Super Hang-On V1, Super Hang On (US edition)
We have also added a number of other new entries to the archive, including a strange Football game, a lost Goofy game and more:
Computer Theatre, Footy game, Gee Bee Air Rally – tape release, Goofy’s Word Factory, Grand National, Quest for Truth, Street Football, Test Drive 2 – scenery tapes
Then finally, we have been busy making a lot of updates to various entries already in the archive. Please refer to the “History” tab for each entry to see what has changed and been added:
Alloyrun, Armalyte 2, Back in the USSR, Boxing Champion, Colony, Custodian, Devious Designs, Diabolik, Eye Of The Moon, Fight Night V1, Fire & Forget, Force Of The Vulcan, Galactic Conqueror, Garden Wars, Gargantuan, Gauntlet 3, Giana 2 – Arthur And Martha In Future World, Great Giana Sisters, Illusions, Joan Of Arc: Siege And The Sword, Jonny Quest and the Splinter of Heaven, Judge Death, Katakis, Knight Force, Koshimo, Lasertrain, Mars Cops, Minder, Morgol, Off Shore Warrior, Parasol Stars, Parisian Knights, Picnic Paranoia, Pong Mini, Reach For The Moon, Roadwars V2, Scooby Doo, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Star Tech Games, , The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Omnicron Conspiracy, Trojan, Undead, Unicorn Software titles, Virgin Atlantic Challenge
And that is it for 2024 for the Commodore 64 Games That Weren’t archive. Thank you everyone for all your help and support this year, in what has been a tough year for many reasons. I look forward to bringing you a lot more new discoveries in 2025!
Keith Purkiss was a regular games creator on the Commodore 64 back in the mid-late 80’s and early 1990s, and also created a few games under the pseudonym of Pakman for titles like Dragon Spirit and Little Puff. During his Probe days, he worked on the likes of Tiger Road, Rygar and Lazer Tag which would be released by U.S. Gold / Go!
Although in touch for a few years now, Keith reached out in 2024 after digging out all of his work disks. These would contain unreleased titles such as 666 – Number of the Beast, Aladdin’s Cave, Apprentice and a completely different version of Wacky Races. The links for these pages go to the individual entries we have set up that talk in more detail about those titles. Continue reading
As part of our Christmas 2024 GTW64 update – our next post isn’t quite unreleased games material, but are a set of yet unpreserved Polish games that were released in 1994 and have been preserved thanks to Marcin ‘Tenchi’ Świętoniewski.
Insect Kill and Clean All are essentially strange hacks of Mario Bros by AtariSoft, with added music, different titles and sprites – but essentially the same gameplay.
Both were produced for the Polish market, and came with a strange copy protection where you had to attach a black box cartridge to be able to load the tapes (which is ironic considering that the games themselves are pirated). Continue reading
For the past year, we have been preserving Archer Maclean’s legacy, saving his source code and various design notes. You can see some of our examples here of recent work as we start to take a look at prototypes and unused materials.
On the request of Chris Wilkins of Fusion Retro Books, we have preserved many work disks of Archer’s – but have also scanned in a plethora of documents and notes which Archer created as he developed his games. These give a fascinating insight into Archer’s process and attention to detail when developing the game. Continue reading
As you’ll be aware, the games industry is a turbulent one, where projects (and even companies) can often fail and result in cancellations. The team who would be assigned to working on Team SAS were described as amazing, and had not long just come off from completing the award-winning B-17 Flying Fortress – the Mighty 8th and were now about to embark on a new development called Team SAS.
Working with the team was SAS veteran Andy McNab, who donned a skinsuit and gave the game’s motion capture a realism that no normal actor could match. Level designer Stuart Maine revealed that the game also had a lot of animators and was very much animation driven.
Stuart and the team for instance had to plot spline routes through the levels for all four characters, which took a very long time to get right. The advantage is that it made the characters look incredibly realistic and could do animations that matched to the environment. Continue reading
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