Welcome to Games That Weren't!

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.

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Between The Lines

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1997 Dreamworlds Development

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Back in 1997, Amiga users with a PowerPC processor card (and 32MB RAM) were looking forward to an ambitious new game called Between The Lines, a real-time first person action RPG, created by Thomas Schulze.

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At the time, there was no solid story set for the game, though the only thing the developer was certain of was that there was no brave chosen warrior, no big bad guy and no happy ending. The aims of the game were dependant on your actions in the game overall and you could choose the type of person you wanted to be to play throughout a series of tasks and stories. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Knuckle Buster

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1987 Melbourne House

Platform: Amstrad CPC

It is with thanks to Chris Abbott that we add this new Amstrad CPC GTW entry for a conversion of Knuckle Buster. Although released on C64 and ZX Spectrum, any CPC edition was nowhere to be seen (if anyone can find an advert with the CPC version listed – please let us know!).

Chris informed GTW that Rob Hubbard completed (and was paid for) an Amstrad CPC port of his C64 KB music. Sadly the music is now lost, but if perhaps something of a CPC conversion was ever found – then this could be recovered as part of it. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Galander

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2005 Detalion Games

Platform PC

Its with thanks to Liqmatrix that we learn about Galander, which was an action game that was being developed for the PC back in 2005 by Detalion Games.

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On their archived website, the plot was detailed as being one which absorbs the player, where there are unexpected twists that will force you to change your behaviour in the game. Continue reading →

Posted in: PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks and Mandrake: Shadow of the Vehme prototypes

Posted: , last updated: by Joe Douglas

2003 Microids / 7th Sense

Platform: Game Boy Advance

Joe Douglas sheds light on two cancelled Defenders of the Earth character Game Boy Advance titles, The Phantom and Mandrake, that were due for release in 2003. This piece was originally written for Joe’s Chronicle Chamber website back in 2016, though Joe has kindly allowed us to mirror the recovery and downloads in case you missed it originally and to add to the GTW archives. We now hand over to Joe:

The majority of phans will be aware of the Defenders of the Earth video game that was released for various home computers in 1990 and, of course, the arguably more famous Phantom 2040 game released for the Sega Mega Drive, Sega Game Gear and Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. But did you know that the Phantom almost had a third console outing, along with fellow Lee Falk creation Mandrake the Magician, in 2003?

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In the world of video games it is not uncommon for games to begin being developed only to be unceremoniously cancelled and never heard from again. Indeed, some games reach a near complete state with only the smallest of fine tuning left before the plug is pulled. The stories behind these cancelled games are many and varied but always fascinating. To help uncover the secrets of these two games, ChronicleChamber contacted Sebastiano Mandala, one of the founders of Italian video game design studio 7th Sense Studios who were tasked with developing the games. Continue reading →

Posted in: Game Boy Advance, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

GTW64 July 2022 update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A bit more up to speed this month, with 5 more new entries, including a large catalogue listing to try and find a bunch of software that may not yet be preserved and a homebrew title that hasn’t seen the light of day since 1991. Then a nice 16 updates to existing archive titles with some tidy ups and new information in places.

5 new entries added

BrainBreak, Blockie, Dynacomp catalog titles, Megváltó, Operation Neptune

16 updates added

Catch 23, Dungeons Of Death, Enduro Racer V2, English Invaders, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade V1, Jonny Quest and the Splinter of Heaven, Mega Games, Mindbending Aliens From Hyperspace, Murder!, Nefarious, Pulsator, R-Type V1, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Wilberforce

Posted in: GTW64 news, News | Leave a comment

Guardian Moons

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1989 Microdeal

Platform: Atari ST

According to ST/Amiga Format’s preview of our next unreleased game entry, Guardian Moons had you in the control of a sadistic and psychotic terrorist who has to go around causing chaos and destruction everywhere. The objective would be to destroy eight guardian moons that protect the peaceful planet of Gargamadua.

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From the limited screenshots, the game seems to be a sort of Transbot-style game, but its hard to tell. Details about what you do exactly in the game are quite sparse. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

The Mind Possessing Aliens from Hyperspace

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 Demonware

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, C64 (see link below) and PC

Originally we knew of this game thanks to its appearance in an Early Warning scanner in Commodore Format magazine. This was for the C64 edition, which we have covered already under the C64 GTW archive site. Our focus for this page is for the Amiga and PC editions which are also currently missing.

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The basic story line was of a Mad Doctor Von Stal discovering a way to send people into hyperspace, but hasn’t worked out how to get them back. But also how to stop the flood of monsters coming through the opening he’s created and are taking over people’s minds.

Continue reading →
Posted in: Amiga, Commodore 64, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Batman Returns

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Gametek

Platform: Atari ST (also Commodore 64 – See link below)

We have had a detailed page on the cancelled C64 development for quite some time – but hadn’t realised that an Atari ST edition once existed until flagged up by Ross Sillifant.

Batman Returns was previewed in ST Action issue 63 back in June 1993, and showed a number of screenshots of the game in progress. The game was being developed by Denton Designs, where according to the article, John Heap was the programmer, with Ally Noble and Dawn Jones on graphics, and with Fred Gray on music.

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The game was initiated in October 1992 according to the article, and was due for release in September 1993. Oddly though, the film was released in July 1992, and it seemed quite late for the game, where usually games were developed to co-incide with the film release. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Citizens: Backwater Affairs

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994-1996 Microprose Software

Platform: PC
Also known as: Little People

Inspired by Activision’s Little Computer People, Citizens: Backwater Affairs originally started out as a game called Little People, before it was renamed due to the name being taken already by Fisher Price.

Everything starts with the tragic event of you dying in a road accident, where you then enter the afterlife and taken on the job as a caretaker for a small world under a dome called Backwater.

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According to lead artist Terry Greer, the idea was that you would be given tasks to do, such as helping a character get a new job. You would do this by changing that character’s statistics to have an affect on the final outcome. Terry gives a detailed account on his own page about the game here.

The game was felt to be ahead of its time, and as a result – management within Microprose didn’t fully understand the game or its appeal. Eventually it was cancelled, and a few years later The Sims appeared which did very similar things, much to the frustration of the original team.

Continue reading →

Posted in: PC, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment