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.

Latest News and Posts

Parasol Stars

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1990 Taito

Platform: Arcade, Taito WOWOW

What has always been fascinating is how Parasol Stars never seemingly saw a proper release in arcades, and was only released on consoles and home computer platforms (the story of the C64 edition is of course already well known).

According to contributor Daniel, the developers of the PC Engine version were contacted (source: https://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_taito.html#ParasolStars) and asked if the game was converted from an arcade machine that was never released. They confirmed that it was developed from scratch specifically for the console.

parasol stars earlyscreen

However, it was revealed that the game was location tested as an arcade cabinet in one or more sites in Japan. It was essentially a PC-Engine inside an arcade cabinet.

Reports at unmamed.mameworld suggest that around the time of the US launch of the PC-Engine/Turbografx system, there was a local arcade that had Victory Run and Galaga ’90 in a cabinet advertising the Turbografx-16 system – suggesting this could have been the plan for Parasol Stars’ release. Continue reading →

Posted in: Arcade, Reviews, WOWOW | Tagged: | 7 Comments

Body Count

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1992 Strangeways

Platform: Commodore Amiga and Super Nintendo

Our next entry is a very early title that was flagged up to us by team member Karl Kuras, who spotted this interesting early Smash TV-looking title that was due for release from Strangeways.

bcount large1

It hadn’t been long at all since Ocean’s official Smash TV conversion, so it was potentially a ballsy move by Strangeways to try and do something similar. The game was also apparently based around a futuristic TV game show and followed almost the exact same style of story line. Continue reading →

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

Crazy Cars 3 Amiga early screens

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A quick post thanks to team member Grzegorz Antosiewicz, who has found a set of early Crazy Cars 3 screenshots in Generation 4 magazine from June 1991, which show a very different looking game overall to the one that was eventually released:

Clipboard01 1
As you can see, the screenshots show different and bigger sprites for the cars, less detailed roads and a very early HUD.

Clipboard02 2

Essentially a complete redesign occurred. It would be very interesting to see this early prototype in action and see just how much of a different direction the game was going in.

With thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz for highlighting and the scans provided.

Posted in: Amiga, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Thank you!

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

We just wanted to post to say a huge thank you to contributor LiqMatrix who blew us away today by donating our entire hosting and domain costs for the year.

I had not put out a call for hosting donations for the past 3-4 years and had been covering myself. However, I’d forgot about leaving the donate button on the site and had the surprise yesterday.

So thank you very much to LiqMatrix for such a kind and generous donation and all your recent support with the site!

Posted in: News | Leave a comment

Overdrive – early Amiga screens

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Following on from the recent PC DOS release of an unreleased conversion of Team 17’s Overdrive thanks to Damiano Gerli, GTW’s Grzegorz Antosiewicz dug out a series of early screens from the game. Overall showing many differences and features not present in the final game.

Here for instance you can see early previews where there are different track graphics that were not used in the final game:

Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

PC Shareware CD’s preserved

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Recently one of our contributors Jürgen Clausen kindly got in touch with the offer of sending over some German PC Shareware CD’s that were released in the early-mid 1990s, before they went into the trash.

These didn’t seem to be preserved anywhere, so here they are with inlay scans and ISO files uploaded to archive.org (first time uploading to the archive, so hopefully all is ok):

They both contain a collection of Windows 3.1 software, of which some many not yet be preserved. I haven’t had chance to go through due to a lack of time, but let us know if you find anything interesting.

A huge thank you to Jürgen Clausen for sending these over to GTW for preserving.

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

Squibbly Shibbly

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1997 Miracle FX Productions

Platform: Commodore Amiga 1200

An interesting title for the Commodore Amiga that was highlighted to us by contributor Ivan and was reviewed in Amiga Format magazine back in July 1997.

Although a decent enough looking platformer at a time when software was a little scarce on the platform, Amiga Format ripped the game to shreds and gave it a very poor 20%.

squib6

The game had been created in the Reality Software Construction Kit, and in the game you controlled Squibbly and had to find various objects to give to your family. There were also family members imprisoned that you had to try and release. Sort of similar to the Dizzy games in a strange way. Continue reading →

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

GTW VIC-20 updates

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A short update for the Commodore VIC-20 archive with 4 new titles added into the archives, including one which is deemed to be the holy grail of unreleased VIC-20 titles.

These additions come thanks to team member Fabrizio Bartoloni for highlighting. If you have any suggestions for missing/unreleased VIC-20 games for the archive, then please do get in touch.

Posted in: News | Leave a comment

Electronic Calendar

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1982 Commodore

Platform: Commodore Vic 20
A short entry for a title that we are not 100% certain at this stage was ever started, but has featured for years on the Ward Shrake Vapourware list. The list contains a number of cartridge numbers which the actual intended title was unknown: Vic-1903, Vic-1934, Vic-1936, Vic-1940.  It was suspected that one of them could have been this game, and another Space Vultures which we also have listed in the archive. This name was taken from the back of an original VIC-20 box, but nothing has since been seen. We wonder what the purpose of this would have been apart from showing a digital calendar on the screen. Perhaps there were print options or similar? If you know anything more about this cartridge, then please let us know. With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni for highlighting.
Posted in: Reviews, Vic 20 | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Speed Type

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1982 Commodore

Platform: Commodore Vic 20

A short entry for a title that we are not 100% certain at this stage was ever started, but has featured for years on the Ward Shrake Vapourware list.

The list contains a number of cartridge numbers which the actual intended title was unknown: Vic-1903, Vic-1934, Vic-1936, Vic-1940.  It was suspected that one of them could have been this game, and another Space Vultures which we also have listed in the archive.

This name was taken from the back of an original VIC-20 box, but nothing has since been seen. We assume that this particular cartridge would have been a typing tutor game of some kind. If you know anything more, please do get in touch.

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni for highlighting.

Posted in: Reviews, Vic 20 | Tagged: | Leave a comment