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.
Restrictor was being developed by Arc Developments during the early 1990s for the Commodore Amiga (and also reportedly the C64). It was to be an original title from Arc, developed for Thalamus where you could drive and also fly, with around 4 planets to explore and various alien waves to fight.
The PlayStation Dino Crisis is a well known title by Capcom, and was designed by the very same team who had created Resident Evil. However, there was also to be a GameBoy Color conversion of the game as well. But overall there were not one, but two separate attempts at trying to bring the game to Nintendo’s handheld.
The first was being developed by Fluid Studios, which after cancellation, would move over to M4 Ltd as a completely new development and design direction. More details about both developments are already well covered and documented at Unseen64.
An anonymous contributor got in touch recently to provide some real pixel assets from the brief development, which you can see here and below. These include what we believe to be a previously unseen screen and dinosaur sprites. Continue reading
Note: This is heavily based on the original C64 archive entry.
Originally starting off and named as Barbarian 3, this was originally to be a straightforward sequel to Barbarian 2, following a very similar structure. This was an early period of development when both Steve Brown and Richard Leinfellner were involved in the development.
Basically whilst the sequel was in development, Steve had already decided that the game would benefit being turned into a trilogy. So the once planned ending to number 2 was changed so that Drax escaped through a mirror at the end of the game to leave it open for a 3rd title.
The main major change was that the 3rd game would now scroll instead of being flick screen based. When an action sequence occurred, then the game would switch to a larger and zoomed in fight view for the 16-bit editions. The C64 would keep the characters the same size throughout.
Thanks to Ross Sillifant for bringing a number of unreleased Amiga game screens to our attention, we also spotted some early Silly Putty screens and thought we’d add them to the archive.
Many of you will be aware of Constructor, the classic construction yard game developed by System 3 and released by Acclaim in 1997. Released on PC, and then later PlayStation and other platforms.
One of the holy grail titles for the Atari 2600, Pursuit Of The Pink Panther was also due for release on the Atari 800 and the Commodore Vic 20. Being converted by Roklan Corporation at the time.
Preservationist and collector Ken Van Mersbergen (known to many as Dutchman2000) found a very early prototype of the Vic 20 title within the archive of a retired programmer who used to work for Roklan. Ken released the title late last year in 2019 on the AtariAge forums after dumping the eproms.
Before you get too excited, the prototype is extremely early, and just showcases a one screen demo. It sadly isn’t playable and nothing moves, and just seems to be testing out the graphic display at this stage. A shame, as the Atari game was an interesting looking title that could have translated well. At this stage, we are not sure if the game ever progressed any further than the demo you can see here.
However, it is yet another important piece of gaming history preserved, and wonderful to see a Vic 20 title added to the site as well. Below is a short gallery, showing the game and prototype cartridge (thanks to Ken) and also a download too.
We’ve also added an extra scan, thanks to Karl Kuras – which gives a bit more detail about the Atari 2600 game and confirms about the game being taken over by Probe 2000. We assume they would have been releasing the VIC 20 edition
Hopefully some day we will learn more about the development and from those behind it.
With thanks to Ken Van Mersbergen for the preservation work and Karl Kuras for the additional scan highlight (via archive.org).
Games That Weren’t is proud to present the long lost AtariSoft conversion of Joust, which was due for release back in 1984. You can now download and play the game as originally intended.
It is with massive thanks to Ken Van Mersbergen for the amazing discovery of the source code and compiling the game into a form that can be played. Originally Ken had planned to first show the game at the VCFMW event in September, but unfortunately it has been cancelled – hence the earlier release on Games That Weren’t today. You can read more about how Ken came to find the game and preserve everything within the main page itself:
Enjoy!
This year has certainly flown already (and the sooner its over the better), and it is time for another GTW64 update with a number of new entries and various page updates that have been added over the past month. Enjoy!
Apocalypse, Early Days, Mad Mission, Mirage, Molar Madness, Sidewinder
Advanced Soccer Simulator, Alliance, C64GS cartridge titles, Catacombs, Circuit Man, Earth Mover, Escape From Colditz, Findit, Forestland, Habitat, Iron Hand, Living Dead, Make My Day, Mastertronic Loader 3, Mega Games, MegatanoÁ¯, Miner Willy Meets The Taxman, Mishun, Nighthunter, Orpheus in the Underworld, PHM Pegasus – Advanced Battle Disk, Race Drivin’, Rainbow Educational Software, Red Arrows, Shoot Out!, Slap Fighter, Thunder Hawk, Unknown Tony Crowther game
Yves Grolet, programmer on Amiga classics such as Agony and Unreal (so not the Epic game!) has recently archived and released remains of his Amiga hard drive and various floppy disks to the public domain.
These include the full sources for Agony and various other prototypes, and bits and pieces. People are free to do whatever they like with the sources, as long as it isn’t for commercial use.
A fantastic treasure trove which you should definitely check out:
https://m.facebook.com/yves.grolet/posts/1022286895865594
Thanks to @AmigaL0ve and Fabrizio Bartoloni for flagging up the release.
Whilst doing research into one of the Vectrex titles covered in the Games That Weren’t book, there was a surprise in store when Gary Bergmann (Senior Electronic Project Engineer at Milton Bradley) put us in touch with Tom McDonald. Tom used to work in the model shop at Milton Bradley at the time of the Vectrex, working on models for the likes of Dark Tower and more.
The Vectrex had other redesign attempts to try and continue the platform’s life-span, but sadly didn’t make it. These included a Colour Vectrex, but also a Mini Vectrex – which the National Video Game museum famously acquired a prototype of back in 2018. There was even talk of a handheld colour Vectrex in the late 80’s that would sadly never materialise.
However, Gary mentioned that Tom had worked on yet another Vectrex redesign which would never see the light of day. A new casing intended to replace the classic dark grey shell that we all know and love.
DISCLAIMER: We are a non-profit digitisation project, aiming to digitally preserve software and history which would otherwise be lost for good. If for any reason there is anything that you do not wish to be on the website, please contact us for removal.
Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
