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

Games That Weren’t book sneak peak + update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Our publisher Bitmap Books have just released a bit more detail in their latest newsletter about the upcoming Games That Weren’t book, including a sneak peak at how its shaping up, so here is a bit of a preview for you:

Giving an illustrated snapshot of a wide range of unreleased games from 1975 to 2015, The Games That Weren’t includes titles across a variety of arcade, home computer, console, handheld and mobile platforms spread across 644 pages. Many games are expanded upon in detail, with those involved sharing their untold stories and recollections, as well as attempting to solve some mysteries along the way. Assets and screenshots are shown for most titles, some never seen until now. In the case of games that don’t have anything to show, there are specially created artist’s impressions, giving a unique visual interpretation of what could have been.

For more updates, you can subscribe to Bitmap Books’ newsletter here.

 

Posted in: General, GTW64 news, News | 1 Comment

First update of 2020

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

In hoping to bring back more regular updates now the book nears conclusion and publication in a few months, here is the first GTW update of 2020, including a new Vic 20 section. This update includes a bunch of new entries highlighted by Peter Weighill, which I had stupidly missed for the Christmas update.

12 new entries added

Advanced Arcadeware 4 Pack, Anteater, Cargo run, Creepy Corridors, Double Dragon V1, Geister, Monkeybuilder, Phoenix Lair, Sphinx, Typo, Wheeler Dealers, “‹Stratos

12 updates added

Adam Caveman, Albedo, Amazon Tales, Capitaly, Escape From Colditz, Guardians Of Time, Hangman, Joust, Megatree, Mumbles – Superspy, Super Scramble, Unnamed helecopter game

New Commodore Vic 20 page

Something i’ve wanted to do for a while, and got prompted again after a discussion with Mat Allen and seeing news that a Hungry Horace game existed for the Vic 20. Something that will hopefully grow into more in the future:

Vic 20 Games That Weren’t

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Games That Weren’t Christmas update 2019

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Well, another year has passed and when preparing for this update, I realised that it had been almost 12 months since the last full update. Sorry about that! Hopefully reasons are now a lot clearer as to why that was! :)

Once the dust settles a bit, then we will be back in full trying to recover and preserve more lost C64 titles and make up for lost time. We are also starting to create and add videos to some of the entries as something a bit extra.

Many thanks to all our contributors for this update, including in particular Fabrizio Bartoloni, Csaba Virag, Hedning/GP and Jazzcat who contributed a lot to this update and for Vinny Mainolfi for all his support. All the best for 2020 and hope you enjoy the update! Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Derick Boorman disks

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Just a very short post to host some demo/hack disks that I found in Level Up games in Canterbury on some old C64 disks.

They seem to be credited to a Derick Boorman who lived in Kent and hacked around a bit with some old C64 demos, changing scrolltexts etc.

Please note, these were probably done when the author was very young – so the credit changes to themselves can be ignored. I did similar lame things when I was probably around their same age!

We managed to find Derick thanks to Gerard Sweeney, and they confirmed that it was them and their work. They didn’t recall much, but remember passing on their C64 to their nephew when moving over to the Amiga around 1990/1991. Derick also used to frequent in Computer World in Canterbury, and suggests we should bin any other disks we find ;-)

In case you want to see something a bit different, here are the disk images for posterity:

DerickBoormanDownload

 

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Eddie’s Puzzle Time (Nintendo Game Boy) released

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to Ross Sillifant for the heads up, this is a new and previously unseen Game Boy game that was due for release back in 1994 and was recently recovered and released by AIR Entertainment.

It is a pretty neat puzzle game that is around 99% complete, just missing some final polish. It’s unsure at present why the game never saw release, but check here for more details about the game and download below:

https://airentertainment.biz/2019/11/eddies-puzzle-time-unreleased-gameboy-game-download-link-included/
Posted in: Nintendo, Nintendo Game Boy | Tagged: | Leave a comment

The Games That Weren’t book – coming soon!

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

After 5 years of work (give or take), we’re pleased to announce The Games That Weren’t book coming soon in May 2020 from Bitmap Books, covering unreleased games since the dawn of the industry.

More details coming soon, but very excited to finally share the news after keeping quiet for so long.

Official details from Bitmap Books: https://mailchi.mp/6f0f8bd57e2e/bitmap-books-crpg-1703525?fbclid=IwAR2MjfMZqmIE0GP1Ea6nygOryTX3fDT0UawaoK2VLqF5No9xM_kxeLDWEmU

Posted in: GTW64 news, News | 3 Comments

Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1999 Runecraft

Platform: Sony PlayStation

A short entry for what was to be an educational based title created for the Sony PlayStation by Runecraft around 1999 time, based on the famous children’s series.

Thanks to lead artist David Tolley, we are able to show you a brief glimpse of some of the game assets (and quick photos of the design document) that David recovered recently from an old hard-drive. Continue reading →

Posted in: News, Sony PlayStation | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Daley Thompson’s Decathlon early version

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A short post thanks to contributor Daniel Meléndez, who spotted Daley Thompson playing a slightly different looking Daley Thompson’s Decathlon game on the Commodore 64:

Not massive differences it has to be said, apart from the panel boards and the score display section. Here is the released version as a comparison (Screenshot taken from Lemon64)

Often early builds would change their panels/layouts slightly over time. Would be interesting to know if there were any other major differences between what Daley was playing above and what we got to see in the end.

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news | Tagged: | 3 Comments