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 online since 1999, and long before that offline.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host for many different platforms.
Thanks to Allan Pinkerton, who has very kindly preserved missing copies of Basic Tools, Creators Revenge (Already out there as Metamorphosis III – The Creators Revenge), Math Pack and Math Flash.
They are not strictly ‘Games That Weren’t’, but we want to try and share any preservation work where possible for titles that had been missing – so here we go:
Although not an unreleased game as such, this is an obscure C64 based compilation that was released late in the C64’s life, which featured commercial games as PD games. It’s likely not many sold, and as a result hasn’t really been seen in the wild that often.
Thanks to the kind loan from Steve Green, here it is fully preserved with scans of the inlays + tapes:
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/wp-content/ODUS.zip
Everything is already in the wild already, but its an interesting curiosity preserved.
Well, 2018 went far too quick! It’s been almost a year since our last update, which wasn’t really the intention and isn’t the norm. I had planned to take a few months break and then continue as usual, but unfortunately various personal challenges got in the way and also there has been the completion/continuation of a project I have been working on for almost 5 years. All will hopefully be revealed on that soon in 2019!
As a result, I have not taken in any donations for hosting costs this year, as I haven’t really offered you anything in return this year.
Overall, our yearly Christmas update this year is not quite the same as previous years. For a start, I have no new findings to offer for the first time in a long time because i’ve not been working on the project. I have been determined to do *something* though, so I have created a number of new entries and made some updates for you. I hope the wonderful influx of new C64 releases this year will have counteracted the lack of input from my side, and I hope to be fully functioning again next year. There is still plenty of work to be done!
Merry Christmas to all and all the best for 2019, as we kick off our update:
4 Games, Abandon Ship S.O.S., Angry Birds Style, Any Craps 64, Babies of the Dirt, Bimz, Cybex Escape, Dynaboys, Flyboy, Galaxy Patrol, Heartlight64, Le Fantome Vert, Lumberjack Deluxe, Magic, Mekka and Symposium 2000 missing 32k games, Murdlok, Pinball Dreams, Push It, R.I.O.T, Roll-Out, Scramble 2010, The Official Everton F.C. Intelligensia, Top 20, Transforming Overland Robot, Zulp, triFACTa
Academy, Am-Cup, American GI, Breaker, Buggy Ranger, Cave Wizard, Champions, Crossfire Canyon, Dark Sceptre, Dominator V1, European SuperLeague, Eye Of The Moon, International Soccer Challenge, Italian pirated games, Katia, Last Ninja V1, Megatanio, Meurtre À Grande Vitesse, Murder!, Opera House and The Pay Off, Outpost, PT-109, Pet Person, Prometheous, Proteus, Rex Hard, Rhyme Land, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Test Drive 3, Tour De Force, Toyota Rally, Traffico, Turbo Cup Challenge, Unknown shooter by Kernal, Victory Road (UK version)
We have one last surprise update for 2017, including a preview of an extremely promising game which could still hopefully be finished and taken out of GTW64. The coder still open to help and suggestions for continuing – can you help? Also, an unknown and very early shooter preview by Roy Fielding has been added and some quick updates.
All the best for 2018 everyone!
Italian pirated games, Monster Maths, Quark, Quark IX, Traffico
It’s that time of the year again, when we dig out some more findings to present for a large Christmas update. Apologies for the slowness of updates this year, but another project has taken priority of late. I hope this makes up for things. Merry Christmas everyone and all the best for 2018!
A shock recovery, thanks to Scott Stilphen, who obtained a rare late preview of the long lost C64 conversion of Q*Bert’s Qubes. It’s here ready for you to check out!
A very early preview of Choice Software’s C64 conversion of New Zealand Story has been recovered and added to the GTW archives.
A great little 1984 educational title has been preserved thanks to Scott Stilphen and Robin Ballweg with some lovely music.
Video images were attempting to pitch for a new Outrun 2 game, before Outrun Turbo or Europe came about. Check out their preview and mockup screens.
Thanks to Francesco Milioni, we have three new unreleased games for you which were meant for release on an Italian compilation tape, but was cancelled due to the dwindling C64 market.
A very early, but neat looking Operation Wolf clone has been recovered thanks to Dean Hickingbottom.
A very early build of Garfield by The Edge has been found on Mat Sneap’s workdisk, as well as the game’s map designer.
Unknown art assets by Mat Sneap for a game called Runner has been recovered. Who was the coder and was it started?
Some additional hi-res mockups have been recovered of this intriguing Video Images game that never was.
Thanks to Csaba Virág, Hungarian text adventure preview Egy kis kiruccanás (A Little Fling) has been recovered and added to the archive.
A preview of Spellcast, used to send round to companies for interest, has been added to the archives. Only very slight differences present.
Thanks to the wonderful preservation efforts of Jerry Kurtz, an additional bonus is the complete preservation of an obscure 1984 karate game called Competition Karate. As it is a released game, we haven’t created a GTW entry for it, so here are both the download and scans. Enjoy!
Whilst sifting through some developer disks of Dean Hickingbottom and Cory Kin, we found a number of demos (a lot of Compunet demos), tunes and cracks which don’t seem to be preserved at present. We may have missed a few, but here is an extra bonus anyway:
Bonus unpreserved demos + cracks
Then finally, a digest of updates and new entries since our last site update:
Alien Garden, Alpha Runner, American Dream, Avant-Garde titles, Commando 88, Drive, Italian pirated games, Kukulcan, Learning and Training Systems software, MicroLeague Sports titles, Monster Maths, Playful Professor – Word Factory, Pontoon, Pop Quiz 85, Secrets of the Magi, Sherwood Forest, Squire, Sword of Sodan, Tangram, The Elysian Fields, Unknown football game
3 2 1 quiz game (confirmation of existence), Ace Attacker (scans added), All Terrain Gardener (added alternative name), Alloyrun (sfx credit), Alvin & The Chipmunks (competition scan added), Arcane Quest (full game preserved), Black Bandit (details from author added), Bubbles (notes added from author), Chelsea of the South Sea (spelling fix), Coven (scan added), Crossfire Canyon (added photos), Delphian (coder confirmation + article link), Edward Randy (scan added), Enterprise (credit + more details added), Escape from London (author resurface news), F-86 Sabre Strike (added notes), Formula 1 Simulator (new scans added), Gi Hero (sfx credit), Hit and Run (game preserved!), Illusions (download added), IndeflataBall (additional builds added), Into The Nature (confirmed released), It came from the desert (scan added), Isolation (confirmed released), Judge Death (more scans added), Karnov V1 (rare screenshots added), Katakis (scans added), Last Ninja 4 (additional development notes), Legend Of Kyril (info added from Joerg Droege), Lock On (scans added), Mega Games (more scans added), Miami Vice (scans added), Milk Tray Game (credits fix), Minder (review + screenshot added), Nighthunter (sfx credit), Obliterator (new screenshots), Orel Hershiser’s Strike Zone (new scans), Play and Learn series (new scans), Savage Platforms (tidied up review), Ski Run (game preserved), Sophisticated games (few titles preserved), Squad One (found and confirmed released), Star Fighter (advert added), Super League Manager (scans added), T-Wrecks (scans added), The Future Zone (scan added), The Micro Zone (scan added), Trojan (reverse engineer details), Twice Shy (screenshots added + scans), Tyger Tyger (details added by Gary Liddon), Warlord (confirmation of existence + credits), Who Dares Wins (update about game release), Zynon (sfx credit)
Sorry for the lack of updates recently everyone – i’ve been really swamped on another project recently, but we have been preparing for our annual Christmas update, where we have a few bits and pieces for you as well as a digest of updates that have been happening in the background.
As an early Christmas present, we thought we’d share a recently recovered full version of Silverbird’s IndeflataBall with you, thanks to Cory Kin finding a last batch of disks which contained the final edition.
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/indeflataball/
Next update will be the Christmas update itself with some more unreleased games and previews, along with some recovered CNET demos which may not have been preserved yet.
Enjoy!
Happy weekend everyone! Thanks to developer Adrian Longland and Retro Gamer magazine regular Paul Drury, we are pleased to present a complete and unreleased game for the ZX Spectrum called “Cloud Hopper”, as part of an upcoming interview with Adrian in Retro Gamer issue 172, due in a few weeks time.
The game was originally intended for release in Your Sinclair magazine in the 1980s, but was unfortunately rejected due to going over memory limits set. It was a machine code game that would have been printed as a type in, and would have taken too many pages up in the magazine. Below is the original rejection letter that Adrian and Paul have kindly supplied. With some minor tweaks made recently by Adrian, you can now play the game as once intended.
Adrian provides the following instructions for the game:
The keyboard controls are O = Left, P = Right, Q = Up ( when on a lift ) and A = Down ( again, on a lift ).
M = Summon lift.The goal is to assembly the airplane by picking up the parts and assembling them in the top left corner of the screen.
To pick up a part and to drop it, you just need to walk over that part of the screen. You can only carry 1 part at a time.
It’s much like how you assemble the rocket in Jetpac.Watch out for the sea gulls, and pay attention to the clouds which show which way, and how fast the wind is blowing.
Included in the download is a screenshot that Adrian provided with the parts numbered in the order that you need to pick them up.
Be sure to check out Adrian’s interview if you haven’t already and look out for issue 172 of Retro Gamer in shops or directly from their website.
Many thanks to Paul and Adrian for the submission. Hope you all enjoy it!
Games That Weren’t is a freely ran project, 100% non-profitable and done in our own free time. To ensure minimum downtime, storing vast amounts of scans, downloads and information we have to pay for proper hosting.
UPDATE – All hosting costs are now covered for 2017/18, and just within a few hours! There was just a small amount left to raise, which i’ll cover. Thank you very much to Chris Abbott, Andreas Wanda and Christopher Gioconda for their help!
A full breakdown of our yearly costs can be found on our Donations page.
Please note that donations only cover our hosting/domain costs, so that we remain a purely non-profit project. Each year we will try and raise money to cover our costs. Once we hit our target, no more donations will be accepted. If donations go slightly over the target amount, then remains will go to charity.
Thank you!
Not quite unreleased news, but an improved A06 version of The Quill and Illustrator for the Commodore 64 has recently been preserved, after it being realised that it hadn’t yet been done. Version A05 has been around for a long time, but it had only just been noticed that the last version with an improved word parser wasn’t available.
More details can be read here:
http://8-bit.info/2017/04/15/tapes-from-the-crypt/
With the files and downloads from here:
http://8-bit.info/the-gilsoft-adventure-systems/
Thanks to Crispin for the news!
Had another few more bits and pieces come through over the past week or so – so here is another digest of recent updates – including two new full games (Equinox + Soda Shop) that were recovered by Peepo, Tom Roger Skauen and Triad, thanks to Rich Hinton for providing the disks.
Also – check out Streethawk for two of the most detailed screenshots we’ve seen yet of the game. Discovered on the Spanish release cover for the Amstrad version of all places!
If you think the font looks familiar, then you’d be right – the same font was used eventually in Top Gun. So something of the game did surface! ;-)
Equinox, Maze Patrol, Soda Shop, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Liquidator
C64GS cartridge titles, Chelsea of the South Sea, Lauren of the 25th Century, Pyramid, Streethawk
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.
