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 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 video game history since 1999.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host for many different platforms.
News of an old SNES game called Nightmare Busters has emerged recently and which is being finished off, after originally being cancelled back in the day.
The game is being finished off by Super Fighter Team, and should be available in 2013 with a limited set of copies produced.
For more details check out:
http://www.nightmarebusters.
Thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni for the heads up!
Kevin Hall kindly got in touch recently to inform us about the start of some notes made on unreleased Dreamcast games over at Reddit.com
We hope to have more Dreamcast related materials on the site soon, but for now check out Kevin’s work so far:
http://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/pe5hz/notes_on_cancelled_dreamcast_games_part_1/
NOTE: (Frank – 03/09/21) I’ve updated this old 2012 post, as the link was broke.
Another quick update with the recovery of a great icon driven adventure game called Angel Of Death 2. This is a very advanced preview with some neat intros and graphics throughout. No English translation just yet!
Way back in 1994 the Doom-style Alien Trilogy was slated to come out across just about all platforms.
It came out on the Playstation, PC and Sega Saturn back in 1995 but proposed 32X and Sega CD versions never materalised. It’s not known if the game would have been a 32X cart game, a stripped down Sega CD game, both or a 32X CD game.
The game uses a similar if not the same engine as Doom, which did come out on the 32X so it’s likely the machine could have handled the game on a processing power level, if not on a memory level. But appalling sales of the 32X likely encouraged little demand for sustained support for the hardware from software developers. Continue reading
A quick update with the recovery of an interesting Qix inspired game called Pen Palz, where you must draw a certain percentage of the screen whilst avoiding enemies. A cool early preview worth checking out!
The Dizzy series is legendary among ZX Spectrum enthusiasts and the series were released across most home computer systems in the 1980s. Less well known are the console versions, even though numerous games were released on the NES and Master System.
Only one game in the series was released on the Megadrive, Fantastic Dizzy, but two were actually made and never released.
Dizzy The Adventurer is actually a polished version of Prince of the Yolkfolk and a thirteen minute video can be seen on Youtube showing gameplay from the unreleased Megadrive version. The Dizzy fansite, Yolkfolk.com (who put the video online), were actually given the original carts of the game by the Oliver Twins but have so far been unable to make backups of the ROMs to properly archive and store the game for future use.
It’s ironic, given my previous views on it, but there is a device called the Retrode that would be ideal for them, which allows you to create backups of your own cartridges. It would cost around £60 so could be a good investment for anyone who comes across prototypes that need converting into ROMs. Sadly it looks like the people behind Yolkfolk.com have already returned the ROMs after coming up blank in their own attempts at converting it to a ROM.
Case closed for now but we know a full game exists out there, it’s just a case of someone who can convert it into a ROM getting hold of a copy.
The second unreleased Dizzy game for the Megadrive is called Panic! Dizzy, and is based on the Master System game of the same name. The origins of the title can be read here and less is known about the Megadrive version than is known about Dizzy the Adventurer. As with Dizzy the Adventurer there has been a video posted to Youtube by Yolkfolk.com showing some gameplay and it like Dizzy the Adventurer looks fully finished.
Panic! Dizzy seems to be in the same situation as Dizzy the Adventurer where the prototype has been found and kept, but without the means to convert it into a ROM so it can be archived safely for posterity.
It’s frustrating to think of people being so close yet so far to successfully archiving some unreleased games in such a legendary series as Dizzy but that is exactly where we are now.
Hopefully with the existence of relatively affordable technology to make backups ROMs of cartridges we might see both games released as ROMs in the not too distant future.
Back in 2012, Games That Weren’t were pleased to release two tech demos for download for the original PlayStation. The demos were from games developer Realtime Associates and were pitch submissions for contracts for Robocop and Gen 13. This piece has been updated and tidied up from its original announcement piece.
Both games didn’t win either contract, with Robocop subsequently released to poor reviews. Gen 13 ended up cancelled altogether. See below for screenshots and download links to see what might have been.
The tech demos have been discussed before, and a video of the Robocop demo exists on Unseen 64 while the PlayStation Museum discusses the Gen 13 video, but for the first time they’ve been archived and made available to download for people to see for themselves.
The Robocop file is a simple tech demo where you can control Robocop walking around a single mostly wall-less warehouse. Pillars and boxes provide some sparse decoration, and whilst its 3D – nothing is solid, allowing you to walk through the walls and objects.
It’s pretty basic but at the same time shows the skeleton of how a full game would look. While of course the game ended up being made by someone else, it would have been cool to see what Realtime could have done with it had it been accepted.
Download the Robocop demo here
Gen 13 is based on the comic series of the same name, and PlayStation Museum has some pretty in-depth info on the submissions made by various companies for the contract to make it. The game ended up being cancelled, but its interesting to see the variety of submissions, so head on over to check it out.
The Realtime Associates version is the most simple, but PlayStation Museum caveat this by pointing out it was done in a single week, which makes it quite impressive. Its a fully 3D rendering of the heroine of the game and you can walk her forwards and backwards from multiple camera angles.
It’s simple but shows great potential for how the character of the series would have been portrayed. Some of the other submissions also seem to realise Gen 13 as a 2D game, so personally i’d give extra marks to Realtime for bringing it to life in 3D with so much charm, albeit with only a single character.
We conclude by saying a big thank you our unnamed source who goes under the pseudonym ‘David Warhol’, which coincidentally is the name of the president of Realtime Associates, Inc.
An equally big thank you goes to Unclejun and Monokoma (from www.unseen64.net) for their help in accessing the demos. If anyone discovers anything new in the demos, e.g. button combinations producing a different angle or move, then get in touch and let us know!
Despite our best efforts there are times when our searches for unreleased games prove fruitless. It is at times like this we publish what information we do have in the hope that one of our intrepid and fabulous readers takes up the baton and succeeds where we failed. Sadly, we’ve reached this point once more.
We’ve been looking into three or four games that are unreleased, some with a fair amount of information and other’s with next to nothing. We’ve published every we now underneath but unless some new information comes to light it’s the end of the road for these games.
EDIT BY FRANK – “These titles have now been split into 3 separate entries into the archive – see links below.”
First update of 2012, and yet more unreleased goodies for you thanks to Ruben Spaans and Jazzcat, as well as other quick new entries:
Over the past few months, GTW64 has been working with C64.com to preserve a series of games after working on the disk collection of Darren Melbourne. 25 or so disks were painstakingly preserved by C64.com, and GTW64 trawled through these and found many a lost game. We present a good selection of these, but more will follow in the future with more disks being examined and preserved by both of us.
The collaborated update includes:
Then part of GTW64’s usual update includes:
Enjoy, and hope you all have a good holidays and a happy new year! We’ll be back in 2012 with more joint findings :)
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.
