Welcome to Games That Weren't, a site dedicated to news around the world about unreleased games, incomplete games or prototype games and findings. As well as news, reviews and features, we have various platform specific archive projects with downloads and more in-depth reviews and interviews. Please feel free to browse and also use our forum to get in touch and help with our quest to document and preserve all that is currently lost.
We are pleased to announce that Games That Weren’t will have a display at Play Blackpool this 3rd and 4th May.
In collaboration with Andy Brown of Replay Events, we have helped pick a number of games for various consoles and computers which never saw a commercial release and will be available for people to play and check out.
For more details, check out:
http://www.playblackpool.com/games-that-werent-feature-revealed/
Another GTW64 update which includes:
Amazon Tales, Hangman, Ultimate Stunt Boat Challenge
Device for Alien Destruction, Microprose Soccer V1, Star Tech Games
Another GTW64 update which features a new entry thanks to Mark Wilson, and a set of tunes intended for the game. In addition – Arbitrator has had a set of tunes submitted by Mark which were also intended for the game.
Finally Ian Coog has provided SID tune rips for both Castle Boy and Starburst (as well as Arbitrator just moments ago), which we have added to all entries.
Thanks to Mark Wilson, the GEMS compilation pack has been digitally preserved, which includes 2 previously unreleased full games and also a far more complete version of Starburst (with previously unheard tunes by Andy Brown). This update also includes a new entry and a few updates thrown in to boot!
The latest issue of the free C64 fanzine, RESET has been released, which features a new regular Games That Weren’t section. This month covering Genesis’ Spellcast game.
Check out the magazine and download from here:
More collated updates from GTW64, with the following:
Flight Deck 2, The Light Corridor
Aurum, Crossbow, Habitat, Joust, Questerious, Sonic The Hedgehog, Star Tech Games, Stargate, Xamitlu
GTW recently had an email from Andy Swann, who was one of the key programmers at Twilight back in the early 90′s, and one of the lead developers of the cool Alfred Chicken on the Amiga.
Andy has been attempting to find his old disks, and at Christmas found three disks. One blank, one with an early demo version of Alfred Chicken (Amiga) and another (and exciting!) early demo of an aborted title called Frog Dude on the Sega Megadrive.
Firstly, Alfred Chicken’s demo is believed to be a ECTS demo with some differences from the final game (including a different picture of Alfred Chicken, different game palette and no sound effects). A nice curiosity!
Frog Dude is a title which we don’t believe has been heard about before. It was prototyped around the same time as Alfred Chicken, but wasn’t quite as strong a title – hence development was stopped before it could be touted to any publishers. Andy was the lead developer, whilst Peter Tattersall was on graphics. Andy’s agent, John Cook, had come in and said that the Frog Dude title was “workman-like” and suggested they didn’t bother with finishing it. Andy then went on to port Alfred Chicken to the Gameboy instead.
As you can see from the various screenshots, the game takes some visual cues from Super Mario World, as the guys at the time were very taken by the game. The game allows you to swap between a mace wielding prince and a frog with a large tongue. There are some nice cartoony graphics, including a small animated sequence at the start – but no sound in place.
Thanks very much to Andy, he has allowed us to share both the Alfred Chicken demo and Frog Dude with you all. So feel free to download and run in your favorite emulator and take a look in particular at what could have been a British take on Super Mario World!
Keeping up the trend, some more new entries and various updates have been added.
This includes news of another Psygnosis conversion that never was, an interesting Club Light game, a selection of John Vanderaart entries, some newly recovered Duncan Kershaw games, confirmation that a cartridge version of Spy Who Loved Me did exist, David Doll speaks to GTW64 about the Virus April fools and much more. Enjoy!
Anarchy, Aurum, Club Light adventure, Duncan Kershaw games, Gravity, Playboy – The Game, Smakeloos, The Spy Who Loved Me C64GS,
Castle Boy, Crossbow (William Tell), Here and there with the Mr Men, Space Hop, Starburst, Stratagos, Toki V1, Virus
Our first update for 2014 includes the following:
See the “Updates made” link at the top of each page for what has changed.
Ballfever, Bugs Bunny, Darksyde, Here and there with the Mr Men, Lethal Xcess, Spellcast, Star Tech Games, Your Computer Software Exchange
A huge surprise for Amiga fans today, as System 3 have released the Amiga version of Putty Squad after being missing for almost 20 years and to mark the release of the Playstation release.
The game has been preserved thanks to the efforts of Galahad/Fairlight who helped master the game for release with John Twiddy and Phil Thornton.
I have to say, many of us were skeptical to whether the game would ever be released – but credit to System 3 for a very kind gift to the Amiga community just before the end of the year. Could Fuzzball (C64) be next? 
For more details and download:
http://www.system3.com/promotional-download/puttysquadamiga/
