Proprietor of Games That Weren't—a digital archive dedicated to unreleased and cancelled video games, founded in 1999. A passionate software preservationist, contributing to various projects, particularly for the Commodore 64. By day, working as a software/web developer.
Way back in Commodore User issue 25 (October 1985) is how far we’re travelling for our latest preservation work – a board game tie-in that blurred the lines between digital and physical play: Bryan Robson’s Super League, published by Paul Lamond Games. And that is the key thing, at first on our C64 entry we wasn’t sure if it was published or not, but turns out it was. Continue reading →
Our next entry was due for release on the Game Boy Color around 1999-2000, and has a working title of F19 Stealth Air, but that is about all we know at present about this game. We’re not sure if it was a homebrew development or intended as a commercial release. Continue reading →
Next up into the ever-growing prototype archive at Games That Weren’t are a set of prototype builds for Mia Hamm Soccer for the Nintendo 64, dated 1st August and 1st September 2000. The game was a hastily reskinned version of Michael Owen’s WLS 2000 game, done in 12 weeks by DC Studios. Continue reading →
Our next entry is a very early start of an isometric engine for the Game Boy Color, and for a BMX game that was being created by Charles Doty. The idea was to develop into a sort of R.C. Pro-Am clone with BMX bikes and jumps. Continue reading →
A short entry now for an unknown and early game engine that was created during the very early days of DC Studios. It has a working title of “Some Metal Head”, which was set in the game’s header and seems to be the start of a sort of Metal Slug/Turrican style game. Continue reading →
More GameBoy Color Prototypes for you, with two for Road Rash which was released in 2000 by Electronic Arts. These two builds are from the 7th and 10th August, around 2 months or so before the final release. Continue reading →
After more than 40 years lost to time, Stairway to the Stars (the third game in Mike Taylor’s Magic Mirror Commodore VIC-20 adventure series) has finally been saved! And it’s been a long journey… Continue reading →
A very short entry for a set of extremely early NES Lion King prototypes that we found lurking within the Enigma Variations archives. They aren’t playable, but you can see the early structure for the game including test graphics throughout. Continue reading →
We’re today adding a NES prototype of Disney’s Aladdin, which was released by Virgin Games in 1994, only in PAL regions. What makes this special is that this is a NTSC build recovered and dated 23-08-94 and seems to be very close to final (though there are a number of glitches present). It has been stated that the NTSC version was never released until now. Continue reading →
Our seventh update of the year is a special one, as July featured one of our holy grail titles finally being found with the release of Nigel Mansell World Championship. There were also seven new entries added to the archives, including the sad inclusion of the very promising Moonspire 2. Continue reading →
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.
