Welcome to Games That Weren't!

We are a 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.

Latest News and Posts

X-Wing V1

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Before LucasArts’ X-Wing soared into polygonal glory on PC, it began life as a sprite-based space sim built on the engine used in SWOTL and Battlehawks 1942. Thanks to a tip from Andreas Wanda, a rare glimpse of this early version may have surfaced in a 1992 slideshow video – complete with a possible screenshot at the 0:30 mark.

xwing v1

Thanks to contributor JP, another screenshot has been found within The Adventurer, LucasArt’s old newsletter. A very different cockpit to the final game and the TIE interceptors certainly look like they could be sprites. Or was it merely a mock up?

Could more of this original prototype still be out there? With many of the original devs still around, there’s hope. If you know anything more, please do get in touch! Continue reading →

Posted in: PC, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 3 Comments

The 7th Sword of Mendor

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1992-1995 Thalamus / Grandslam

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, Amiga CD32 and PC

Originally conceived as a spiritual follow-up to Abandoned Places, The 7th Sword of Mendor (also known as Seventh Sword) was an ambitious RPG project from Hungarian team Amnesty Design. The game was pitched as a graphically detailed, story-driven experience that blended classic Dungeon Master-style gameplay with the open exploration and the look/feel of Might & Magic III.

mendor 006

Despite several years in development, magazine previews, and even a playable demo sneaking out on PC, the title ultimately vanished following the demise of its publisher. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga CD32, Commodore Amiga, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Tip Off

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1992 Anco / Imagineer

Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System

As the archive continues to grow each week, we’re now excited to bring you the long-lost NES version of Tip-Off (due out way back in 1992), fully recovered in its final state and available for download.

tipoff large

Originally developed by Enigma Variations for Anco and set for release via Imagineer, the NES version was ultimately canned when Anco’s partnership with Imagineer ended. With high manufacturing costs and no major backer to support production, the financial risk proved too great in the end. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Scraper Caper

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1983 Big Five Software

Platforms: Atari 2600, 5200, 400 and 800

Following Miner 2049er, Bounty Bob was now set for the Big City and its fire department, where he must fight a major skyscraper fire in what was to be Scraper Caper. Sadly, the game was never to be.

Way back in 2001, Bill Hogue gave a reply back on a user group about the game:

scraper caper advert

“Scraper Caper was supposed to be our next game after Miner 2049er. We had a lot of success with Miner and ended up licensing it for just about every computer that existed at the time. This put a lot of pressure on us to come up with something that was incredible and could duplicate Miner’s popularity.”

Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari 2600 / Atari VCS, Atari 400/800/XL, Atari 5200, Reviews | Tagged: | 5 Comments

Mind Bender

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Tom Larrow

Platform: PC DOS

A very short entry for a title that was released in a very limited form, but is currently missing in action and yet to be preserved (we think!). Mind Bender (or Mindbender) was a Mastermind clone written by Tom Larrow, and was submitted to BBS sites in 1993.

It was also included in some Shareware compilations back in the day, as one of the registrations made for the game was from a disk purchased at a mall kiosk. It seems that thanks to DOS Games, it was distributed on a Software of the Month Club CD in July 1994, so could anyone still have a copy of that?

The game itself was written in GW Basic, and was likely compiled into an EXE that was around 40-50Kb in size. Our searches at the time have only found a Windows version of the game by someone else. Within this particular game is Tom’s full name, and an address of Norwalk, OH where he lived at the time as a nag screen.

Do you have a copy of Tom’s game at all? And if so, can you help us re-unite him with his long lost game?

With thanks to Marc Schulder for highlighting, DOS Games for helping with the search and Tom Larrow for further information.

Posted in: PC, Preservation | Tagged: | 2 Comments

HiWar

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1997 Virtual Design

Platform: Commodore Amiga 1200

HiWar was a Red Alert style game being developed on the Amiga 1200 by Virtual Design, and set to be published by Vulcan Software around 1997 time. The game was started by the company Optimus Nexus originally under the title of “High Worlds”. According to an interview with Artur Bardowski, one of the graphic designers, the game was canned due to the shrinking market.

hiwar4

A demo was created and sent to publishers by Mariusz Zieliński (coder), Artur Bardowski (artwork) and Maciej Chomicz (audio), where Vulcan Software took a particular interest – but that was about it sadly. A PC version was however being developed in parallel was eventually released as Tridonis in 1998 and published by LK Avalon. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Mechanoids 2 – The Final Conflict

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Enigma Variations

Platform: Super Nintendo

Our next entry into the Games That Weren’t archives is a very early and neat side-scrolling mech fighter called Mechanoids 2 – The Final Conflict. We’re not aware of there being a prequal though!

mech large

During some preservation work, we were asked to keep an eye out for the title for the SNES by Darren Melbourne, and a few nights later we managed to find two builds that had been compiled up and which worked right away in SNES 9X. Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Hannibal the Conqueror

Posted: , last updated: by Yassine Bakrim

2008 Volatile Games

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC (+ potentially others)

Volatile Games was a division of Blitz Games, created with one goal in mind: to make games for a mature audience. Their first real step into this world was Reservoir Dogs, a video game adaptation of Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic. While it didn’t set the world on fire, it proved that Volatile Games could handle darker, more violent themes. It was their way of dipping a toe into deeper waters.

hannibal3

After Reservoir Dogs, they set their sights on something bigger – Possession, a zombie apocalypse game. Unfortunately, after months of production, that project never saw the light of day. But tucked away in their history is another title that has gone largely undocumented : Hannibal the Conqueror. Continue reading →

Posted in: Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Reviews, Sony PlayStation 3 | Tagged: | Leave a comment

The Few

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1990 New Deal Productions

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, PC

The Few was a wargame that aimed to faithfully recreate the Battle of Britain in its entirety. It could be played solo or with a second player, either via Minitel, a serial cable connecting an Atari ST, Amiga, or PC, or on the same computer in a local two-player mode.

thefew5

In two-player mode, one player controls the British forces while the other commands the Germans. In single-player mode, you take full control of the British forces against the AI. At the start of the game, you were to choose between two modes: Historical, which allows you to experience the entire Battle of Britain from beginning to end, or Standard, where the battle is divided into three distinct phases. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Time Warden

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1982 Simon Wadsworth

Platform: ZX81

Simon Wadsworth had previously published a text adventure called The Scepter through Bug-Byte Software, which he’d written as a fifth-year student as an O-level project. However, he was about to unleash a new text adventure called Time Warden and had these recollections on his old archived web page:

“This was my second full adventure. I submitted it to Bug-Byte, as I had done with The Scepter, but it was never published. It was written using the same source code structure. I’d forgotten all about this game until sorting through a pile of old cassette tapes looking for my copy of The Scepter.

In this adventure you play the Time Warden. While you have been away on vacation and the Key of Time has been lost on the planet Syrius 5. You have 250 turns to recover the key before the end of the Universe.”

This rare ZX81 game was flagged up to us thanks to contributor Michael Hart, who learned about the game over at the Renga In Blue blog, where you can see screenshots and discussion about the gameplay.

timewarden1 Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews, ZX81 | Tagged: | Leave a comment