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

Joe and the Serif (C64) preserved!

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Occasionally GTW64 is passed on software which did in fact get a release, but a very limited one and which has not yet been preserved for others to enjoy.

Joe and the Serif is one such game, preserved by a contributor called Pudva, this is an interesting game released in Hungary (May need to know some Hungarian to play the game :) ), which also saw a release on the C16/+4

You can grab a copy of the game here.

A big thanks to Pudva for digging this out, and Puchala László for the name correction.

NOTE: This was originally published back in 2011.

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), Preservation | 5 Comments

GTW64 xmas update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

It’s that time of the year again. The Xmas update of Games That Weren’t is now launched, with plenty of findings and new materials, including:


  • ‘PUTTY’ – Found and released!

  • ‘UNDEAD’ – Fully recovered and added
  • ‘PULSE’ – A new unseen puzzler preview
  • ‘SCIMITAR’ – An early tech demo from Cyberdyne Systems
  • ‘DEADLOCK’ – More demos (including 2 early versions) added
  • ‘ARMALYTE 2’ – Game music recovered
  • ‘HALF LIFE’ – GFX remains founds
  • ‘SAVAGE PLATFORMS’ – Game music recovered
  • ‘TURN CHANGE’ – More remains added
Plus…
  • 35 brand new entries added
  • 19 existing entries updated

And a little hint of what’s to come in 2011…

‘STARGLIDER 2’ – All remains recovered and being worked on.


Enjoy at http://www.gtw64.co.uk

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), News | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Speedball 2 unused material (C64)

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Carl Muller did a fantastic job squeezing in Speedball 2 onto the Commodore 64 back in 1991. However, it was at a cost in various areas … and most notably was for some of the in-between screens.

Commodore Format in particular had printed a much higher quality version of the defeat image and larger than what was in the final game. Carl luckily still had it, so here it is:

Hopefully we may see more materials, and possibly earlier builds in the future.

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), Unused materials | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment

Turbocharge prototype (C64)

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Now for something which isn’t worth a full entry on the GTW64 site, but is worthy of a mention.

Recently a prototype of System 3’s 1991 racer/shooter Turbocharge on the Commodore 64 has been uncovered by TMR/Cosine, originally preserved to obtain its tunes. The main difference compared to the final game in this one level preview is that the game music is composed by Reyn Ouwehand, who was to be the original composer for the game. Music was switched to both Sean Connolly and Marc Francois towards the end of development.

Reyn’s music covers all sound channels in this version, compared to Sean/Marc’s music which was just 2 channels to leave the 3rd sound channel free for SFX.

From what I can see, there is very little else that is different compared to the final game – nothing seems to be that different graphically, though there may be some very subtle gameplay tweaks. The final game felt a little more solid.

You can now grab the turbocharge-proto file and play on an emulator. Enjoy!

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), News, Prototype | Tagged: , | Leave a comment

Hawkeye 2 (C64) in development

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Although a few weeks old news now, with the addition just now of some previously unseen development materials, we thought it would be worth mentioning news on the main site about the up and coming new development.

That’s right, with the original salvaged materials – the game is finally to be completed with around 25 lines of parallax and 12 levels of action. The game is pretty much being done from scratch, improving vastly the amount that will be squeezed into the game.

More details, including the original and scrapped development from 1989 can be read about here: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/hawkeye-2/

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni regarding materials from the new version (which seems to have stalled).

Gallery
Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), News | Tagged: | 4 Comments

We’re back!

Posted: by Frank Gasking

After a few months offline, Games That Weren’t is back – with a slightly new lick of paint – though not too dissimilar to the old site.

So what happened?… Unfortunately the hosting disappeared and bang went all our content. Sadly with no access to the posts, I have had to scrape what I can from the Google caches and also the Web Archive. As a result, we have had a few casulties (In particular the Konix AMC’89 article sadly :-( ) , but most of the old site has been re-posted here and preserved.

Sadly the PCGTW and 3DO GTW sites are still unavailable, but i’m hoping these will be back soon!

The one positive thing to come out of everything is that it forced my hand to update the site and its functionality, with better Social media integration (and also a far better admin interface for us to use!).

So now on with the show!….

Posted in: News | Leave a comment

Scooby Doo in the Castle Mystery

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1986 Elite

Platforms: ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64

Scooby shot 1Dragons Lair was a technical marvel in the early 80s with its impressive Laser Disc technology. Elite jumped on the bandwagon with their licence of the popular cartoon series.

Whereas Dragons Lair was heavily changed for its home conversions, Elite decided to go one better. Originally starting out as a text only adventure, the plan for Scooby Doo grew to include pictures and finally extra interactivity to turn it into an 8-bit laser disc game.

Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 (C64), Reviews, ZX Spectrum | Tagged: , | 8 Comments

Lunar Jetman (C64)

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1985 Ultimate

Lunar Jetman shotLunar Jetman was part of a huge classic genre on the Spectrum that spawned a few games by Ultimate featuring the Jetman character. The range of games however never quite made their way onto the C64. Spectrum users had Jetman, whereas C64 users had to make do with Sir Arthur Pendragon in a series of games.

Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment