Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
Klartz and the Dark Forces was a Quill based (on ZX Spectrum at least) adventure being produced for the Dragon 32, C64 and ZX Spectrum back in 1984 by an obscure company called Dragon Dungeon. It was advertised in a few magazines at the time, including BigK magazine in 1984.
The game was an interlinked series of adventures set in different time zones and on different planets. You are a member of a small group of survivors dedicated to a plan to rid the universe of Klartz and his Dark Forces.
The C64 version in particular was advertised as being a 120K extended graphics version for £9.95, but sadly it was never to be for reasons which are yet unknown. Nothing more was ever to surface of the game it seems, not even any screenshots showing the game (though we wouldn’t mind being proven wrong of course! ;-) )
Even the Spectrum version is currently missing in action, but the Dragon 32 version was actually sold and released. Looking at the Dragon Dungeon name, it seems that the company may well have been a Dragon 32 focused company, with a view to spread into other platforms. Maybe they hit troubles trying to convert their game to other platforms?
In January 2025, contributor Paul Jones got in touch to say that a fellow preservationist friend has confirmed that they have a copy of the game on the Commodore 64 and have had some trouble trying to dump it. Paul is hopefully going to help preserve the title, though sadly their contact has gone off the grid (hopefully they are ok!). Keeping fingers crossed that this one could finally be preserved!
Our next entry into the depths of GTW64 comes possibly a title which was merely listed as a mistake. Automata were predominantly a Spectrum based company, with very little C64 output at all during the early 80’s.
Morris Meets The Bikers was a cute single screen platform based game which was released on the Spectrum and also Amstrad CPC which received good reviews overall.
So how did a C64 version come to light? Well, in an issue of BigK magazine in 1984 – there was a large advert for Deus Ex Machina, which has the C64 version listed in its order form below. Was this indication that they had a version available, or merely a printing error? It is the only C64 option listed, so it seems an odd mistake to make.
Thanks to Anonymous Contributor, the same advert in C&VG in February 1985 (at a later date than the BigK one) has the “CBM64” part changed to “Amstrad”. So it could well have been a mistake after all!
We hope to find out more soon, but check out the scan for yourself – maybe there is something to find of a C64 version some day.
A very very quick placeholder entry of sorts for a game briefly mentioned in an article with John Darnell by Martyn Carroll in Retro Gamer magazine.
In the article, John mentioned working on a game called “Sleepwalker” for Software Projects but the game was never fully released, although complete.
We know little about the game itself at the moment, but John has offered hope by recently finding a map of the game (printed on a dot-matrix printer and held together with sticky tape!) and also a disk, which *may* have the game on.
Sadly John has found that the disk doesn’t have much of the game on at all – but the game is now being redeveloped, as you can read here!…
A very quick entry on a game which we know very little about at present.
The game was a type-in which was submitted to BigK magazine and was about to be published, but the magazine went under just before it could. Unfortunately it seems that the game has never quite made it out in any shape or form.
We learnt about that game thanks to John Palmer who recalled the game was developed around 1985 by his brother Richard, with graphics by himself.
It is hoped that they still have something of the game, but it is looking likely that this one is lost forever. Maybe some day it could be found and digitally preserved.
Family fish was an underwater shoot-em up being developed by Richard Taylor in the 80’s. It was intended for a publisher in Bracknell – which we will need to confirm. The game was purchased in principle.
It is initially believed that the game is infact Freaky Fish, which was released on Your Commodore’s covermount in the 90’s…
Octron was Enthusi’s first attempt at game coding around 2007-2008 time – the game being an impressive 8 player Tron game!
To play with 4 players, you would need a 4 player adaptor, and for 8 – two C64’s and two 4 player adapters, with the C64’s connected via a floppy serial cable.
The preview included here to download has all 8 players available. It is still at a fairly early stage, but does have a loading screen created by JSL and in place. An earlier version has a map displayed for each player after they have game over. Most graphics are place holders
So what happened to the game? Enthusi sadly lost interest in developing the game, and so it was resigned to the scrapheap. More details of the game can be read in Creators Speaks.
What you see here is all that remains of the game, so it is an open and shut case!
Kill all humans was to be a game where you control a lost robot on a human spaceship heading to attack an outer world. The aim was to kill all humans and scientists that cross your path across multiple levels of the ship.
It was being developed by both Enthusi and Ptoing during 2009 time. Development got to a fairly advanced stage, which you can see from the final remains here for downloading. It is pretty impressive, and features a cool character based raycasting effect for showing the map
So what happened to the game? Enthusi and Ptoing suffered from real life getting in the way, and there would be some hefty work and scheduling involved to get the game completed. More details can be found from Enthusi in the Creator Speaks section.
What you see here is all that remains of the game, so it is an open and shut case!
Heng was to be a sort of Civilization-based game on the C64, which was developed from around 2009 time.
The idea was for the game to be a real-time strategy with 2 players (or player vs AI), where you have to get knights to build cannons/ships.
Development got to a fairly advanced stage, which you can see from the final remains here for downloading. It is pretty impressive.
So what happened to the game? Enthusi sadly lost interest in developing the game, and so it was resigned to the scrapheap. More details of the game can be read in Creators Speaks.
What you see here is all that remains of the game, so it is an open and shut case!
Sphere is a sideways scrolling shooter, with collidable mountainous objects. Similar to Sanxion a little, with the ability to accellerate the scrolling.
The game was started in 1987 by Ian and Michael Jones, in the hope of quickly pushing the demo around publishers to get interest. The game got to an early stage of progress, but was shaping up well. There are test sound effects by David Whittaker included, but these were just ripped from another game. Level graphics and bits were done by Rob Whitaker, but the sprites were ripped from elsewhere temporarily.
No publisher interest was found, so the game was abandoned very early on. The remains were passed onto Ikari to release back in 1988. However the game had its code recycled and used within a game that was given as a gift to Compunet called Snow Em Down.
This is as far as the game got sadly, so it is a very quick open and closed case.
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