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.
A short entry for a potentially different version of The Flintstones by Grandslam in 1987. This was flagged up by GTW team member, Ross Sillifant from Popular Computing Weekly magazine.
During the storyboard stages, it was suggested that the personality of the character will change in the manner that you complete the game. Also, you would be able to choose between Fred and Barney to play through.
It seems these ideas were dropped early on, but were they started in any shape or form? Is there an earlier version out there with some of these ideas on show? Perhaps not, but who knows.
Our next entry we were not 100% certain whether it was intended as a proper game, or merely was part of a demo that was released back in the day.
This was discovered by GTW regular Csaba Virag on an old disk, and is a very simple platformer – similar to Tarzan Goes Ape, where you must climb up the screen. The game window is very small, and due to the style – we are wondering if this was a demo part. If you know more, please let us know.
The game was developed by Heatwave, which consisted of at least Bas Broers, Marvin Severijns, Michel A. de Bree. We’ve added those as credits for now, but please let us know if there are any corrections.
It has been since confirmed in May 2025 by contributor Michel de Bree (who worked on the music!) that the game was part of the demo Eddie’s Adventure. Therefore, it is a case closed! :)
Our next entry into the archives is an obscure BASIC game which doesn’t seem to be fully preserved and was developed by Matthias Weber in 1983. The game was discovered on some disks by Csaba Virag.
It is a simple game where you have to get an astronaut into a rocket, and then our guess is that there are further levels after this where you have to navigate the rocket. We didn’t get much chance to play, so please let us know if you discover anything more.
We’re not sure if this was intended as a commercial game, or was a type-in in a magazine or similar. If you know anything more, please let us know.
A new and previously unknown game released into the Games That Weren’t archives with Memory Man, a game found by Csaba Virag on a series of disks.
The game was developed in Hungary and doesn’t seem to be currently in the archives, and was due to be published by Novosoft, like with Metal Pyramid which was added to the archives last year.
It was found along with some works by the developer Einspach TV, and seems to be mostly finished. It is a simple Simon/Memory game, but with some nice presentation throughout.
Thanks to Videogame Endings Database, it seems there is an ending for the title – but it isn’t much, suggesting that the game was just lacking some final polish perhaps?
What is the story behind the game though and why was it never released? We hope to learn more, but for now – check out this nice little game.
A short entry which has been flagged up thanks to Anonymous Contributor. When doing research into the unreleased arcade game by Adventure International UK, it was found in a Your Computer magazine article with the company that a 2nd adventure game was also planned.
An arcade game and second adventure was scheduled after the success of the first game. It seems very likely that any second part would have been created by Brian Howarth. However, just how far did any second part get and was it started?
More details needed, but if you know anything, please do get in touch!
Another combined entry for a series of titles, this time from Centurion Software, which may or may not have been released. These have been highlighted to us thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog.
It isn’t clear if all the titles were intended for the C64:
Reading
1001 Identifying Vowel Sounds (Grades 1-3).
1002 Identifying Consonant Blends (Grades 1-3).
1003 Identifying Matching Letters (Grades 1-3).
1004 Ordering Letters/Words (Grades 1-3).
1005 Identifying Compound Words (Grades 3-5).
1006 Syllabication (Grades 3-5).
1007 Identifying Affixes (Grades 3-5).
1008 Mastering Letters & Words (Grades 2-4).
1009 Mastering Consonants (Grades 2-4).
1010 Mastering Vowels (Grades 2-4).
1011 Mastering Consonants and Vowels (Grades 2-5).
A short entry for a title which has been unearthed thanks to Csaba Virag, and a Tron clone which doesn’t seem to be within the archives (well, at least we couldn’t find it!).
It’s quite a neat clone, and all we know is that it was created by St. Bechtold – which we’re not sure if it is a person or a company. We are also unsure of the year, though music has been pinched from Cylons – so must have been 1980s.
If you know anything about this title, please get in touch – for now, check it out for yourself and yet another game saved!
A very short entry for a title that was being written at Syntax Software by Randal Linden with someone else (as yet unnamed).
We are not sure if it was a typical Star Trek game of that era (of which there were many clones) or something official that was being worked on and which had a different style of game play.
More information is needed and it is hoped that Randal can shed some light soon.
Not to be confused with the Software Projects game that was released in 1986, this was a new game based on the famous Laser Disc title and being developed by Readysoft back in 1989.
Randal Linden revealed to Andrew Fisher in an interview that he had started a Commodore 64 version of the game, before working on the Amiga version (that was much closer to the Laser Disc original).
It is suspected that the game would have been a 2D title, similar perhaps to Wrath of the Demon that Readysoft did a few years later.
It is hoped that Randal still has something of the development and we hope to learn more soon.
Our next entry has been highlighted thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni, and is an RPG title that was created back in 1994.
It is listed on Gamebase as unreleased, but seems to be a playable and complete game by Michael Härtig (who has done a few other games too). The question is who was the game intended for and what happened?
We hope to learn more soon, but if you know anything more – please do get in touch.
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.
