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.
As we were looking into The Mermaid and the Crown, we chanced across a series of unreleased titles from Mountain Valley Software that was ran by Brian J Betts during the early-mid 1980s.
This was one of five titles in total which were never fully finished, but thanks to Jacob from CASA Solution archive and other members of the forum, the games were all preserved and entries added at http://www.brilliantbehaviour.com.au/resources/marcus/list.html
We are just adding entries into the GTW64 archive, but hope to learn more about this particular adventure very soon.
In the meantime, you can download and check for yourself, but if you have any information about it – please do let us know.
As we were looking into The Mermaid and the Crown, we chanced across a series of unreleased titles from Mountain Valley Software that was ran by Brian J Betts during the early-mid 1980s.
This was one of five titles in total which were never fully finished, but thanks to Jacob from CASA Solution archive and other members of the forum, the games were all preserved and entries added at http://www.brilliantbehaviour.com.au/resources/marcus/list.html
We are just adding entries into the GTW64 archive, but hope to learn more about this particular adventure very soon.
In the meantime, you can download and check for yourself, but if you have any information about it – please do let us know.
As we were looking into The Mermaid and the Crown, we chanced across a series of unreleased titles from Mountain Valley Software that was ran by Brian J Betts during the early-mid 1980s.
This was one of five titles in total which were never fully finished, but thanks to Jacob from CASA Solution archive and other members of the forum, the games were all preserved and entries added at http://www.brilliantbehaviour.com.au/resources/marcus/list.html
We are just adding entries into the GTW64 archive, but hope to learn more about this particular adventure very soon.
In the meantime, you can download and check for yourself, but if you have any information about it – please do let us know.
A very short entry for a title which we thought may have been released, but we’re were not quite sure at the time.
This title was reportedly released by Review and Herald Publishing Association, but went missing. However, Martin from Stadium 64 has kindly passed on links to scans of the game – which show it was released by Davka Corporation in the US.
Sadly it seems that the game was actually missing though. Interesting, the game was a variation on the following two games already in Gamebase, just with a different subject matter to teach:
We asked people to be on the look out for this particular variant, and Paladin/Genesis Project answered the call in September 2023! Thanks to Paladin, the game is now fully preserved and is a case closed!
A short entry now for a title highlighted to us by Baracuda and which he had compiled as part of a James Hastings-Trew slideshow in 2023.
James had produced a loading screen for a title called Raceday, which was due out in 1987 by Telegame Software. The game itself was created (and assumed programmed) by a Tom Conroy.
The subject of the game is fairly self explanatory, and would have been some kind of race management game or simulator, with some small graphical elements created by James.
We’re not sure if the game got anywhere at all, though the two did release a game called Tele-Chess under the label. There was also another unreleased title a year before called The Stock Exchange by the same duo.
Hopefully we’ll get hold of James or Tom in the near future to find out more and crucially see if anything ever existed and can be saved.
A short entry now for a title highlighted to us by Baracuda and which he had compiled as part of a James Hastings-Trew slideshow in 2023.
James had produced a loading screen for a title called The Stock Exchange, which was due out in 1986 by Telegame Software. The game itself was created (and assumed programmed) by a Tom Conroy.
The subject of the game is fairly self explanatory, and no doubt it would have been a mostly text-based game with various options to play the stock exchange, with some small graphical elements created by James.
We’re not sure if the game got anywhere at all, though the two did release a game called Tele-Chess under the label. There was also another unreleased title a year later called Raceday by the same duo.
Hopefully we’ll get hold of James or Tom in the near future to find out more and crucially see if anything ever existed and can be saved.
Our next entry is for a title that has been out there for some time, but we’re not 100% certain how genuine it is. This is for what may have been an earlier edition of Codemasters’ Poltergeist.
You may recall that the released game was a bi-directional scrolling shooter, with a Nemesis-style weapons system, but eagle-eyed viewers would have spotted that the cover didn’t really depict what the game was actually like.
On the cover was a main protagonist with a Star Wars light-sabre, looking like a character out of Ghostbusters. Perhaps that was the original intention for the game?
This crack which was released by The Darkness and Genesis Project in 1988 is basically Poltergeist, but has a completely different main sprite, enemy sprites and status sprites. The main character is no-longer a ship, but instead a wizard like character with some kind of light-sabre. The first level is different as well. The weapon panel is also changed to letters, spelling out “DARKNESS” and has all the credits removed.
The character being somewhat closer to the cover has given a suggestion that this could have been the game’s original incarnation before Gavin Raeburn turned it into a space shooter – though i’m not fully convinced at this stage.
I feel that there is real potential that the game had very different plans for it originally, but this particular crack is just a version of the game which has been hacked to bits. When you look through the code, you can still see references to “Ships left” in the text, which would have surely been “Persons left” or similar.
Hopefully we’ll get hold of Gavin himself to confirm at some point soon – but for now, check out the title for yourself and see what you think.
Next up is a strange edutainment game called Sakkozo Elefant, which roughly translates to “Chess Elephant”, a game where you are taught chess by an elephant.
It seems to have been written in a mixture of German and Hungarian, so it isn’t clear yet what the intentions were for the game and if it was to be marketed or sold.
The finding is thanks to Csaba Virag, and we hope to learn more soon about the title. For now, please check it out for yourself, and yet another game preserved.
An interesting early pong clone up next for the GTW64 archives, which was created by Hungarian programmer Balazs Kar.
The game was dug out thanks to Csaba Virag, and Balazs has confirmed that this is as far as he ever got with the game, as he had moved onto the Amiga fairly quickly after this.
On the C64, he went under the nickname of Fish-Software, and then went on to be part of the Majic 12 demo crew on the Amiga.
The game is playable, but you’ll need two players overall. Not much to see, but yet more C64 history preserved.
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