Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
We are an 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 which was highlighted thanks to FREEZE64 and a recent interview with Andrew Trott.
In an interview within issue 59, Andrew Trott reveals that he created a version of Pac-Man for the Commodore PET, and then later converted it to the C64, refreshing the graphics and more.
He was in the process of doing all of this, but never quite got it finished.
It’s unsure if anything has survived after all this time, but we hope to find out soon.
The next entry in the archives is thanks to Hedning, who found some graphics whilst preserving some disks from a German adventure game by the scener “Schweinepocke”.
It seems that only graphics have been done or at least have survived through two graphics demos that have been released showing title and in-game graphics. There is no playable version as of yet. We’ve also added a bunch of screens thanks to Baracuda as well.
Did it get any further than just some graphic mock ups? Can you help us find Schweinepocke and help learn more about this title?
Early days, so please get in touch if you know anything more about this title.
Back in 1988, Robin Harbron and his friend Darren Foulds were working on a wresting game, heavily inspired by The Exciting Hour/Mat Mania by Technos.
They had a bit of fun and added some famous characters in the background and even had something playable running at one stage, with two wrestlers who could move freely around the ring.
There was no AI, and the game was only two players with some basic fighting moves before Robin and Darren moved onto other projects.
Unfortunately Robin has not yet found anything of the demo, but is hopeful that it will turn up some day, so that it can be added to the archives for posterity.
A quick entry which has been highlighted by Paul Fogarty – a C64 conversion of the 1985 arcade game by Jaleco.
Paul recalls seeing an advert in a magazine around 1987/88 time (Commodore User or Disk User), and apparently very pink! Advance Software were the company doing the conversion, but then it just disappeared without a trace.
Unfortunately we have been unable to yet find the advert. Can you help us find it?
A ZX Spectrum version from 1988 exists, though we’re not sure if this was official or not, and if it was for Advance Software to release.
Even after over 25 years of running the archive, we still encounter many surprise findings which were never known about – and which is a huge part of the fun of running GTW.
Contributor Retroboy got in touch in early March after buying a collection of C64 tapes from Spain. Six were “Your Computer” tapes (with all games preserved), but two others were just regular blank user tapes.
One of the tapes contained several files, and the most complete of all was an 18 block file called “La Venganza del Toro”. Mostly BASIC code with some machine code routines, it’s a very early preview which is controllable via a joystick.
There is no sound, no score, credits or any details – so seems to be a work in progress, or potentially just a title that was being done for fun. You can simply move the bull around on the screen and run into five standing toreros, who then appear in the sky. Hitting all of them will make “OLE!” appear in big letters.
It’s a fun little finding, and hopefully we can learn more about it – such as who the developer was and what the plans were. Did it ever get any further? Maybe there is a full game out there waiting to be found.
Our next entry into the GTW64 database is a title which has been long overlooked for many years, and has been highlighted by Richard Bayliss.
The first time I heard of this nice looking Columns clone was from its release on Commodore Format’s Power Pack 37. It was listed as a PD game, and came from Hex Heroes public domain. However, it firstly wasn’t PD at all – and was also incomplete too!
I never noticed at the time, but when you run – there’s a crack intro from the group “Awesome”. Back in 1991, many different cracking crews had released a preview of the game and it seems it snuck into a PD library by mistake.
What is particularly funny is that the CF team clearly didn’t play the game that much, apart from to set some instructions and get some screenshots. The game is playable to a degree, but the score and bonus doesn’t work – and the game never actually ends. Once it fills up with blocks, they just continue to drop.
The question now though is about who was behind the game, and what happened exactly. Was it intended for commercial release and did it ever get any further than this?
What is interesting is that what looks like an earlier preview has been out there for some time called Futris (short for Future Tetris), which doesn’t include any of the status panel areas. It also doesn’t clear the blocks like with Blockie – suggesting that Blockie may have been someone trying to tidy up the Futris preview and finish off.
However, confusingly the Futris preview is from 1996 and not 1991 – so had this just been an earlier build of Blockie leaked at a later date when under a different name?
Talking about the game with Richard, it inspired him to have a go at tidying the game up and fixing some of the issues to actually make it properly playable. So, to fix the block disappearances, to make the game properly end and for all the scoring to work. Essentially – to try and finish the game off as much as possible.
After several months on and off, and with some testing work by Dirk S. and Simon Quernhorst, Richard finally finished his reconstruction work for Games That Weren’t. There might still be the odd glitch, but it is already in far better shape than it was all them years ago for Commodore Format readers.
So here it is, and a huge thank you to Richard for the amazing work that he has done!
However, the search still goes on to find out who was behind the original development. If you know anything more about the original game, please do get in touch.
A short entry for a title which has very likely been released, but has yet to be preserved. Can you help us find it?
Flagged up by contributor Lenny Bronstein, the game was reviewed in Ahoy magazine, complete with screenshots. However, its not yet in the archives – suggesting that not many copies sold overall.
Can you help us recover the title?
A quick entry for a collection of educational titles that seem to be missing.
The following were all advertised in the March 1984 issue of Family Computing magazine:
All are currently missing, even though that some of the Apple II versions are available on archive.org.”‹
It is possible that all the games were released, but just in limited numbers. So hopefully people will step forward with copies to see preserved in the future.
Another combined entry for a series of titles from Educational Activities, Inc., which may or may not have been released. At present the following titles are missing:
Can you help us find these titles and see them preserved?
With thanks to Bertrand / Atari Frog from http://www.atarimania.com for flagging up the titles.
Another combined entry for a series of titles from Sunburst Communications, which may or may not have been released. At present the following titles are missing:
Can you help us find these titles and see them preserved?
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