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

Unknown GBC Platform Engine

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1999 Unknown

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Color

Our next Game Boy Color entry into the archives is a very early multi-directional platform engine, featuring a test Super Mario sprite that you can move around and with parallax background elements. There is hardly any interactions and no enemies, though you can jump around and explore quite a large map.

UnknownPlatformer large

This may have just been a proof of concept demo, or it could have been intended to turn into a proper game (with proper sprites). It was found within a bundle of example demos from Cosmigo, a game development studio from Germany. Unfortunately we don’t know exactly who was behind it to find out more, but hope the Cosmigo link will lead to further details. Continue reading →

Posted in: Game Boy Color, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Rimrunner

Posted: , last updated: by Patrick Furlong

1988 Palace Software

Platforms: Amstrad CPC and Atari ST

Rimrunner was an action game released by Palace Software in 1988 for the Commodore 64. However, Palace were also working on a version for the Amstrad CPC and Atari ST. The game was massively hyped in Amstrad Computer User, featuring on the cover of the July 1988 issue with a massive 2 1/2 page article. The CPC screenshots in the article are similar in style to the C64 version, but are not from that version.

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In the article, coder Pete Green spoke about the challenges of bringing Rimrunner to the CPC. He had come up with some routines to separate background layers, making one a foreground layer from which sprites could hide behind. The demo made from these routines were shown to Pete Stone (Managing Director/Founder of Palace) and Richard Leinfellner (Palace Technical Manager), who told him about Rimrunner, which originally was intended to be C64 only and which used similar routines. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment

Paria

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1990 Soft Dorothy Software

Platform: Apple Macintosh

Paria was very much an Elite-inspired game, developed by Soft Dorothy Software around late 1989 and abandoned in early 1990. What exists today is essentially just a very early prototype – a glimpse of what could have become a sprawling space adventure.

paria

“Don’t be fooled by all of the menu items in the games that follow”, explained John on his website. “Many are in fact merely stubs and do nothing when selected. That’s just the nature of quick prototyping.” Continue reading →

Posted in: Apple Macintosh, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Alien Olympics Game Boy prototypes

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Some more earlier builds of released games for you today, with a few prototypes of Alien Olympics on the Game Boy original. Two are undated, though one of the files is dated 14th June 1994, which seems to be very close to final and likely contains just final bugs not yet fixed.

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The other two are earlier builds which contain temporary music from Splitz, composed by David Whittaker (and based on Split Personalities). There is a missing (R) symbol on the Ocean logo as well, but we didn’t spot anything majorly different compared to the final game otherwise. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo Game Boy, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Imagic’s Moonsweeper (Commodore VIC-20) saved after 42 years!

Posted: by Frank Gasking

The amazing Ken Van Mersbergen has done it again, this time with the miraculous preservation of Imagic’s Moonsweeper for the Commodore VIC-20. A conversion missing for 42 years has now been painstakingly restored from printed source code by Ken, with help from Simon Rowe and Torsten Kracke. It is also thanks to the game’s programmer Fred Crimi that the code had been safely kept.

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Ken has very kindly allowed Games That Weren’t to add the game to its archives, so you can finally experience it for yourself. Follow the link below for more details, including Ken’s wonderful story of the recovery, and to download the cartridge image:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/04/moonsweeper/

Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, News | Leave a comment

Children’s Trivia – variant preserved for C64

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to Dr. Doom / Rad / Ons, a very slightly different version of Children’s Trivia by Cybal Software has been preserved for the Commodore 64. A version of the game already exists in Gamebase64, but this has a few very minor differences (and may have been an updated version).

It’s not an unreleased game, so we’re just sharing the preservation here for posterity and for other archives to pick up:

Childrens_Trivia

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news, Preservation | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Maximus preservation work at Atarimania.com

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Our good friend Bertrand (and regular contributor to GTW) got in touch recently to flag that John Hardie and himself have been archiving some titles on the Atari 8-bit from a publisher called Maximus (obtained via Tim Kilby, who was one of the programmers). Here are the links:

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Bertrand is keen to point out that only Safetyline has been archived for the first time, where Storyline is a revised edition of what is already out there and the rest of the entries contain new scanned material. We will be shortly adding C64 entries for Storyline and Safetyline (which is why Bertrand in particular flagged these recoveries). This is just a sample of what is being recovered and preserved on a regular basis at Atarimania.com, so be sure to keep checking in with them.

Posted in: Atari 400/800/XL, News, Preservation | Leave a comment

Duel

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1995 Finetime Software

Platform: PC (DOS)

Our next entry into the Games That Weren’t archive is an extremely early and unfinished PC DOS shooter called Duel. The idea of the game would have been to fight against a CPU or second player and duel against each other across a parallax landscape.

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The game was being written by Finlay Munro, and was based off his cancelled Commodore 64 game of the same name that was due for release by Quicksilva in the 1980s. It’s likely that graphics are by either Wayne Billingham and/or David Bland. Continue reading →

Posted in: PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Robocop 3

Posted: by Patrick Furlong

1992 Ocean Software

Platforms: Amstrad GX4000, 464 Plus, 6128 Plus

Like the first two films before it, Ocean Software got the licence to produce a game based on the underrated third Robocop film and it would famously come out two years before the film would (due to the studio Orion Pictures going bankrupt).

The 16 bit formats got a beautiful 3D game (which despite what people say still stands out today) while the C64 and Spectrum got 2D platform affairs. It never came out on the Amstrad. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC Plus, Amstrad GX4000, Reviews | Leave a comment

Pinball Construction Set

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1986 Electronic Arts

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Pinball Construction Set was a title that I lost many hours to constructing various pinball tables, and many others did too. Unbeknown to many of us, a Commodore Amiga version was also on the cards way back in 1986 from Electronic Arts.

ea demodisk 003

The Amiga version was to have real pinball sounds, tilt, exciting music and 28 working parts in total. The construction kit would be easy-to-use, where you could use mouse or joystick to set up your table. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment