Welcome to Games That Weren't!

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.

Latest News and Posts

Extractors: The Hanging Worlds of Zarg

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1995 Millennium

Platform: Commodore Amiga CD32
Also known as: Diggers 2

It is perhaps unsurprising that a game as ground breaking as Lemmings would inspire a series of other inventive puzzlers, which seem to share some DNA in places. Diggers was one such title, where you control a mining team trying to get precious minerals.

Extractors1

Scoring well with magazines at the time, it comes as no surprise that a sequel was put into motion. The same developer, Toby Simpson would get to work once again to try and improve on his original success.

Many issues that were found with the original were set to be resolved for the sequel on the Amiga CD32, including have more reigned in level map sizes, so that most users would get to appreciate most of the game. There would also be better defined goals as well. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga CD32, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Sherlock Holmes in Under the Boardwalk

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1985 Bantam Software

Platforms: Apple II, PCjr and potentially Commodore 64 (TBC)

Planned as a sequel to Sherlock Holmes: Another Bow, which was released by Bantam Software in 1984 on a variety of 8-bit platforms. Sadly it was never to be.

In an interview with Scott Stilphen, artist Michael Becker revealed that the sequel was using the same engine as the original game, and featured Al Capone, Babe Ruth, and the mob as Sherlock visited Atlantic City in the 1930s and solved some crimes whilst in his 70s.

sherlock underboardwalk shot2

Mark Hardisty spoke with Peter Golden in issue 11 of Classic Adventurer, where Peter recalled having completed his work on the title, though Bantam would leave the market before it could be fully released to the world. Continue reading →

Posted in: Apple II, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment

GTW64 April 2023 updates

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A much larger update this month, as there was a lot of corrections and fixes done to some old posts, but we also have 7 completely new entries too to further increase the size of the C64 archive. Won’t be long until we hit 3000!

BoringHour

New entries include details of a City Connection conversion, a great looking and recent Ghostbusters tribute, a cool looking wresting game, an abandoned graphic text adventure, two missing games that could well be out there and a post on an early Pac-Man clone by Andrew Trott. Enjoy!

7 new entries added

City Connection, Code 3, Ghostbusters 2021, Nedime – The Caliph’s Daughter, Terragon, The Boring Hour, Unnamed Pac-Man clone

50 updates added

64 Tape Computing – Issue 14, Babylon, Ballisation, Bird Mother V1, Black Gold 2, Bobby Charlton Soccer, Bombzone, Buffalo Roundup V1, Butch – Hard Guy, CDU Games Disks, Danger! High Voltage, Dimension X, Drugbird, Dynaboys, Egy kis kiruccanás, Enforcer 2, Evil Garden, Fire & Forget, Flight Deck 2, Furry Knibble Girls 2, Gargantuan, Go Ape!, Hard Fire, Immensity, Imperium, Italian pirated games, Jumpy64, La Venganza del Toro, Mortal Kombat 2, Mythos, Panic Button, Proxima, Quark, Quark IX, Rex Hard, Sabian Island, Sankara Stone, Single Extreme Freedom, Squad One, Star of Africa, Sunburst Communications titles, Super C, Tank Battle Simulator, The Brainies, The Seven Gates Of Jambala, The Sixth Sense, The War of the Dragon, Toi Acid Game, Vietnam Gunboat, Xenodrome

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Harry

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1984 Christopher Hester

Platform: ZX Spectrum 48k

Can you help Harry complete the five screens and escape? He must clear up the potions whilst avoiding the nasties, in order to gather strength for the next screen and to be able to survive long enough to get to the door out.

harry shot1

Well, that was the introduction set out by creator Chris Hester back in 1984, when building up ideas for a new game in his ideas book for the ZX Spectrum. Heavily inspired by Manic Miner, Chris set to work putting together his design, printing off screens using his thermal printer. Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews, ZX Spectrum | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Jumbly 2

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1984 DK’Tronics

Platform: ZX Spectrum 48k

Don Priestley created some of the most memorable 8-bit games of all time, thanks to his trademark large cartoon graphics within games. I lost many hours playing the likes of The Trap Door on the C64, which felt like I was controlling an actual cartoon.

One of Don’s early titles was a puzzler called Jumbly, a picture puzzle game, where you had to shuffle blocks into the correct order. It is very similar in many ways to Split Personalities by Domark which came out a little while later. Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews, ZX Spectrum | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Hexuma 2: Dawn of the Cave World

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Software 2000

Platform: Commodore Amiga

A short entry for a graphic text adventure sequel for the Commodore Amiga, and due for release by Software 2000 in 1993.

Hexuma: Das Auge Des Kal was released to some positive reviews, and already by the time of its release – a sequel was already in the works according to the press – with Harald Evers busy working on it.

According to Aktueller Software Markt, the game was being developed in secrecy, though was revealed to be set within a subterranean world so big that you can fly around it on a dragon’s back. Continue reading →

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

GTW64 March 2023 updates

Posted: by Frank Gasking

By complete fluke, we’ve matched last month’s tally of updates, with 1 new entry and 20 updates for the C64 GTW archive. This includes a rare screenshot from the C64 edition of D-Day and also an original TAP image preserved for Money Minefield.

d day c64 shot
Thanks to all our contributors for their help this month and see you again next month! Enjoy the updates!

1 new entry added

The Sexual Edge

20 updates added

2Pac, Blockie, Bugs Bunny: Private Eye, D-Day, Lemmings V1, Mad Crash Racing, Moebius Strip, Money Minefield, Murder!, Necromancer 2, Nefarious, Neiw, New Clowns, New Pasqua, On Table, Panic Button, Parallax, Telekommando 2, The Attack of the Blue Bomber, Zuid

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

adidas Championship Football -recovered

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Only a few copies were ever sold of adidas Championship Football in France by Ocean Software. A handful of copies were known to exist, but were yet to be preserved. This changed on the 22nd March thanks to Galahad, with yet another great preservation effort.

adidasfootball

Over at the English Amiga Board, Galahad revealed that the game was secured via Paul Badham (@MrBads_Games) who brought the game on Ebay with the hope that it was the Amiga edition (but thinking it probably wasn’t). Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, News | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Gun Fury

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1997 Binary Emotions

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Described as a thinking man’s shoot-em-up, Gun Fury was a late Amiga release that was due from Binary Emotions, and to be published under the Guildhall Leisure label in 1997.

gun fury shot

The aim of the title was simply to repel waves of alien invaders with your tank. The aliens are in various colours, and as you shoot one, your tank turns that colour and then you can only shoot another alien of the same colour. Essentially the game was very similar to Zoop, which was released on platforms including the SEGA Mega Drive. Continue reading →

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

Crystal X – Amstrad CPC games preserved

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Although digital preservation has been happening for quite some time now, there are still many games actually released that are still very much at large. Often perhaps because some of these titles didn’t sell in great numbers in the early days, or even later days of a machine’s commercial life.

cloaker page

Back in the early 1990s, there was a software company called Crystal X that sold games by the homebrew developer Angela Swinbourne – a mixture of strategy and action games. A young David Crookes at the time had obtained these games, which he believes Angela sent to him, as he was in touch with a lot of PD people and home brewers at the time. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Preservation | Leave a comment