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.
Considered vapourware, Denton Design’s Wreckers for the Commodore 64 has been recovered in its final build state.
Before you get too excited, sadly the game was only in development for a very short period of time – and essentially what we have is a tech demo showing a navigable game map. There are no playable elements and there is limited map collisions.
Though considering that just a year ago we were doubtful that a C64 conversion ever existed, this is a lovely surprise.
Following on from the recent recovery of Total Recall V1 – we today take a detailed video look at the prototype, the story of its search and how it was found.
Including highlighting of differences from the original Zzap!64 preview screens.
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.
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 →
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.
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 →
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!
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!
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.
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 →
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 →
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 →
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.
Thanks to all our contributors for their help this month and see you again next month! Enjoy the updates!
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.
