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.

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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.

duel large

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

Pocket Panic GBC Prototype

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Pocket Panic is a great homebrew title by Steve Jones that was released in 1999 for the Game Boy Color as part of the Bung Coding competition. It is a neat modern mix of Loder Runner and Panic Planet, and with possible inspirations from other games.

pocket large

Today we’re adding what might be a later prototype of the game which was being tidied up/adjusted for Graphic State in 1999. It features a different start intro, but also very different sprite graphics – with a Jetman main character and shaded in enemies, baby and bomb sprites. Continue reading →

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

Kick Off SNES prototype

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Another prototype from the Enigma Variations archives, with the SNES version of Kick Off. Just the one prototype this time, with a PAL edition dated the 24th July 1992.

kickoff large

This seems to be an extremely late build of the game, and is very close to the final version and likely to have just very minor differences tucked away. We couldn’t see anything obviously different – and it could be a case of small bug fixes being missing. Continue reading →

Posted in: Prototype, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Adventure prototype recovered for the Commodore 64

Posted: by Frank Gasking

A huge Commodore 64 surprise to kick off the week with Games That Weren’t adding the sadly cancelled playable prototype of the Indiana Jones 3 adventure. An unofficial conversion of the great Lucasfilm Games title with bags of promise, but wasn’t to be. Check it out here:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/indiana-jones-and-the-last-crusade-adventure/

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news, News | 1 Comment

The Amazing Spiderman

Posted: , last updated: by Patrick Furlong

1991 Empire Software

Platforms: Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum

Empire wasn’t a label one would normally associate with the Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum, with just a handful of titles (Pipe Mania, Dr Doom’s Revenge, Gazza’s Super Soccer, Gazza 2) and a compilation (Soccer Stars) under it’s belt.

spider cpc1

Following the success of their Captain America and Spiderman crossover game Dr Doom’s Revenge, Empire picked up the licence to produce a stand alone game featuring Spiderman. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Reviews, ZX Spectrum | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Amiga PD disk preservation (September 2025)

Posted: by Frank Gasking

It’s not just games that we preserve at Games That Weren’t, but we try and preserve a variety of software which hasn’t yet been digitized or made available online. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Aaron White, we have a set of 9 Amiga Public Domain disks that had yet to be preserved (until now!).

D 004

These contain a set of music demos, and also PD library catalogues which feature music, images and introduction sequences created especially. Hopefully these will be eventually redistributed into various Amiga archives. Continue reading →

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

Dream Hunter

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1999 Unknown

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Color

Our next title into the archives is a very early platform game for the Game Boy Color, and was developed around 1999. It is unknown currently what the origins are for it, if it was for an official development or part of a development competition (we weren’t able to spot on our initial searches). It was found within some development archives of Mark Greenshields, but this wasn’t one of their titles.

dream1

There isn’t much to the preview at this stage, and is more of an engine test with a decent main character who walks along a really nicely drawn level map with platform blocks (including musical blocks) and water hazards. Continue reading →

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

Kevin Keegan’s Player Manager SNES prototypes

Posted: by Frank Gasking

More prototypes from the Enigma Variations archives, with three for the SNES with Kevin Keegan’s Player Manager. These prototypes are dated from the 18th June to the 20th October 1993.

kevin large

The most interesting of the prototypes if the earliest, with a non-playable demo where you see two computer teams playing against each other. There are some graphical differences, including in particular with the billboards on the side. Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment