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

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

Dwagons

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1992 Imagitec

Platform: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC
Dwagons is a game which is not too dissimilar in style to the classic Pengo, with the concept of being able to push blocks. The blocks come in various different forms, which provide tricks and traps throughout. Joystick magazine described the game as a title that combines arcade, strategy and adventure. dwagons shot5 The graphics early on looked pretty good, showcasing a 2.5D view, and blocks could stack up too, with the characters being able to jump up onto them and give an extra level of depth to the game. The two main characters if you hadn’t guessed already, are dragons – or Dwagons, as the title suggests, going by the name of Snort and Snail. Continue reading →
Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Funky Monkey

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Images Software

Platform: Commodore Amiga (+ potentially others later on)
Also known as: Monkey Business

It was recently that team member Grzegorz Antosiewicz highlighted an abandoned Amiga game which had completely passed me by last year when artist Glenn Broadway created a detailed blog post back in May 2022. The majority of information and all images have been gleaned from Glenn’s excellent post to create the entry within our archives with his permission.

Funky Monkey was the first game Glenn had worked on, which started after being invited to help with graphics for the title already in development. A friend was on a YTS placement at Images Software at the time, and this resulted in an introduction to Karl Jeffrey (the founder) and a subsequent invite.

MonkeyBusiness mockup 02
Early image from Monkey Business, which eventually would see an overhaul on its design.

At the time in early 1991, the game was being developed under the name of Monkey Business. This was already under way by a development team called DC Software, which was none other than developer Daniel Clapson. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment