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

Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks and Mandrake: Shadow of the Vehme prototypes

Posted: , last updated: by Joe Douglas

2003 Microids / 7th Sense

Platform: Game Boy Advance

Joe Douglas sheds light on two cancelled Defenders of the Earth character Game Boy Advance titles, The Phantom and Mandrake, that were due for release in 2003. This piece was originally written for Joe’s Chronicle Chamber website back in 2016, though Joe has kindly allowed us to mirror the recovery and downloads in case you missed it originally and to add to the GTW archives. We now hand over to Joe:

The majority of phans will be aware of the Defenders of the Earth video game that was released for various home computers in 1990 and, of course, the arguably more famous Phantom 2040 game released for the Sega Mega Drive, Sega Game Gear and Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. But did you know that the Phantom almost had a third console outing, along with fellow Lee Falk creation Mandrake the Magician, in 2003?

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In the world of video games it is not uncommon for games to begin being developed only to be unceremoniously cancelled and never heard from again. Indeed, some games reach a near complete state with only the smallest of fine tuning left before the plug is pulled. The stories behind these cancelled games are many and varied but always fascinating. To help uncover the secrets of these two games, ChronicleChamber contacted Sebastiano Mandala, one of the founders of Italian video game design studio 7th Sense Studios who were tasked with developing the games. Continue reading →

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

GTW64 July 2022 update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A bit more up to speed this month, with 5 more new entries, including a large catalogue listing to try and find a bunch of software that may not yet be preserved and a homebrew title that hasn’t seen the light of day since 1991. Then a nice 16 updates to existing archive titles with some tidy ups and new information in places.

5 new entries added

BrainBreak, Blockie, Dynacomp catalog titles, Megváltó, Operation Neptune

16 updates added

Catch 23, Dungeons Of Death, Enduro Racer V2, English Invaders, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade V1, Jonny Quest and the Splinter of Heaven, Mega Games, Mindbending Aliens From Hyperspace, Murder!, Nefarious, Pulsator, R-Type V1, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Wilberforce

Posted in: GTW64 news, News | Leave a comment

Guardian Moons

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1989 Microdeal

Platform: Atari ST

According to ST/Amiga Format’s preview of our next unreleased game entry, Guardian Moons had you in the control of a sadistic and psychotic terrorist who has to go around causing chaos and destruction everywhere. The objective would be to destroy eight guardian moons that protect the peaceful planet of Gargamadua.

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From the limited screenshots, the game seems to be a sort of Transbot-style game, but its hard to tell. Details about what you do exactly in the game are quite sparse. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

The Mind Possessing Aliens from Hyperspace

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 Demonware

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, C64 (see link below) and PC

Originally we knew of this game thanks to its appearance in an Early Warning scanner in Commodore Format magazine. This was for the C64 edition, which we have covered already under the C64 GTW archive site. Our focus for this page is for the Amiga and PC editions which are also currently missing.

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The basic story line was of a Mad Doctor Von Stal discovering a way to send people into hyperspace, but hasn’t worked out how to get them back. But also how to stop the flood of monsters coming through the opening he’s created and are taking over people’s minds.

Continue reading →
Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore Amiga, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Batman Returns

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Gametek

Platform: Atari ST (also Commodore 64 – See link below)

We have had a detailed page on the cancelled C64 development for quite some time – but hadn’t realised that an Atari ST edition once existed until flagged up by Ross Sillifant.

Batman Returns was previewed in ST Action issue 63 back in June 1993, and showed a number of screenshots of the game in progress. The game was being developed by Denton Designs, where according to the article, John Heap was the programmer, with Ally Noble and Dawn Jones on graphics, and with Fred Gray on music.

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The game was initiated in October 1992 according to the article, and was due for release in September 1993. Oddly though, the film was released in July 1992, and it seemed quite late for the game, where usually games were developed to co-incide with the film release. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Citizens: Backwater Affairs

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994-1996 Microprose Software

Platform: PC
Also known as: Little People

Inspired by Activision’s Little Computer People, Citizens: Backwater Affairs originally started out as a game called Little People, before it was renamed due to the name being taken already by Fisher Price.

Everything starts with the tragic event of you dying in a road accident, where you then enter the afterlife and taken on the job as a caretaker for a small world under a dome called Backwater.

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According to lead artist Terry Greer, the idea was that you would be given tasks to do, such as helping a character get a new job. You would do this by changing that character’s statistics to have an affect on the final outcome. Terry gives a detailed account on his own page about the game here.

The game was felt to be ahead of its time, and as a result – management within Microprose didn’t fully understand the game or its appeal. Eventually it was cancelled, and a few years later The Sims appeared which did very similar things, much to the frustration of the original team.

Continue reading →

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

Wardner

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1988-1993 NEC

Platform: PC Engine
Aka: Wardner no Mori and Wardona Forest

Toaplan’s Wardner is a side scrolling platformer, similar in some ways to Ghosts n Goblins, and was ported to a number of platforms over the years. One version that never saw release was on the PC Engine (A NES edition also never made it, which you can read more about over at Unseen64).

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Development was announced back in 1988, originally as a hucard release, and but would never see release. Later the game was moved to CD-ROM format, but was cancelled after too many delays, even though it is suggested that the game was fully complete. Oddly, it seems the cancellation was as late as 1993, some 4-5 years since its announcement.

Within the announcement, the names Tamakichi Sakura (possible artist for the game?) and Toshio Tabeta (possible producer?) were mentioned – so it is hoped they might be able to shed more light on why there were so many delays, and if crucially anything may still exist today.

When you look at the various previews from magazines such as PC Engine Fan and Gekkan PC Engine, then you can see that it was clearly very close to completion, which makes this more of a tragic shame that it never quite made it out.

Continue reading →

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

Riamel: Black Prophecy

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994 Steve Postma

Platform: Commodore Amiga

Riamel was a follow up to Lords of Time, which was created by Steve Postma back in 1994. A very exciting RPG that would span 3 disks, but sadly didn’t seem to get experienced as it should have been.

For years, a demo has been floating around, but even that was quite obscure and not within the usual channels to download and check out. Within the demo, it talks about how you can send off for a full copy of the game – though it seems that it may never have reached any hands.

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Darren Gurney was doing some detective work back in 2018 regarding Lords of Time, contacting David Joiner regarding the title as his Faery Tale Adventure game was very similar. He created a post regarding his findings. Continue reading →

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

Resolution

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1988 Nexus

Platform: ZX Spectrum

Fairlight is a title which brings back extremely fond memories for me on the Commodore 64, which was a brilliant isometric game created originally on the ZX Spectrum by the genius Bo Jangeborg.

I always thought it was a shame that we didn’t see a lot more from Bo, though there could have been more with the release of Resolution, a game that was due for release on the Nexus Software label in 1988 and mentioned in numerous magazines.

Rather than an isometric fantasy game, Resolution was to be a strategic, horizontally scrolling shooter, where the player tried to save the world from a manic mining corporation determined to destroy all the Earth’s natural resources. Continue reading →

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