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

Frak!

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1985 Aardvark Software

Platform: Amstrad CPC

A short entry which is thanks to @nivrig and @ChinnyVision for posting on Twitter a few days ago.

Amstrad Computer User in June 1985 had posted a short news item regarding an Amstrad CPC conversion of the classic Nick Pelling game.

The game had only just recently been converted to the C64 and released by State Soft, which the article refers to and how it suffered from the lower res graphics utilized.

The magazine snippet suggested that the game was due out shortly with up to 256 levels. There would also be a new competition – the “Grand master Frak challenge”, with a first prize of an original Frak illustration, second prize of a cuddly Trogg and third being £25 of software. Continue reading →

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

GTW64 August 2021 update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

As the summer starts to draw to a close, we preserve an early Hungarian Tetris clone thanks to Csaba Virag. Then we take a look at what seems to be a long lost Commodore 64 conversion of a PET/VIC 20 title, two other Magic-series sets of titles that are at large, a long lost and promising game from Norway and a potential conversion of a late Mikro-Gen title. This along with 16 updates to existing entries, with a few findings and additional details added. Enjoy! Continue reading →

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Bob Harris and the Secret of the Killer Bees

Posted: by Dieter Koenig

Contributor Fabrizio Bartoloni flagged up an old WayBackMachine archive copy of this page which sadly no longer exists in its proper form when the website disappeared in 2009. Fabrizio suggested for us to host a copy of the page, as it features GTWs for early systems such as the Odyssey 2 and the unreleased Odyssey 3. The post is set to the authorship of Dieter Koenig as a result.

Special thanks to Bob Harris for this great game and for answering all of my questions! Thanks to Thomas Becker, who discovered some of the cheat codes “in those days”!

I really don’t know where to start, hmm, I think here: Well, on October 21, 1996 I received a letter from German Thomas Becker, in which he tells me about two cheat codes for the Philips G7000 game “Killer Bees”. One of these key combinations showed the initials of the programmer on the screen, the other allowed to play the game in slow motion, though without counting scores. Continue reading →

Posted in: Features, Magnavox, Magnavox Odyssey 2, Magnavox Odyssey 3 | 1 Comment

Mega Twins

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 U.S. Gold

Platforms: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC

Mega Twins (known as Chiki Chiki Boys in Japan) was a sickly cute platformer produced by Capcom in the early 90’s, a slight sideways turn from the likes of Strider, Final Fight and Ghouls n Ghosts, no doubt to tap into the younger players and their 10 pence pieces. Many of us probably would have vomited at the sight of it and went back to kicking several barrels of crap out of bad guys in Final Fight.

scan mega twins ad scan
U.S. Gold’s slightly thuggish take on Capcom’s “cute” platformer.

The game consisted of you controlling two twins who carry swords and had to cross various platform levels to kill the dragon which killed their Father and find the Dragon Blue Eyes stone and save their world. The game was predominantly a sideways scrolling platformer, but with some vertical scrolling portions and a later castle level, where you would climb vertically to mix things up a bit. Large guardians would feature throughout as well to provide a fair challenge to even the most hardened of gamers. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news, Reviews, ZX Spectrum | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Claws of the Devil

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1998 Titan Computers

Platform: Amiga 1200

Claws of the Devil is a late Amiga title that was in development back in 1998, and was a first person action game for platforms with expanded memory, additional graphics cards and PPC turbo cards according to Amiga Computer Studio.

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However, other magazines would state that the game was to be more like Tomb Raider, with a 3rd person camera viewpoint and controlling a female protagonist called Teri Fletcher across 13 large levels.

Continue reading →

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

Xenon 2

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 Mirrorsoft

Platform: ZX Spectrum 128k

Back in 1991, C64 developer and musician Dave Spicer decided to put together a technical demo for a potential conversion of Xenon 2 for the ZX Spectrum.

xenon2 640 1

What was produced was pretty stunning – with a 25 fps scrolling demo that was full-screen and featured some very nice graphics by Jason Brashill.  Even though they were quite minimal to give a feel of the game, they still looked amazing at that early stage. Continue reading →

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

Cyber Fight

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 Electronic Arts

Platforms: PC and Commodore Amiga

You could say that our next entry was quite ahead of its time when due for release back in 1991. Cyber Fight was to build on the recent success of Street Fighter 2 and produce a fighting game within a 3D environment and first person view, heavily inspired it seems by the 1989 film Robot Jox.

cyberfight12

The game’s author (Michael Powell) was no stranger to 3D titles, having previously developed the impressive Powerdrome a few years earlier for Electronic Arts. This time you were the pilot of a large robot within a hi-tech arena, who has to smash your opponent’s droid to pieces. Continue reading →

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

Galleon

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1997-2004 Confounding Factor

Platforms: PC, Sony PlayStation, Sony PlayStation 2, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo GameCube

A short entry on a title that was being created by Confounding Factor, a company founded in 1997 by former Core Design’s Toby Gard and Paul Douglas.

galleon1

Galleon hit a number of development issues overall, including seeing Interplay cancel the title at one stage, and was being developed for a number of different platforms over the years. However, only the Xbox edition of the game would ever see release in 2004. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo GameCube, PC, Reviews, SEGA Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation, Sony PlayStation 2 | Tagged: | Leave a comment

The Big End

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994 The Hidden

Platforms: Commodore Amiga 1200 and CD32 (later A500)

I’ve always been a fan of racing games on 8-bit and 16-bit platforms, especially Slicks on the C64 and Micro Machines on the NES. So when Darren Gurney highlighted this long lost Amiga title, I was quite excited when I saw the screenshots.

Amiga CD32 Gamer Vol 006

The Big End (or The Big Engine, as it was known before that) was due for release on the Commodore Amiga around late 1994, mid 1995. Developed by The Hidden (who had created Donk! The Samurai Duck amongst others) and to be published by Supervision. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga CD32, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 3 Comments