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

GTW64 Xmas 2021 update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Thank you to everyone for their continued support to Games That Weren’t this past year, as we conclude with our yearly update (and larger than our usually monthly update). Plenty to digest and check out and hope you enjoy it!

Gyro Shoc released

A little Christmas present to you all, thanks to Sailor and Taper of Triad. This is a game based loosely on ideas from Dropzone and Wizball, and was developed by Chris Young.

gyroshoclarge

This release and update is dedicated to our friend Jason Kelk, who passed away in June this year and who was originally going to tidy up the game for GTW to release.

Gyro Shoc Continue reading →

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Rage – early differences

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking
Rage is a neat first person shooter that was released between 2010-12 for various platforms including PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is a favourite of team member Grzegorz Antosiewicz, who decided to do some research on how the game had changed during its development.
 
The game was in a long development cycle and had a multitude of changes, including Electronic Arts pulling out from being the game’s published. Bethesda stepped in to help id Software, with versions then required as well for PS3 and Xbox 360.
 
Grzegorz talks through some of the differences he has found compared to the final game via a series of trailer videos over the years, starting from as early as 2007:
 
id Tech 5 Engine Demo HD.flv – 2007

 
“3D cactus models at this point. It is hard to say if the other foliage looks better here or in the final version. It is possible that during only the PC development period, the engine supported more different plants types/foliage based on 3D models. The finished game mostly uses 2d sprites for grass, bushes and smaller trees, sometimes as simple single brushes or two connected brushes.”

Continue reading →

Posted in: Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Unused materials | Tagged: | 1 Comment

Breathless early assets

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Breathless is a FPS game for the Amiga that was released in late 1995, and was shown in the press a lot at the time over the years.

006

As a result, there were a number of early screens and demos that had features that didn’t make it into the final game. Grzegorz Antosiewicz has kindly gone through various demos and magazine previews to highlight some of those differences below. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Welcome to three new team members!

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Following on from the addition of Fabrizio Bartoloni to the GTW team, we now welcome another three members who have made many a contribution to the archive:

  • Karl Kuras
  • Grzegorz Antosiewicz
  • Ross Sillifant

This was as a result of having all three as regular contributors who should be recognised better for all their help. You can read more about how they are helping with the GTW archive on our team page at https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/about/the-team/

A big welcome to Karl, Grzegorz and Ross and thank you for all your help so far!

Posted in: News | Leave a comment

Alien Garden

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1982 Epyx

Platform: Commodore Vic 20

A short entry until we can confirm that there was indeed a Commodore VIC-20 conversion.

Alien Garden was a computer generated art game, where you control an embryonic life-form that you must try and help survive and reproduce across 20 generations through trial and error.

A very early game that was released by Epyx on the Atari 400/800 in 1982, some sites suggest that a VIC-20 edition was available or planned – but there is very little detail at present.

Has it therefore just been incorrectly attributed as a platform?

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni and Ward F. Shrake.

Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Necromancer

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1983 HES / Synapse Software

Platform: Commodore VIC-20

A short entry for yet another Commodore Vic-20 title that was reported on the Vic-20 Cartridge Rarity list and may well be unreleased, or otherwise saw a very limited release.

Necromancer was a popular C64 game released by Synapse, but a Vic 20 version was mentioned in an advert in December 1983 of Compute! Gazette in the US. Was it a printing mistake, and did they mean the C64? Or did a Vic-20 conversion really exist?

The game of course was released on the likes of the Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64, so its possible (as Avram suggests in the comments) that Bill Williams will know more of the Vic 20 conversion.

If you know anything more, please let us know.

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni and Avram Dumitrescu.

Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Panic Button

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1984 First Star Software

Platform: Commodore VIC-20

An intriguing lost First Star Software game for the Commodore VIC-20, which did see a previously unreleased Commodore 64 edition saved some years ago.

The game was flagged up on Ward F. Shrake’s VIC 20 list as vapourware, and was reviewed in Compute! magazine in May 1984 along with the TRS-80 Color edition.

There is oddly no mention of a Commodore 64 conversion, so we wondered if there was a printing error in the magazine and if they meant to say Commodore 64 instead. Well, thanks to contributor Larry Cameron, it has been found that it isn’t vapourware at all.

An ebay auction with an 1983 advert, shows the game being advertised for both TRS-80 and the VIC-20. What’s even better is that the VIC-20 edition lists a coding credit to a Wayne Lam. We’ve added a photo from the auction of the advert below.

So what happened to the game, and could anything be found of the VIC-20 edition? Hopefully we’ll find Wayne at some point to learn more and see if anything may still exist after all this time.

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni, Ward F. Shrake and Larry Cameron.

Gallery
Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | 3 Comments

Slime

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1983 HES / Synapse Software

Platform: Commodore VIC-20

A short entry for yet another Commodore VIC-20 title that was reported on the Vic-20 Cartridge Rarity list and may well be unreleased, or otherwise saw a very limited release.

We’re not sure exactly what the game was about, but it was listed in an advert in December 1983 of Compute! Gazette. With a bit of digging, it wasn’t long until we found a name in connection with the game.

The developer was Lawrence Holland, and it was their first ever development before working on games such as Star Wars: X-Wing and more. We hope to find out more from Lawrence soon about the title.

The game was also later renamed to Super Storm and was released on the Atari platforms, which apparently was also not released on the TI-99/4A, though a prototype has been since found.

It seems to suggest that this game may well have been released, but in limited numbers. We will update the page as soon as we learn anything more. If you know anything more, please let us know.

With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni and Ward F. Shrake.

Gallery
Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

PlatterMania

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1982 Epyx

Platform: Commodore Vic 20
A short entry until we can confirm that there was indeed a Commodore VIC-20 conversion. PlatterMania was a plate spinning action game that was released by Epyx on the Atari 400/800 in 1982, some sites suggest that a VIC-20 edition was available or planned – but there is very little detail at present. Has it therefore just been incorrectly attributed as a platform? With thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni and Ward F. Shrake.
Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment