Unreleased & Cancelled Video Games across many platforms.
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are an Unreleased and Cancelled 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 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 video game history since 1999.
Not really an unreleased game, but some bits and bobs that could be nice to save if they still exist.
Looking at the preview screens in Zzap for the 3D Construction Kit, as well as an earlier editor kit, there is a hospital ward scene using a very early edition of the editor. Both Andrew Fisher and Robin Gravel confirmed the hospital scene was from Castle Master (which may have been a demonstration of the tool’s power)
As I cocked up with the Castle Master inclusion, I may as well add the CF office screens that were produced. No doubt long gone and just done quickly to accompany a review.
Reading through some old Zzap’s when I spotted this intro screen from the preview of Chase HQ 2 on the C64. This screen apparently was meant for the intro sequence (accurately ported from the arcade), but looks like it was never actually used.
I have checked through the entire game and it wasn’t even used as an in-between stage screen or ending screen. Did they run out of cart space?
Then this was found in issue one of Commodore format, showing a person out of the car…
Somewhere out there could be a full recreation of the intro which didn’t make the cut. Sadly though Grant Harrison couldn’t recall anything about it, so why was it cut??
Not massively different, but thanks to Luca Bertoldi, here is a screen showing a rather different looking main character for Stormlord – looking more elvish and beardless.
It’s possible that more early screens exist, so if you spot any – please let us know! Main graphics seem to be the same as the final game, though Compounded (see comments) has spotted that there are minor parts which are not present in the final game.
And another shot thanks to Patrick de Zoete, showing just a bit further on from above:
I recently picked up some Sinclair User magazines at a market stall, and whilst browsing through I had a look at the Frankie Goes To Hollywood advert on the back. Nothing unusual you might say, as it was pretty much plastered around in the press back then.
What was strange was the screenshot of a scene I had never seen before in the final game. Looking at the others, there were a number of differences. I’m not sure how I hadn’t noticed them before! When I got back home and did some more investigations, I found that the advert was in fact an earlier advert featuring what seemed to be screens taken from the graphical editors directly – most likely whilst the game was still early in development for both the Spectrum and C64. The give away seems to be with the white cursor squares in the corner of most of the screenshots.
Comparing against the final release, here are the screens I found which are quite different. The most interesting of the images has to be the Frankenstein/dungeon scene, which is clearly C64 based and didn’t make the cut. Hopefully we will learn soon what this part may have entailed. Is anything of it still tucked away in the final game?
Recently I checked with Karen Davies and Ally Noble if they could recall what it was. Karen couldn’t remember it at all, but Ally recognised it – but couldn’t place it. Ally suggests that it may have even been for another game by Denton that didn’t make it – which seems very plausible considering the material doesn’t seem to “fit” in the FGTH design.
In July 2015, Vinny Mainolfi found a magazine snippet which shows another early screenshot of the puzzle room.
For years i’ve been talking of setting up a page to showcase and celebrate the artwork and life of the late Martin Holland, but have rather ashamedly never got round to it. When finding an old email from 2006 when I was still talking about sorting something out, enough was enough… Martin sadly passed away at the far too young age of 35 back in August 2003, and it was a massive shock at the time – as we had only been emailing previously a few days before.
I was privileged to have known Martin for a few years – who was very influential in helping me when I first started up the Games That Weren’t website around late 1999 – gathering information (and even help find) on titles such as Solar Jetman and many more. He also had a cracking sense of humor too – demonstrated by many a funny email over the years.
I’ve only really been aware of Martin’s C64 work specifically, so searching across the web for games that included Martin’s artist works was a huge eye opener for me – mainly due to the variety of platforms that he had covered, which must have required a huge level of skill and patience getting to grips with each machine’s quirks and flaws. Continue reading →
Many thanks to Dave Peacock, who recently recovered the following graphical assets for Beverly Hills Cop on the C64 from his work disks.
It seems that at somepoint, Michael Owens took over graphical duties on the C64 – leaving Dave to concentrate on the Spectrum and Amstrad versions.
Here you can find an unused car dashboard and steering wheel – which was probably meant for the 3D driving section which was dropped from the C64 edition. If anything else turns up, we’ll add it here.
DISCLAIMER: We are a non-profit digitisation project, aiming to digitally preserve software and history which would otherwise be lost for good. If for any reason there is anything that you do not wish to be on the website, please contact us for removal.
Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.