Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
Following on from the recent recovery of a slightly earlier NES prototype of Elite, we now present a series of earlier builds of The Addams Family: Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt. This was a game developed by Enigma Variations for Ocean Software back in 1993.
We have found a total of 7 prototype builds in varying stages. For each, we’ve added the timestamp for now of the original files that were recovered, though they may not be an accurate representation of order. Continue reading
Nightmare Busters Rebirth Kickstarter has launched today (and already hit its initial target!) – a stunning HD remake of the unreleased SNES gem! This is due soon for Steam, Switch, PlayStation – plus a special SNES Ultimate version! Link below to support:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixnlovegames/nightmare-busters-rebirth-0/
Just had a fantastic time at Zzap Live in Kenilworth over the two days with my friend Brian ONeill, catching up with lots of friends old and new (and a bit of gaming). Thank you everyone who came to heckle at the Games That Weren’t talk (and even kindly laugh at my crap Total Recall reference) and to Paul Drury for being a great wing man.
Well done to Chris Wilkins and the rest of the team of putting together yet another amazing event. There is now a video recording live at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlOGKwrN7uk thanks to Paul Davies (Back to 8-bit with Hermski). There is a surprise reveal for the Commodore 64 at the end ;-)
One of the more intriguing stories from Atari’s twilight years is Snow White, a licensed title that was developed for the Atari 2600 under Disney’s watch but never officially released. Originally designated CX26107, the game never appeared in Atari’s catalogues or in gaming magazines at the time, and only internal product lists hinted at its existence. That is, until a surprise prototype surfaced in 1999.
Developed between 1982–83, Snow White was created by Greg Easter, with artwork by Mimi Nyden. The game was ultimately shelved due to frequent marketing changes and Atari’s corporate instability. According to Greg, constant revisions led him to jokingly dub the project “Snow White and the Seven Versions.” Continue reading
Our next entry into the archives is a title that we hadn’t been aware of until it suddenly turned up during an archive search. We believe that the game was to be called ShelShock, and was written by Finlay Munro as part of Finetime Software. It may have been possibly a working title, and no story is known for it.
At this stage, it seems that Finlay produced a proof of concept for a new 3D engine, which is similar to games like Paul Woakes’ Damocles. Throughout there are a mixture of solid 3D objects, but also sprites too for more detailed objects. It runs quite well, though there is a bit of slowdown in places, especially where there are lots of sprite objects. Continue reading
A short entry for a Java Platform mobile de-make of Glover, the 1998 puzzle platformer game originally by Interactive Studios. The J2ME version was to be a 2D-based version of the game, trying to cover as much of the original as it possibly could.
In 2024, ex-Ocean Software artist Bill Harbison provided Games That Weren’t with a series of early graphical assets, including some tile sets, sprite sheets and map screens showing how the game would have looked. Continue reading
One of the things most tragic with planned games is when magazines of the time featured them heavily, showing off good looking screenshots of the game in question. This would be the case with Tintin on the Moon, which had been released in the past on home computers such as the Amiga and C64 by Infogrames, but was due for release by Virgin Games on the SEGA Master System in 1992.
The game was to mark the first console adaptation of the classic European comic series, bringing Hergé’s iconic characters to life in a new game designed specifically for the Master System. This was to be no port or rehash of the old Infogrames title. Continue reading
Our next entry into the Games That Weren’t archive is an unfinished PC DOS shooter called ArcWar. A nice looking and early Galaga style game with a strange variety of enemies at this stage, including shooting tomatoes!
Whilst working through the archives of Mark Greenshields, we discovered a series of builds for the game at varying stages, including one final edition that includes music and sound effects, and which may even be the final version before it was abandoned. Continue reading
Motor Mania was to be a fun and quirky driving adventure, designed with younger players in mind. You would take control of Mickey the Micra – a cheerful little car and the last one left undelivered before environmental chaos brought the factory to a standstill.
In a clever twist, the game would task Mickey with saving the entire production line by navigating backwards through the factory’s workstations. From the paint shop and wind tunnel to tyre fitting and computer diagnostics, each stage must be revisited in reverse order to fix faults and restore order. Continue reading
Whilst doing some preservation work, we chanced across a couple of binary files which are a slightly earlier build of Elite on the NES by Imagineer. Out in the wild are builds 2.8 and 5.2 which are dated 04 March 1992 and 24 April 1992 respectively.
Here we have 2.5, a Valentines Day build from the 14th February 1992. So almost a month earlier than 2.8 and over 2 months older than the final build. Oddly, the binary was split into two 128K files which had to be joined together again to create a working ROM file. You may find that it doesn’t run in some emulators. Continue reading
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.
