Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are an 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.
A very quick entry for now on a isometric + Elite style game which was due for release on the BBC micro back in 1988. It was being developed by Stephen Smith originally and was very ambitious, with a cool Ultimate Play the Game style isometric section, with Battlezone 3D segments mixed in.
The game was also planned for release on the Commodore 64 according to an interview with Austex Software in Amiga Format March 1998 magazine. This was around the time a sequel called Uropa2 was released on the platform.
Although Stephen has documented the BBC Micro version (http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Uropa), there is nothing currently on the C64 edition. Was anything ever started? Or was it merely just something from the planning stages that never got any further?
A short entry for a short lived System 3 title. The only real mentions were at the September 1985 computer show, where along with the Twister controversy, American GI was advertised with muscular men at the stand.
We assume it was some kind of Commando/Green Beret clone of some sort, but will need to speak to Mark Cale to find out more.
It’s unsure how far exactly it got and why it was cancelled. There was a small mention in the inlay for International Karate, which you can see in the scans.
A very quick entry for a title that was being developed by Hein Holt in 2006.
Fight Run is a cool early single screen fighter game, with a number of options available to play. There is a limited amount of moves that you can do overall, but then this is an early preview.
Hein had the following to say about the game:
“The game was supposed to be a mix between Bruce Lee and Street Fighter II. The idea was to have a movie-set with B-movie actors such as Michael Dudikoff, Bud Spencer, David Hasselhoff as ‘skilled’ fighter characters and a movie-director as judge. I remember that the game engine was a total spaghetti mess. Started and abandoned in 2006”
It certainly looks very promising, and a shame it never quite made it.
Thanks to Hein, you can check it out for your self. Enjoy!
A new game which was recently revived by the game’s author, after seeing on a disk for some 26 years.
Fire Breath was a game inspired by Bubble Bobble and Creatures, created in 1990 by Erik Hooijmeijer. The game was send off for publication to a publisher, but the disk was returned without any comments. The author assumed that the game was therefore not good enough for release.
A shame, as although the game has its faults – it should have been released in some shape or form – it’s a decent game.
Yet another game which was found on the disks of Ash and Dave. This is a very early demonstration of a side-on scrolling game with an interesting split screen view.
At first we knew nothing about it, then Steven Day came forward and confirmed that it was a Meanteam game that was done from about mid 1987. The same time as Goldrunner was done. Pete Dabbs was the developer.
You can see some of the Goldrunner graphics appear on the walls at the top. Steve also suggests that if you change the sprite position, so he runs on the bottom part – you will see some multi-colour sprite priority features come into play.
Steve tells GTW64 that the game wasn’t really a game as such, but just a CNET demo that was uploaded and was just a test of a sprite mover and a scroller. It had the nickname of B.A.D, as the team thought it probably would be. It also followed the tradition of games having acronyms, like R.I.S.K and W.A.R.
Work stopped dead in late 1987, when Pete and Steve worked on separate paid projects. Part of the display was re-used in another unreleased game called Crystal Beacon and some graphics were transferred over to the ST by Steve and used in an Amiga/ST game called Stormtrooper a year later.
There was nothing more to the game, apart from this demo. So it is very much a case closed!
Our next entry is for a series of tools which was being advertised in 1986 in Zzap 64 magazine. The suite included a music, a battle game construction kit and an arcade game construction kit.
Although the Arcade Creator was released on the Spectrum, none of the C64 versions were ever to be seen.
Interestingly, the Battle Creator for the ZX Spectrum had MC Lothlorien listed as the developer, so its possible that Battle Creator turned into their Johnny Reb 2 game or similar.
So what happened? Was anything of the tools ever started? Do you know anything more?
A short entry for a title which may have been started on the C64.
Space Max was a space based strategy game which was released on the PC and Amiga platforms, but at the end of PC Joker magazine, there is an advert which clearly shows the C64 as a release platform.
The game was never to be released, and could be due to moving away from the 8-bit market around 1992 time. We’re not 100% certain, but hope to confirm very soon.
A quick entry for a title which seems to have been abandoned. Not being touched since 2013.
The game is quite a simple downward scrolling game, where you have to keep your character on platforms and not miss, grabbing as many points as you can. The game looks as if it was due to be 2 player, but hasn’t been activated in the preview.
Nothing more has been seen of the game, and its possible that it was a coding exercise. Was anything more planned for it? We’ll have to wait and see.
“Take the part of Al Wrong in his quest for his first sexual experience”
That’s the opening description for a game that was found hidden away on Ashley Routledge’s CNet download disks. Uploaded to CNet by P.Hardcastle of P.H.Atholsoft and believed to be written around 1989 in The Quill.
We guess it was just done for fun, rather than intended for profit – but doesn’t seem to be preserved just yet. So here it is!
Hopefully we will learn more about the game at some point in the future, if the developer ever finds this page!
Achim Volkers has been a saviour for C64 fans in recent years, thanks to production of various superb games such as Vice Squad and Space Trip.
Unfortunately, even in these post-commercial days – along the way there are always casualties with various ideas that do not quite go to plan. Atlantian was one such game, which was an impressive looking IK+/Barbarian clone set in ancient Rome.
This was the first game where Achim had double buffering and had to unpack sprite animations in real time. Development took too long for Achim, and he started to get disillusioned with the game. He decided to cancel the project and release what was developed into the wild. The intro is to be re-used for another project.
Thanks to Achim, we have been given the preview to add to the archives, so you can take a look at what might have been. A shame it was not to get much further.
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