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.

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Alive

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2000 Darkage Software

Platform: Amiga AGA

Whilst many had long abandoned the Amiga as a platform, there were those who were still trying to keep the dream alive, and one such team was the Italian based Darkage Software who were producing a number of games back in 2000.

alive 640 1

As well as the impressive 3D title Tales of Heaven, they were also working on a game called Alive, which was a sort of a Super Stardust clone, but with many more objects on screen and moving a lot faster overall…. A sort of bullet-hell version it seems! It was featured briefly in the press of the time and looked pretty decent overall, as you can see from the screenshots in the gallery.

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

Brutal Speed

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2000 XTeam Software

Platform: Amiga (AGA chipset)

Brutal Speed was a racing game planned for the AGA Amiga, briefly previewed in Italian Games Machine magazine issue 65 under the name of Speed Mania. It was also known as Speed ManiaX and eventually evolved into Brutal Speed.

Speed Maniax demo playable 19xxNo LimitsDisk 2 of 2 026

It was an impressive title that had 8 directional scroll at 1/4 pixels and 128 colours in total. It was similar in many ways to Super Cars 2, Overdrive and the likes of Neo Drift on the Neo Geo. Continue reading →

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

Zool – The Arcade

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1993 Bell-Fruit / Attention to Detail

Platform: Arcade

What happens when you smash together Gremlin, arcade manufacturer Bell-Fruit and development team Attention To Detail? Well, back in 1993, the result was to be an arcade release of Gremlin’s popular ninja platformer, Zool.

With BF/ATD looking to create a series of arcade games, they hooked up with Gremlin at the 1992 September European Computer Trade Show and felt that Zool was a perfect candidate for their new upcoming arcade hardware. Amiga Action magazine reported at the time that BF/ATD would be mostly handling a conversion, with Gremlin just overseeing. The aim was to produce around 2000 cabinets for release, and along with Zool, Rise of the Robots was also to see a transition to arcade too.

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Posted in: Arcade, Reviews | Tagged: | 6 Comments

Pac-Land V1

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1989 Grandslam

Platform: Amiga

Ok, before you start shouting – yes, Pac-Land was indeed released on the Commodore Amiga, and it was pretty terrible too. However, it seems that things could have been very different indeed, when contributor Hank highlighted a video on YouTube showcasing a very different and much improved version.

We also made a quick video to show you it in action here:

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Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Return to Fractulas

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 Rainbow Arts

Platform: Amiga

Just a short entry for now, with thanks to Karl Kuras for the heads up. Many years after the original 8-bit titles, it was announced in The One magazine (issue 29) that after its recent conversion of Ballblazer as Masterblazer, they were to give similar treatment to Rescue on Fractalus with Return to Fractulas.

Details at the time were very vague and nothing more was heard about it. The Retro Hour spoke with Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 in February 2021, and clarified up what happened.

Basically, the development detailed in 1991 was abandoned after they couldn’t get the Amiga to produce the fractals properly. A second attempt was started for the next generation of consoles, but it morphed and became the classic Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

Very cool to know that those early beginnings would lead to that. It would be amazing to some day see some of the early concepts attempted on the Amiga, and even Return to Fractulas before it became Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Maybe some day!

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

Benefactor

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994 Psygnosis

Platform: SEGA Mega Drive / Mega CD

Many of you may fondly remember the wonderful puzzler Benefactor from Psygnosis back in 1994 for the Commodore Amiga, with its tiny main character that would have parallels with titles such as Lemmings and Load Runner.

The success of the title makes it no surprise that a SEGA Mega Drive conversion was in the works back in 1994, but what may have surprised you is just how that conversion was apparently shaping up:

benshrunk

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Posted in: Mega Drive / Genesis, Reviews, SEGA | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Q*Bert

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2009 Brighty

Platform: Commodore Vic 20

Often there is a sad story behind most unreleased games, and this 2009 homebrew development of Q*Bert for the Vic 20 is certainly one of them. A very promising development that was first announced on the Sleeping Elephant forums by a chap called Brighty.

The aim was to try and vastly improve on what was felt to be an underwhelming conversion by Parker Bros and get something much closer to the arcade classic.

qbert1

Brighty seemingly was getting very close to that, and apart from almost losing his development work on a faulty flash drive, it was around 90% complete when Brighty went underground. In 2014, he started to sell off his Vic 20 collection to make some money and sadly hasn’t been seen around since.

Forum member Saehn (also known as Shane Fell) had been helping with graphics at the time, but tragically was in a car accident in 2011 and is still registered as a missing person to this day. It is still hoped that Shane will be found some day.

qbert2

It is hoped that Brighty will see this post in the future and will get in touch to shed some light on what happened overall. For now, here is a preview of the game (requires RAM expansion) for you to check out and see the promise for yourself:

Downloads

Download Qbert

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

Trivia UK

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1985 Anirog Software

Platform: Commodore Vic 20
A short entry for now on what was probably to be Anirog’s last Vic 20 release, and which seems to have never surfaced. A simple quiz game that looks as if it was written completely in BASIC. This is the Vic 20 (+16K) version of Trivia UK that was advertised at the time on a number of platforms. The game was released on the C64 (http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=16164&d=18&h=0), C16 and Amstrad platforms. Atari, BBC Micro and Spectrum editions, like the Vic 20, also seem to be missing too. At the time the C64 was really picking up a head of steam, and sales no doubt were poor for the Vic 20. It’s likely as a result that the game was dropped for that reason. However, with the other versions missing – it could be to do with poor sales of the released editions perhaps. The question is whether anything was ever started and if anything may still exist out there. We assume the code base would have been easy to port, so perhaps it was even finished. Well, thanks to contributor David Clough, we have learnt that the game was indeed released for the platform and was sold recently on Ebay. We hope to hear from the person who purchased the game to see if it can be properly preserved. If you purchased the game, please do get in touch!
Gallery
Posted in: Commodore, Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Space Vultures

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1982 Commodore

Platform: Commodore Vic 20

Commodore had released many clones of arcade games on the Vic 20, and this was to be no different. A clone of Phoenix, but one which was never to be.

It is believed to have been developed by Andy Finkel, and rumoured that Atari stepped in and stopped Commodore before they could release it, much as Namco did with Jelly Monsters. In the case of Space Vultures though, it never made it out of the door.

Was anything ever started? Andy couldn’t recall much at all about the game or what it was going to be. It suggests the possibility that it never got too far before its cancellation.

Interestingly, a label number was given as VIC-1936 and it was listed in an advert as a text listing (I am sure of this – but cannot find the scan to clarify). It is hoped that Andy may find something of the game in his notes to shed more light, but any hopes of finding something playable could be dashed.

Credits: GarryG.

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