Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
We are blessed to have a number of various preservation projects dedicated to unreleased/prototype games, especially with the vast number of platforms out there to try and preserve for. The Hidden Palace have for many years been preserving various prototypes and unreleased games across 16-bit (and onwards) platforms and this weekend they have announced one of their biggest endeavours yet.
Occasionally we take a break from covering games that were never released, but also look at titles that were released, but had some distinctive differences at one stage or another.
Today we’re covering Cardiaxx, which was released by Electronic Zoo in 1991 and then later by Team 17 in 1993. Thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, here are some highlighted features shown in the press at the time that never made it to the final game:
In early previews from magazines such as K issue 54, Generation4 1991 September, Power Play 1991 12, TGM issue 12 – Grzegorz highlights that you can see unused bosses and power ups pods for your ship.
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.
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.
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.
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 →
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.
A short entry for now on a strange title from the mind of Weird Dreams co-designer Herman Serrano. Atomic Lunch had you controlling a mad scientist called Gregory Michaelson, who has been mutated by a nuclear accident.
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.
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!
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
