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.
Highlighted by Peter Weighill, Tunes n Trivia was a pop quiz game released in the USA and which seems to have only been sold via mail-order. As a result, the game could have had a very limited release overall.
It has been confirmed by the author’s son that the game was released, though only about 100 or so copies were likely sold.
It is hoped that someone out there may have a copy of the game which can be preserved fully. Please let us know if you do! :)
Another company entry, thanks to Peter Weighill, for a number of educational titles that are currently missing, and from another US based label called Sungem Educational Adventures.
The following games were advertised with screenshots:
Spelling Space Wars
State Chase
Kids on the Commodore
Beginning Years
Metric Fever
Searcher of the Solar System
Raceway U.S.A.
Math Mania
It is likely the games were actually released and are out there, but can you help us find them and get them fully preserved?
Thanks to Peter Weighill for the heads up. This entry is a collection entry for a bunch of educational titles that were advertised by “Little People Software” in the 80’s in America, but don’t seem to have surfaced just yet.
All of the following games were advertised, but were they released? If so, can you help us preserve them?
Humpty Dumpty alphabet program by Dave Paulsen
Little Bo Peep number program by Joe Sams & Scott Barker
L.P. Money I by Arron Grant
L.P. Money II by Tom Wanne
L.P. Shapes by Doug Knapp
L.P. Traffic Signs by Tom Wanne (FOUND – See downloads!)
L.P. Child Protection by Tom Wanne
L.P. Colors by Arron Grant
L.P. Farm by Arron Grant
L.P. Addition by Doug Knapp
L.P. Subtraction by Doug Knapp
L.P. Opposites by Tom Wanne
L.P. Multiplication by Arron Grant
L.P. Expressions by Arron Grant
It is possible they were all released, just in limited numbers – so this could be a case of just trying to find copies that are out there and get them preserved for its too late.
Our next entry into the GTW archives is a very neat proof of concept that has unfortunately been cancelled, but looks very impressive indeed.
Red Baron 3000 is a vertically scrolling shooter, with some cool parallax effects and simultaneous music and sfx. It was created by Hein Holt who was inspired by the parallax effects of Flimbos Quest and Hawkeye 2.
Originally planned to be a demo part, it expanded rapidly into a game, with enemy routines and collisions.
Work was halted when a major rework was required to try and free up more memory for the game as a whole, and also doing the artwork was found to be a slow and cumbersome process for Hein. There was a brief reprieve for the game, when Hein got inspired by seeing Xenon 2, and was going to manually convert all of the assets to the c64, when interest was lost again.
Hein decided to fully close the door on the game, and now it has been released into GTW64 as a result. A huge shame, as the game certainly looks and plays impressively, even at this early stage.
A quick entry for a title by Uruguayan development group Iron Byte, called Buggy Ranger.
The game was released by Dinamic on the likes of the Amstrad CPC, Spectrum and MSX and was a sort of ATV clone with very large buggies in a desolate city scape. It was ok as a game, but nothing too special overall.
The C64 version wasn’t advertised in the adverts, but the Spanish instructions included Commodore 64 loading instructions. So did anything exist? Or was the addition a mistake by the company at the time? Interestingly, cartridge instructions are also listed – so if it did exist, it would have been a GS title as well!
It was confirmed by Pablo Ruiz that no C64 version was started due to a lack of interest. So it is very much a …
A quick new entry for what Freddy Hardest 2 should have been originally, in the form of “Katia” by Iron Byte, a Uruguayan development team.
The Freddy Hardest 2 game (known to many as Guardian Angel from Codemasters) originally featured a female protagonist, but was switched over to a Freddy Hardest sequel to meet the request of Dinamic, who Iron Byte were working closely with.
It begs the question as to whether anything still exists of the original game with the original character, and if maybe there was more content that was cut when turned into the Freddy Hardest game.
It was confirmed that only a Spectrum version was developed, and a C64 version was never started.
Yet another Codemasters title that never was. This time, Codemasters put out an advert in a magazine – giving rates for conversions of their titles to other platforms.
Transmuter was listed, with a £2500 bounty to convert from the Spectrum to the C64. Other titles listed were Pro Snooker Simulator, Ghost Hunters and Grand Prix Simulator.
We are guessing that someone must have taken on the project – but who was it, and what happened to it? The game itself was relatively simple and wouldn’t have been too complicated to convert. Maybe sales were bad that they decided to can it?
The game was also later converted to the Atari – so its likely something could be out there still.
As with Mag Max, it seems that there was another conversion in the works for Breakthru, which saw a terrible release on the C64 in the end by US Gold.
Canvas were working on a Breakthru conversion for US Gold, but for reasons currently unknown, it was abandoned. Ironically, both Mag Max and Breakthru in their release versions – featured music by Fred Gray!
Graphics were being handled by Pete Graylish, who had produced various graphics on the C64 – including the loading screen to Miami Vice.
He unfortunately couldn’t recall anything about the conversion or what happened, but did provide this rare unfinished loading screen. Maybe the game was cancelled very early on perhaps?
A very short entry, for a very controversial title.
Commando Libya had a simple aim of just gunning people down as they went across the screen. It caused a bit of an outcry on the C64 scene due to the bonus level in particular, where you shoot people against a wall.
The full title of the first game was Commando Libya Part 1, which suggests there should have been a second part to the game. This was never released though, so we are wondering perhaps if the game got canned after the reception to the first part?
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