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.
Thanks for the heads up from Jazzcat – Super Pinball was a game that was mentioned in Danish Magazine IC RUN Nov/Dec 1988.
It was briefly mentioned as being developed, from a newsletter from Starvision’s owner Ivan Sølvason.
Sadly there was no actual info about the games, so this is merely a placeholder until we get more information. Anonymous Contributor though found a note in mid-1987 in Danish magazine SOFT which suggested that the company was more or less going to be an Amiga company according to Sören Grönbech, the founder:
“In the future, Starvision will focus mostly on the Amiga, although we may produce an occasional 64 title every now and then. All our full-time programmers have bought Amigas, and we’re 100% devoted to it. Our first game, MACH, is for the 64, but the next one is Amiga-only. It is called Gigaball”. [NOTE: Gigaball was released as Giganoid]
So it is quite possible that Super Pinball was only an Amiga based title. In the meantime, do you know anything more?
Thanks for the heads up from Jazzcat – Twin Ranger was a game that was mentioned in Danish Magazine IC RUN Nov/Dec 1988.
It was briefly mentioned as being developed, from a newsletter from Starvision’s owner Ivan Sølvason.
Shortly after the finding, it seems only an Amiga edition was in the planning stages. The game had 3D effects and other features which seemed to sound like a 16-bit title. Even that is missing though, so the details have been forwarded onto the Amiga GTW team.
We’re probably stretching things I know – but its been reported that there was a version of Gemini Wing in existance that had two players in total.
Zzap 64 reported it a month before the game’s review and release, where it was dropped back to 1 player only.
It was probably just due to too much sprite flicker, but it would be very interesting to find that version. Maybe there were other features dropped as well?
Sadly we may never find out, as we believe that the author – Carl Wade, passed away a while ago. It could be something that turns up someday by bizare circumstances, but unlikely!
A short entry for a title that was flagged up thanks to Ross Sillifant.
Gung-Ho! was a title that was drawn up and story-boarded by Tim Best, which was set in the jungle and lots of shooting. Activision managed to see what Tim was proposing, and liked what they saw.
Recently at the time, Activision had got the Predator licence, and got System 3 to code the game. Tim changed some of the specifics to fit the new brief.
But what of the original game? Was anything ever started of Gung-Ho!, or was this just a series of story boards produced initially? It seems it could be that way – as Predator was outsourced (excuse the pun!) to Source development studios, who did a few bits and bobs for Activision. Had Gung-ho! already been started, surely System 3 would have finished the development work for Activision?
The game itself is very simple, and is really just a demonstration of a side-scrolling beat-em-up with a single sprite character who can jump and kick and move around a horizontal scrolling background. It’s pretty neat, and a shame it didn’t have more to it – such as enemies to fight.
Hopefully someone will pick up the project and do something with it, but for now – its another for the unreleased archives unfortunately…
A very short entry for a potential conversion of a popular Amiga game by Microstyle.
USER magazine back in October 1990 had listed the C64 version as being one of the available formats, so was this true at all?
We’ve heard rumors that USER magazine wasn’t a reputable source of information, so its very likely that this conversion is vapourware. Sean Connolly’s tune was not an official tune either, but just a conversion done for fun.
Thanks to Jarrod Bentley, we have learnt about yet another Codemasters title that was never released on the C64 – and making the original Commodore Scene story in 1996/97 about there being 22 unreleased Codemasters games looking more and more true.
Fresh from completing Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, Fists of Fury was to be a new Visual Impact title for the C64, Amiga and MegaDrive – and specifically a Streets of Rage clone of sorts. It was discussed originally towards the end of writing Crystal Kingdom Dizzy – so in preparation for a visit to Codemasters to see Dizzy in its final play testing, Jarrod got some hero sprites animated on the C64 (and some concept sprites for the 16-bit versions). Fists of Fury also required a licence for the title from the Bruce Lee Foundation, though it may not have directly been related in terms of characters.
At this point, Dave Thompson was working at Codies as a projects manager – but still wanted Jarrod and Craig Kelsall to run Visual Impact as a development studio. Craig worked at Leamington Spa to get familiar with 16-bit development, but Jarrod didn’t want to make the move and moved onto pastures new.
Jarrod isn’t too sure what happened next, but it is possible that no actual code was started and the project didn’t get off the ground after Visual Impact broke up. We’re currently chatting to Dave and Craig to get their input. Jarrod doesn’t believe that a lack of a C64 version would have been down to the dwindling market, as back around the time of Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, the C64 was still reasonably buoyant to warrent new titles being written for it.
Hopefully some day Jarrod may find his sprite work, but its unlikely and we’ll just have to imagine what this Streets of Rage clone could have been like. Watch this space!
Go Karts was a game that sadly was never going to happen.
Coder Ze Smasher had created 4 disksides of a game – but only with mostly graphics and only about 1% coding for a title screen. No code was ever started, though some unfinished backgrounds do exist.
This was a title started way back in 1991, with the aim of giving the game to Magic Disk to publish. The idea of the game was to have some tracks with a top down view, close to BMX Simulator by Codemasters – but with 2 go karts instead of bicycles.
Sadly the game never progressed past the title screen. We hope to show a digital version of this sometime soon, along with hopefully some previous unheard Guy Shavitt tunes perhaps? Well, Ze Smasher confirms the tunes will be used in an intro in the near future!
Dragonstone may likely be a title you’ve never heard of or played – mainly due to how it was mail-order only text adventure title (likely written in Graphic Adventure Creator, not Quill as I originally suggested). Thanks to Marco (Exile) Das for flagging this up!
When you ordered the first game, you would have been sent a special introductory offer, where you could get £1 taken off the price for the sequel.
We’re not entirely sure if anyone sent off the voucher and got their sequel though – and currently the game is very much at large still. Maybe you have a copy somewhere?
It’s still early days, but we believe that as it was sold by a school – people would have either got their game or would have been reimbursed. Do you know anything more?
Contributor Strident commented: “St. Kevin’s in Kirkby (near Liverpool) was one of the biggest Comprehensive [Secondary] schools in the UK at the time. It’s interesting that this ‘Alexander Software’ placed several adverts in Zzap… Was it a teacher behind it? A computer club?”
It seems quite likely – hopefully a former pupil or even the teacher themselves may stumble across this page in the future to help shed some light and see if this sequel can be digitally preserved.
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