Unreleased & Cancelled Video Games across many platforms.
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are an Unreleased and Cancelled 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 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 video game history since 1999.
The game had surfaced previously in 2009, and then things went quiet as the quest went on for the elusive dump of the rom. Now there is a big opportunity to get hold of the game and finally preserve it for all to see. Only problem is that you’ll need at least £800 to get it.
It is hoped that if anyone manages to get hold of the game, they will be right away attempting to back everything up and release to the community. So often are these types of auctions picked up by collectors and never see the light of day again.
Just wanted to say a big thanks for all the very kind contributions to our hosting and domain costs, which was completed thanks to Mark Campbell (a full list of all our contributors can be found on the donations page). This is us covered for another year and we will continue to report and uncover on what we can.
Apologies for the quietness recently – i’m currently in the process of upgrading GTW64 (finally!), which has meant a number of scripts to get the data out of the archaic 10 year old page design and into a new system. The content is almost out, and the next steps will be to get the C64 based archive in a new system (possibly here under the main GTW site if all goes to plan).
Other news is that Amiga GTW has been brought into a larger Amiga based site called Amiga Lore, due to Adrian finding that he was asking developers lots of questions about their released games as well as unreleased games so he’s now covering everything in larger interviews. Check out the Amiga platform link on the top right of the page to take a look!
Finally – more news snippets and game updates coming here soon. Alex has been very busy compiling notes and details in the background, so we’ll bring some of this to light very soon.
Thanks to Raffox for flagging this one up from the Gamebase 64 archives, but although we mainly deal with trying to find unreleased games or vastly different versions of a released game, we also like to examine and take a look at various assets which were not used.
It seems that CRL’s Dracula had a slightly earlier edition that featured a different loading screen which you can see below.
Sadly so far nothing has been found of this loading screen. Are there more maybe as well in an earlier edition? Maybe Jared Derrett can help us or shed some light?
If you have any loading screens not on the review page, please let us know!
News of an old SNES game called Nightmare Busters has emerged recently and which is being finished off, after originally being cancelled back in the day.
The game is being finished off by Super Fighter Team, and should be available in 2013 with a limited set of copies produced.
NOTE: (Frank – 03/09/21) I’ve updated this old 2012 post, as the link was broke.
Another quick update with the recovery of a great icon driven adventure game called Angel Of Death 2. This is a very advanced preview with some neat intros and graphics throughout. No English translation just yet!
Way back in 1994 the Doom-style Alien Trilogy was slated to come out across just about all platforms.
It came out on the Playstation, PC and Sega Saturn back in 1995 but proposed 32X and Sega CD versions never materalised. It’s not known if the game would have been a 32X cart game, a stripped down Sega CD game, both or a 32X CD game.
The game uses a similar if not the same engine as Doom, which did come out on the 32X so it’s likely the machine could have handled the game on a processing power level, if not on a memory level. But appalling sales of the 32X likely encouraged little demand for sustained support for the hardware from software developers. Continue reading →
A quick update with the recovery of an interesting Qix inspired game called Pen Palz, where you must draw a certain percentage of the screen whilst avoiding enemies. A cool early preview worth checking out!
The Dizzy series is legendary among ZX Spectrum enthusiasts and the series were released across most home computer systems in the 1980s. Less well known are the console versions, even though numerous games were released on the NES and Master System.
Only one game in the series was released on the Megadrive, Fantastic Dizzy, but two were actually made and never released.
Dizzy The Adventurer is actually a polished version of Prince of the Yolkfolk and a thirteen minute video can be seen on Youtube showing gameplay from the unreleased Megadrive version. The Dizzy fansite, Yolkfolk.com (who put the video online), were actually given the original carts of the game by the Oliver Twins but have so far been unable to make backups of the ROMs to properly archive and store the game for future use.
It’s ironic, given my previous views on it, but there is a device called the Retrode that would be ideal for them, which allows you to create backups of your own cartridges. It would cost around £60 so could be a good investment for anyone who comes across prototypes that need converting into ROMs. Sadly it looks like the people behind Yolkfolk.com have already returned the ROMs after coming up blank in their own attempts at converting it to a ROM.
Case closed for now but we know a full game exists out there, it’s just a case of someone who can convert it into a ROM getting hold of a copy.
The second unreleased Dizzy game for the Megadrive is called Panic! Dizzy, and is based on the Master System game of the same name. The origins of the title can be read here and less is known about the Megadrive version than is known about Dizzy the Adventurer. As with Dizzy the Adventurer there has been a video posted to Youtube by Yolkfolk.com showing some gameplay and it like Dizzy the Adventurer looks fully finished.
Panic! Dizzy seems to be in the same situation as Dizzy the Adventurer where the prototype has been found and kept, but without the means to convert it into a ROM so it can be archived safely for posterity.
It’s frustrating to think of people being so close yet so far to successfully archiving some unreleased games in such a legendary series as Dizzy but that is exactly where we are now.
Hopefully with the existence of relatively affordable technology to make backups ROMs of cartridges we might see both games released as ROMs in the not too distant future.
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.
