Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
A surprise to kick off the weekend for you all, with the full and unreleased Mirage game that was never released by Mark Clements. Mark was better known for his Summer and Winter Camp music, but also did a lot of coding work too, including a few games.
Not seen for over 30 years, this is a neat single screen shooter with some cool end of game bosses to shoot.
Check it out at: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/mirage/
It’s that time of the month again, and another update, including some artwork added by Stoo Fotheringham that has been under our noses for some time.
Crypt of the Dragon, Orpheus in the Underworld, PHM Pegasus – Advanced Battle Disk, Stoo Fotheringham art assets, The Guild C64 conversions, The Magician’s Ball, Zambeezi, Zenulas
Atic Atac, Bailiff, Battle Ball, C64GS cartridge titles, Escape From Colditz, Flimbos Quest 2, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade V1, Inspector Gadget, Joust, Rockball, Sonic the Hedgehog
Elric: The Almon’s Mission was an RPG title being developed by Psygnosis way back in 1995, based on the character by Michael Moorcock. The game was intended for release on both PC CD and Sony PlayStation, and was brought to light to Games That Weren’t by contributor J.M. Ratkos, who found details of the game from an old E3 press kit from Psygnosis.
Many of you growing up with Codemaster’s 8-bit budget games may remember a quirky title called Tilt, where you control a 3D maze and rotate it in various directions to guide a ball to an exit point, whilst avoiding a range of obstacles.
Sounds very simple, but it was a deviously addictive title which scored well across the different formats it was released on. It even featured Commodore Format’s very own Roger Frames on the front cover, proudly declaring its “Corker” status from its 93% score. You can read more about the C64 game here: https://commodoreformatarchive.com/1-tilt-codemasters-version-93-issue-1/
Around a year or so after the release, it was oddly to be the turn of the 16-bits with the release of an Amiga budget conversion (it is unknown if an Atari ST version was ever planned/started).
Recently, we were kindly invited to write a guest article for www.GOG.com on some of the PC/Mac games that we have covered in the book, as well as talk about the work involved in the writing of the book.
You can check out the article Good Old Games That Weren’t over at:
https://www.gog.com/news/good_old_games_that_werent
Many thanks to Good Old Games and @m_traczyk!
I’m pleased to announce that pre-orders for our Games That Weren’t book are now open at https://www.bitmapbooks.com/products/the-games-that-werent
To give a bit of background to regulars of the site (as well as new visitors). Primarily my aim was to produce something special to mark 20+ years of the Games That Weren’t archive. Originally I thought it may only take a year to write such a book way back in 2013, but I had completely underestimated. It was really important throughout the creation to try and make something special and enjoyable to others, and not just rush it out for the sake of it – so 7 years later here we are today. Continue reading
Great news, but collector Ken Van Mersbergen (known to many as Dutchman2000) has found and preserved the long lost AtariSoft conversion of Joust, which we have had an entry on for some time here.
Ken got in touch with GTW yesterday and informed us that the game was recovered from the archive of a retired programmer who used to work for Roklan. It was found on an 8-inch CP/M disk that was labelled “Popeye” and had the full source code and hex image to be able to create a CRT image.
We learn that the game was coded by Joe Hellesen at Roklan Corporation, and Ken plans to show the game in public for the first time since 1984, at the VCFMW/ECCC show in September (if it goes ahead). The CRT will be released after the show, or earlier if the show doesn’t happen and will be added to the GTW64 site.
For now, enjoy the screenshots and a massive thank you to Ken for preserving another piece of gaming history.
Thanks to contributor Ken Knight, it has been highlighted that the preview of puzzler Cubic, called Cubic Maxi contains some differences in the game play compared to the final release. Otherwise it looks pretty much the same as the final game, but worth checking out:
Download Preview_cubicmaxi
Another month and another update, including some preservation work for some released titles and a number of new entries.
Bailiff, Ophir, Raiders of the Valley of the Kings, Secrets of Science, Steam Powered Computer Company titles, Treasure Hunter, Vampyr Motel
Argonautica, Batman Returns, Breakdance 2, Devious Designs, Freddy Fish, G.I. Hero, Giana 2 – Arthur And Martha In Future World, Judge Death, Karnov V1, Legend Of Fairghad, Monster Museum, Piper Software games, Zone Of Darkness
V pre-release shots, Troll pre-release shot
Kevin Wilson has very kindly sent some obscure titles to be preserved fully for the C64, so here they are:
The Game (Simple early Pacman clone)
TAP files, DC2N dumps and Scans
Dinosaurs (Early BASIC educational title)
TAP files, DC2N dumps and Scans
Action Biker Sampler Only
TAP files, DC2N dumps and Scans
With Action Biker, there seems to be no real differences to the final retail version, but interesting to check out anyway.
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.
