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.

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Space Junk

1993-1994 Imagitec

Platforms: Atari Falcon and Jaguar, Sega Mega CD, Amiga CD 32 and PC

As we moved into the 1990s, games were becoming far bigger and bolder – especially with emerging new data storage options for consoles and computers. Space Junk was to be an ambitious title by Imagitec, who were asked by Atari to produce a space adventure game for their new Falcon platform. We pull together information from various press sources from the time about the game and try to piece together a little of what it was about, and what happened in the end.

Due originally for release back in June 1993, the game was to feature over 200 locations with digitised backdrops, between 60-100 fully animated characters and each complete with speech samples. What made this game quite uncommon at the time was the use of puppets/masks to create the characters and animations – giving an almost life-like feel to the game. Certainly the digitisation would require some decent storage capacity, meaning it had to be CD for storage – otherwise the Falcon version would require a mega-ton of floppy disks or at least a cut down edition produced.

Although it seemed to be lined up initially as an exclusive for the Falcon, Imagitec decided to hedge their bets on more than one platform (which would turn out to be wise). They would add the new Sega Mega CD to the line up early on when discussing the game with Sega Force magazine in 1993.

Dawn Whitehead-Binns working on the sculptures, as Nick looks on wearing the mask of main protagonist Randolf.

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Posted in: Amiga CD32, Atari Falcon, Atari Jaguar, PC, Reviews, SEGA Mega CD | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Starfighter Ace

1993 Maelstrom / Mirage

Platform: PC

The next entry to go into the archive is a title which has been in my blurred memories for many years. I always recall sitting down and watching an episode of Gamesmaster on Channel 4 in the UK and seeing a 3D special, where contestants played a cool looking Star Fox style game. The contestants (and viewers at home) would need to wear a pair of classic 3D glasses to view the game properly.

Thanks to the power of the internet and all the magazine archives out there, I was discover that it was a title called Starfighter Ace. Planned for release by Mirage back in 1993 on PC only. What was surprising was that the title was being developed by Maelstrom, the Liverpool based team which had Mike Singleton at the helm.

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Posted in: PC, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment

Monster Demolition and Impossible Mission (Atari Lynx)

A quick post showing two early Atari Lynx developments which would eventually turn into something completely different. Thanks to Ross Sillifant for highlighting both.

The first is a title called Monster Demolition, which has some video footage online of the game running. Here is a screenshot from an Italian gaming magazine which shows another scene from the game, and from a town/city scenario:

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Posted in: Atari Lynx, Features, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Restrictor

1992 Thalamus

Platforms: Commodore Amiga and Atari ST

Restrictor was being developed by Arc Developments during the early 1990s for the Commodore Amiga (and also reportedly the C64). It was to be an original title from Arc, developed for Thalamus where you could drive and also fly, with around 4 planets to explore and various alien waves to fight.

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Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Dino Crisis

2000 Fluid Studios

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Color

The PlayStation Dino Crisis is a well known title by Capcom, and was designed by the very same team who had created Resident Evil. However, there was also to be a GameBoy Color conversion of the game as well. But overall there were not one, but two separate attempts at trying to bring the game to Nintendo’s handheld.

The first was being developed by Fluid Studios, which after cancellation, would move over to M4 Ltd as a completely new development and design direction. More details about both developments are already well covered and documented at Unseen64.

An anonymous contributor got in touch recently to provide some real pixel assets from the brief development, which you can see here and below. These include what we believe to be a previously unseen screen and dinosaur sprites. Continue reading

Posted in: Game Boy Color, Nintendo, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Super Barbarian

1992 Palace Software

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, PC, C64, Amstrad CPC

Note: This is heavily based on the original C64 archive entry.

Originally starting off and named as Barbarian 3, this was originally to be a straightforward sequel to Barbarian 2, following a very similar structure. This was an early period of development when both Steve Brown and Richard Leinfellner were involved in the development.

Basically whilst the sequel was in development, Steve had already decided that the game would benefit being turned into a trilogy. So the once planned ending to number 2 was changed so that Drax escaped through a mirror at the end of the game to leave it open for a 3rd title.

The main major change was that the 3rd game would now scroll instead of being flick screen based. When an action sequence occurred, then the game would switch to a larger and zoomed in fight view for the 16-bit editions. The C64 would keep the characters the same size throughout.

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Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore Amiga, GTW64 news, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | 3 Comments