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.
Triad recently released an early build of Moonfall, which was a vector game by the late Jukka TapanimÁ¤ki.
The game was developed in 1989, but heavy delays meant that Hewson/21st Century Entertainment didn’t get to release the game until 1991.
This earlier build has a different panel, less vectors (but runs faster as a result). It’s an interesting look at how the game was shaping up early on!
In 1990, Codemasters announced the CD Games Pack – a compilation for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum with 30 games which would be read from a stereo CD player via a lead that plugged into the headphone socket on the stereo to a joystick port on the target computer.
Versions for the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum were eventually released but the Amstrad CPC version remained unreleased. No explanation was given.
In 2015, I took the chance while interviewing Codemasters co-founder Richard Darling for ‘Life in a Fantasy World – The Story of Dizzy’ to ask what happened to the CPC version. He told me…
This one is easy – We thought the CD Games Pack was going to be a great success. 30 great games for £19.99, much faster loading than cassette – what is not to like? I think we originally intended to launch it simultaneously on the 3 formats but had some difficulties with the Amstrad version, so we launched with C64 and Spectrum intending to follow-on with Amstrad. However, when we launched it for Spectrum and Commodore 64 the sales levels were very low, so we decided not to roll-out the idea to the Amstrad. In hindsight I think we made some mistakes, for example by assuming that 30 games would have a very strong appeal (e.g. 30 times that of a single game), when in fact people are interested in specific games for specific reasons with some appealing to some people and others to others. Also, the new hybrid technology which was a stepping stone between cassette loading and CD ROM drives, was hard to communicate clearly and seemed to have less appeal than we anticipated.
He didn’t say if any prototype software still existed but I will continue to endeavor to find out. The leads for the C64 and Spectrum are compatible.
Thanks to contributor Obi-Wandi, here is an early look at Championship Wrestling on the C64. This early screenshot was found by Obi-Wandi whilst looking through issues of Happy Computer magazine.
Here are some details from Obi-Wandi…
“As you can see, there’s more detail to the ring and the characters; while the wrestlers’ portraits appear to have been composited in to show off the game’s visual quality even better (seeing as they obstruct key information on the scoreboard), there may be in existence a pre-release version of Championship Wrestling from its development
stage.
In fact, the Atari ST version which was released retains the extra dithering applied to the ring in this C64 preview screenshot. At worst, this may only prove to be a mockup screen, but may warrant some degree of investigation nonetheless.”
It may well just be a mockup, but it could be interesting to see if an earlier version does exist with more detailed graphics overall. Maybe the characters were just removed to put in more details for name and score?
How can it be April already? Well, here’s another update anyway – and a lot of Rob Hubbard related mysteries solved as you will see, including another twist in the tale which is Thundercats! :-)
Colorasaurus, Deadly Summer, Fall Guy V1, House of Changes, Number Stumper, Pony Express, Ronin, Show Jumping, Sqaut Bot
Bloody Kids, Catch 23, DDT: Dynamic Debugger, Fantasy, Flok, Food Feud, Gremlins, High Memory, Jet Boat Simulator, Lethal Xcess, Mindbending Aliens From Hyperspace, Nefarious, Paranoid Pete, Prototype, Samurai Dawn, Snare V1, Space Monkeys, Spirit Of Adventure, Strobe, Trigger Happy, Vitrus, Wolf
In early May, we’ll be doing a stand with a number of unreleased games on show for a variety of platforms. There will be a main C64 stand with the GTW64 collection on show and a new reveal of around two previously unseen games exclusively for the show. One is a very famous and long lost title from 1986/87! For more details check out the site here:
A quick post thanks to Ross Sillifant to highlight details of an unreleased Comic Book game on the Philips CDI based on Aliens.
It’s an old post, but worth checking out:
http://cdii.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/aliens-interactive-unreleased-comicbook.html
Wow, time has gone quick already! And so another GTW64 update for 2015 which includes:
ALA, Black Gold 2, Bounce’n, Droid Alert, Grapevine, Huckleberry Hound in Hollywood Capers
Behemoth, Bible Baseball, Boxing Champion, Bushido Warrior, C64GS cartridge titles, Candyman, Charlie Chaplin, Crossfire Canyon, Gi Hero, Italian Night 99, Jimmy’s Grandprix, Mag Max V1, Mars Cops, Nighthunter, Pool Game, Populous, Programming Paintset, Shellshock, Shove Off, Snare V1, Soccer Game, Soldier One, Star Scaper, Super Wonderdog, T-Runner, Under The Ground, Unknown Educational game
Martin Piper has recently preserved all of his work disks from his collection, ranging from the late 80’s to early 90’s.
Some disk images are currently unknown of their content fully, but most have been labelled correctly.
Well, the news continues to get better – with confirmation from Mark Campbell that all the Last Ninja 2 disks were fully recovered – with the complete code, art and music recovered in all.
Not only that, but a massive bonus has been the discovery that some of the disks also contained some long lost demos which were originally seen in the Konix videos.
This includes the infamous 3D cube demo and also the Big heads game – Head Invaders. Hopefully we’ll see some videos of these soon.
There is more, with another Konix game on the cards – more soon on this as and when we have the go ahead to mention it :)
An amazing update on the recent discovery of the Last Ninja 2 disks for the Konix Multi-system. One disk has been read so far, and the results have been very positive – with the game being now emulated and running!
And here is the video of it up and running!
We guess that more work will also occur on getting the rest of the disks preserved and everything emulated in as close as to a final state as possible. The video means hearing some previously unheard Dave Lowe tunes for the first time in over 20 years.
Exciting times! More soon as we hear it!
A second update of the year and our first real big recovery so far!
Blue Sun, Telmar’s Gold, Wendellwood Estates
All Terrain Gardener, Arcade Classics 2, Bushido Warrior, Escape From Mars, Hope To Hopp 2, Hydrogenese, Rebelstar, Rebelstar 2, The SuperCan, Your Computer Software Exchange
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Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
