Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Total results: 59
GTW Highlight No.38: A nice September surprise was when Mark Kirkby (Code Monkeys) got in touch to share his impressive 1992 #GameBoy road engine prototype that later evolved into Road Rash. Now play the demo and check out the complete source code too!
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/09/game-boy-road-engine/ Continue reading
GTW Highlight No.39: In October, we had been busy working on recovering a lost 1989 EA game – not for PC Engine, but for the Amiga. Path of the Little Dragon is an early proto beat-’em-up done PC Engine style, and we shared several builds here:
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/10/path-of-the-little-dragon/ Continue reading
GTW Highlight No.40: In October, and thanks to LiqMatrix’s incredible preservation work (with support from @museumofplay and @wcnews), this very obscure 90s #PC gaming device was finally archived:
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/10/the-katt-games-master-keyboard-archive/ Continue reading
GTW Highlight No.41: In November, we uncovered a surprise unknown 1991 #NES Super Kick Off conversion. Built off the original Kick Off code, it features updated titles + beginnings of an overhaul never finished. Check out the prototype for yourself here:
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/11/super-kick-off/ Continue reading
GTW Highlight No.42: Then finally in November, a Polish edition of the Games That Weren’t book (with extra content) was released. Never in a million years did we imagine seeing a translated edition:
https://gknb.pl
And that is it for our highlights of December 2024 to November 2025. We’ll be back tomorrow with the start of our new Christmas updates for this year, before having a nice long break with family. A list of our highlights so far can be found below. Take care and we hope you enjoy what’s coming up!
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/tag/xmas2025/ Continue reading
It is that time of the year again, and it has been one with many ups and downs. We finish the year as we always aim to, with a set of new releases and recoveries for you to enjoy. Hopefully you will enjoy what we have in store for you: Continue reading
Hill 19 was to be a strategic action-shooter game, very similar to Ikari Warriors/Commando, but with more strategy involved. The player would control a team of characters (believed to be about 3), including Radio and Gunner. Sadly it was never to be though! Continue reading
Another earlier version of a released game, and today with the release of Kick Off 2 preview. This is a very very early build that features graphical menu screens never used in the final versions and also a different score panel. Continue reading
Mister Bug (aka Mr. Bug) is an unreleased Lady Bug-inspired arcade clone for the Commodore Amiga, developed during the early 1990s by Dutch coder Guido Gouweloos together with friends William van de Coolwijk and Jan van Rosmalen. Continue reading
As a bonus Christmas update, we have the very rare ZX81 edition of Mugsy, which many of you will remember as a popular release from Melbourne House. This is the original idea and design which Melbourne House would base their game off, created by Collins Computing. Continue reading
Paddle Mania was an arcade tennis game which was mentioned as being a title for conversion in Commodore User, September 1988 by French software company FIL. UK representatives of FIL were The Sales Curve – but although Silkworm and Ninja Warriors made it and this didn’t. Continue reading
Piracy Deluxe began life as an Amiga conversion of the Commodore 64 classic game Piracy by ACE Games, originally released around 1986. Development started in 1992 and continued intermittently until 1994, with the project expanding significantly over time before ultimately falling victim to the collapsing Amiga market. Continue reading
How can you possibly squeeze a 32-bit PlayStation CD ROM game into a small Game Boy Color Cartridge? Well, HotGen would attempt to do just that with a conversion of Resident Evil in mid-1999 and to make it as close as possible with similar 3D perspectives using scaled sprites.
There were delays and a lot of struggles to cram everything in. There were of course a number of restrictions and tweaks made along the way, but HotGen had a pretty decent stab at it and had a title which was certainly pushing the 8-bit hardware. Continue reading
Whilst working on preserving Mark Greenshield’s C64 disks, we were told to look out for a game called Rooster Booster. An interesting name, and when asked what it was – we were told that it was the original name for Bombo, which was released by Rino Software. A great Bombjack clone which many felt was better than Elite’s official effort. Continue reading
Thanks to a kind loan by developer Lance Abson, our next Christmas update presents a set of source code and build disks from Sci-Fi (which was released by Digital Magic Software) for you to check out. One of the disks also contains some art assets used within development and may be early versions of artwork. Continue reading
During the early 1990s, I remember there being indication that a Sooty and Sweep 2 game was coming soon (at least for the Commodore 64), but it disappeared and I forgot about it until starting up Games That Weren’t. I assumed the game was vapourware, but I couldn’t be more wrong! Continue reading
Next up, we have something quite special that we found lurking within the disks of Mark Greenshields when backing everything up from his archive. A quite early build of Spindizzy, but with what seems to be a lot of the map intact. Continue reading
Back in the day, my Commodore Format magazine used to have an ‘Early Warning Scanner’ with games that were coming soon for the C64. On there for a while was Thomas The Tank Engine 2, but it never really moved and nothing more was shown in magazines. I assumed it was vapourware. Continue reading
Our next update is a special recovery of Tork for GameBoy Advance, approximately 60-70% complete (with no sound) and lots of levels. An impressive conversion, with Nebulus style and other 3D levels throughout – sadly never to see completion. Enjoy!
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/tork/ Continue reading
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