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.

Latest News and Posts

GTW64 September 2025 update

Posted: by Frank Gasking

With summer now ending, things have ramped up a little with GTW64, with some new recoveries made, including the full preview of Indiana Jones 3, graphical remains from a long lost Gremlin Graphics game you have very likely never heard of until now called Hill 19 – and a shock recovery of some graphics for the lost Piranha game of Coven.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Adventure preview released

Earlier this month we added the sadly cancelled prototype of Indiana Jones 3, an unofficial conversion of the great Lucasfilm Games title.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Adventure)

Hill 19 / Shell Shock entry and graphics added

Originally, Gremlin had planned a very different game to Butcher Hill, with a turn-based strategy game with a mix of Commando/Ikari Warriors. Check out more about the development, and what we have so far managed to recover thanks to the game’s coder.

Hill 19 / Shell Shock

Coven

Rare loading screen and death screen graphics recovered for this long lost Piranha game whilst preserving Hill 19/Shell Shock. The same artist Cooky was working on the game, and it confirms that Imagitec were behind the conversion!

Coven

6 new entries added

This is followed by yet more titles to go into the GTW64 archive, and more titles that need to be saved in some shape or form.

City Survivor, Echelon 2, Munchman V1 / V2, Safetyline, Storyline, Yes Minister

18 updates added

Finally, we have our usual set of updates, with 18 to keep you busy. Please check the “History” for details of what has changed or has been added.

Cave Fighter, Curse Buster, Eskape, Eskimo Eddie, Iron Hand, Legend Of Fairghad, Maerzi II, Moonshadow 2, Morris Meets The Bikers, Number Stumper, Play and Learn series, Pony Express, Priceless Scrolls, The Omnicron Conspiracy, Touchlight, Trails of Honor, Trojan, Undersea Commando

Posted in: Reviews | Leave a comment

Game Boy Road Engine

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1992 The Code Monkeys

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy

Back in 1992, The Code Monkeys already had official Game Boy dev kits and experience from writing Missile Command and Centipede for Accolade. Towards the end of the year between projects, developer Mark Kirkby began experimenting during downtime. A massive fan of Stunt Car Racer on the Atari ST and Amiga, he wondered whether something similar could be achieved on the Game Boy.

road large

Mark therefore developed an early prototype road engine, designed to simulate elevation, jumps and gaps – something rare on the Game Boy due to hardware limitations. Continue reading →

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

Judge Dredd

Posted: , last updated: by Patrick Furlong

1990 Virgin Games

Platform: Amstrad CPC

In 1990, it was announced that Virgin Games had obtained the licence to produce a game based on the popular 2000AD comic character Judge Dredd on all the major home formats and adverts showed screenshots from all six formats.

Judge large compressed

In the September 1990 issue of Amstrad Computer User, the game was featured as the cover feature – it wasn’t reviewed in the issue, but it was an extended preview. but it did feature what looked like CPC screenshots, but they were small images. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Reviews | Leave a comment

JetPak DX Game Boy Color Prototypes

Posted: by Frank Gasking

JetPak DX was a wonderful Game Boy Color homebrew game based on the classic Ultimate Play The Game title, released in 1999 and submitted to the first Bung Enterprises Gameboy Coding Competition. Today we have two early prototypes for you of the game.

jetpacdx page large

The first has a great intro picture which doesn’t seem to have been used for the final game and is credited to Cosmigo, a game development studio from Germany. It seems that in 1999, they were perhaps keen to take on the game, but for reasons unknown (possibly copyright), it never quite happened. The intro picture displays, but that seems to be it – we don’t think the game is present. Continue reading →

Posted in: Game Boy Color, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Hill 19 + Coven – Assets recovered for two lost games

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Recovery work today for the Commodore 64 with a long lost Gremlin Graphics game named ‘Hill 19’ (Later known as Shell Shock). Sadly nothing playable, but plenty of assets recovered. Also – we have recovered lost graphics for the unreleased Piranha game ‘Coven’:

coven loader

Posted in: GTW64 news, News | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Unknown GBC Platform Engine

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1999 Unknown

Platform: Nintendo Game Boy Color

Our next Game Boy Color entry into the archives is a very early multi-directional platform engine, featuring a test Super Mario sprite that you can move around and with parallax background elements. There is hardly any interactions and no enemies, though you can jump around and explore quite a large map.

UnknownPlatformer large

This may have just been a proof of concept demo, or it could have been intended to turn into a proper game (with proper sprites). It was found within a bundle of example demos from Cosmigo, a game development studio from Germany. Unfortunately we don’t know exactly who was behind it to find out more, but hope the Cosmigo link will lead to further details. Continue reading →

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

Rimrunner

Posted: , last updated: by Patrick Furlong

1988 Palace Software

Platforms: Amstrad CPC and Atari ST

Rimrunner was an action game released by Palace Software in 1988 for the Commodore 64. However, Palace were also working on a version for the Amstrad CPC and Atari ST. The game was massively hyped in Amstrad Computer User, featuring on the cover of the July 1988 issue with a massive 2 1/2 page article. The CPC screenshots in the article are similar in style to the C64 version, but are not from that version.

rimrunner4

In the article, coder Pete Green spoke about the challenges of bringing Rimrunner to the CPC. He had come up with some routines to separate background layers, making one a foreground layer from which sprites could hide behind. The demo made from these routines were shown to Pete Stone (Managing Director/Founder of Palace) and Richard Leinfellner (Palace Technical Manager), who told him about Rimrunner, which originally was intended to be C64 only and which used similar routines. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment

Paria

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1990 Soft Dorothy Software

Platform: Apple Macintosh

Paria was very much an Elite-inspired game, developed by Soft Dorothy Software around late 1989 and abandoned in early 1990. What exists today is essentially just a very early prototype – a glimpse of what could have become a sprawling space adventure.

paria

“Don’t be fooled by all of the menu items in the games that follow”, explained John on his website. “Many are in fact merely stubs and do nothing when selected. That’s just the nature of quick prototyping.” Continue reading →

Posted in: Apple Macintosh, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Alien Olympics Game Boy prototypes

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Some more earlier builds of released games for you today, with a few prototypes of Alien Olympics on the Game Boy original. Two are undated, though one of the files is dated 14th June 1994, which seems to be very close to final and likely contains just final bugs not yet fixed.

alien large

The other two are earlier builds which contain temporary music from Splitz, composed by David Whittaker (and based on Split Personalities). There is a missing (R) symbol on the Ocean logo as well, but we didn’t spot anything majorly different compared to the final game otherwise. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo Game Boy, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Imagic’s Moonsweeper (Commodore VIC-20) saved after 42 years!

Posted: by Frank Gasking

The amazing Ken Van Mersbergen has done it again, this time with the miraculous preservation of Imagic’s Moonsweeper for the Commodore VIC-20. A conversion missing for 42 years has now been painstakingly restored from printed source code by Ken, with help from Simon Rowe and Torsten Kracke. It is also thanks to the game’s programmer Fred Crimi that the code had been safely kept.

moon large

Ken has very kindly allowed Games That Weren’t to add the game to its archives, so you can finally experience it for yourself. Follow the link below for more details, including Ken’s wonderful story of the recovery, and to download the cartridge image:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/04/moonsweeper/

Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, News | Leave a comment