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

Super Kick Off

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1991 Anco / Enigma Variations

Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Kick Off was converted to pretty much every platform of its day, including the NES quite late on in 1991. However, whilst backing up some old 5.25″ floppies from the Enigma Variations archive, we found a big surprise in the shape of a Super Kick Off prototype build for Nintendo’s console, which doesn’t seem to be known about until now (certainly couldn’t find any press mentions).

superkick large

Super Kick Off was released in the same year on the likes of Game Boy (from Enigma Variations) and Master System (converted by Tiertex), and it seems that there were plans for a NES edition too. The game would build upon the original NES codebase. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island V1

Posted: by Patrick Furlong

1991 Enigma Variations

Platform: Amstrad CPC

Before you say anything, I know this game came out and that Amstrad Action gave away the game on their September 1992 cover tape as I have that tape and played it to death. But there is evidence of an earlier (or later) unreleased version.

famous2

The game was reviewed in Amstrad Computer User, July 1991 in a double page spread and the graphics are totally different to that in the released game! Continue reading →

Posted in: Amstrad CPC, Reviews | Tagged: | 2 Comments

Earthquake

Posted: by Frank Gasking

198? Atari

Platform: Atari 2600 or Atari 8-bit (Unknown)

From the archives of Atari graphic artist Jerome Domurat, archivist John Hardie found a disk labelled “Earthquake”, and so begins our look at yet another lost Atari game.

earthquake6

John got in touch to flag his finding with us, which he originally posted about on the AtariAge forum in June 2025. On the disk, he found a series of graphic images that show many elements of a possible earthquake type of game with buildings, debris and a fireman. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari 2600 / Atari VCS, Atari 400/800/XL, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Bugs Bunny’s Cartoon Workshop – Novotrade 1990 PC game test video

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to Csaba Virág, we’ve been given a rare bug report video from 1990 and for Novotrade’s Bugs Bunny’s Cartoon Workshop package. This has been preserved by Péter Gyöngyössy, who found and digitized the tape.

Csaba’s friend Peter was just walking along a street during a council clean up in Hungary, where he noticed a pack of old PC magazines still in packaging. Found among them a VHS tape, which contained a bug report from the game Bugs Bunny’s Cartoon Workshop. The game was developed in Hungary and one of the developers or the testers in the video speak about a strange bug which affect audio and video functions of the game.

The game was also developed for Amiga and Mac, but unfortunately those versions were never released. Another entry for the site in the future! Continue reading →

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

Early and lost Jeff Minter ZX81 title ‘Fastlife’ recovered!

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to the brilliant preservation work of Steve Brown of the TZX Vault, we are proud to present for the very first time, an extremely early Jeff Minter title from 1981. This was for the ZX81 and has been missing for 44 years – yet to be preserved, until today! Here is a version of Conway’s Life simulator from Jeff called Fastlife and another piece of history saved.

large shot3

What is intriguing, is that the game was advertised just once for the ZX81 as part of a compilation from DK’Tronics, including Deflex and 3D3D, which Jeff also created. However, after that – “Life” was oddly removed and replaced very quickly on the compilation by Centipede. This compilation became the commonly known version, but no-one seemed to have a copy with the originally intended “Life” on it. Continue reading →

Posted in: Preservation, ZX81 | Tagged: | 14 Comments

The KATT Games Master Keyboard Archive

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to the incredible efforts of our friend LiqMatrix, the KATT (Keyboard And Terminal Technology) Games Master, an extremely rare mid-1990s DOS gaming keyboard, has been preserved for everyone to explore.

KGMK Product Box (Front)

This unusual device came with interchangeable “mats” that customized the keyboard for specific games, from jet cockpits to RPG character sheets. Despite its innovative design, it was not a commercial success, and very few examples survive today. Continue reading →

Posted in: PC, Preservation | Tagged: | Leave a comment

NHL Hockey

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1994 Ocean Software

Platform: Commodore Amiga and CD32

A short entry for now to highlight that Ocean Software had once signed a deal with Electronic Arts to convert a bunch of their SEGA Mega Drive titles to the Amiga. One of those titles would be a conversion of NHL Hockey.

Hockey Title

Now, ports of Shaq Fu and Jungle Strike would make it, but NHL Hockey would never see the light of day, even though its suggested by Amiga Games magazine from July 1994 that it would be coming soon. So what happened, and was anything ever started? Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga CD32, Commodore Amiga | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Conspiracy: The Deadlock Files

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1989 Accolade

Platform: IBM PC

A CIA Agent is viciously murdered in a top class New York Hotel and suddenly you’re the number 1 suspect. You’ll find yourself thrust into an ingenious plot by a murderous clutch of financiers with world domination on their mind. You have only 24 hours to find the Deadlock files — the key to proving your innocence and exposing the conspiracy. Can you clear your name? Can you save the nation?

conspiracy8

That was the blurb from advertising for a lost title called Conspiracy: The Deadlock Files (no relation to the Deadlock strategy games released years later by Accolade), a title which was an early VGA adventure game from Accolade, which claimed to be the first “fully digitised adventure game with 256 colour video graphics”.

It was expected to be a “six disk” game and would support Tandy, CMS and AdLib sound. Conspiracy would also support CGA and Hercules, and would require 512KB RAM. It was expected to retail for $49.95 and was due to be released in the third quarter of 1989. Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews | 4 Comments

Path of the Little Dragon

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1989 Electronic Arts

Platform: Commodore Amiga 500

You may think you’re looking at a PC Engine title, but instead – here’s an Amiga game you likely have never heard of. An early and impressive PC Engine style beat-em-up called Path of the Little Dragon (a working title). The game was being developed at Imagitec from between 1988 and 1989 that was coded and designed by Che Guevara John.

PathLarge

This was an original title that Che developed to try and take full advantage of the Amiga hardware (dual playfield, parallax scrolling, copper/blitter and hardware sprites). The idea was to deliberately replicate the look and feel of the PC Engine import titles that were becoming popular in Europe at the time.

One level was overall developed as a technical demo with an in-house artist (unfortunately their name cannot be recalled), with a view to then refine and expand the gameplay/design elements back in 1988. The game was a sort of souped up version of Kung Fu Master, where you would scroll from right to left and carry out various kung fu moves on different enemies that block your path. It isn’t clear if there were plans for additional gameplay elements. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment