***CANNED GAME***
Marble Madness II is the unreleased sequel to the classic Marble Madness. It was developed in 1991 by Atari Games and underwent market testing in a variety of locations, but these were deemed a failure so the game was cancelled and never released.
***CANNED GAME***
The Atari 8-Bit version of Commando was developed by Sculptured Software for Data East in 1989, but unfortunately the game was never released. Thankfully a prototype still exists and is available online, which is good because this is one of the best 8-bit ports of Commando around.
***CANNED GAME***
The Super Nintendo version of Shadow of the Beast was prefixed with the word “Super” to differentiate it from other ports, and… it was cancelled before release and never officially made it out. It was developed by IGS (Information Global Service) and an unfinished prototype of the game was leaked in 1993.
***CANNED GAME***
A game that should need no introduction: Pac-Man is one of the most popular video games, and one of the most popular video game characters, of all-time. Unfortunately, this ColecoVision port of Pac-Man never made it market and was cancelled before release. Thankfully a completed prototype of the game exists and has been leaked online, and it’s better than most other ports on competitor machines.
***CANNED GAME***
The NES version of The Adventures of Dr. Franken was developed by Cygnus in 1993 and was cancelled before release. A prototype exists online, though, which is what these grabs are from.
***CANNED GAME***
There is a story behind the Commodore 64 conversion of Bubbler, but to condense it into just a few sentences: the game was being converted in 1987 by an intermediary company for Ultimate, called Lynsoft, but was canned before release because it wasn’t fast enough.
Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors is a “legendary” game that never came out…
Originally planned for a 1995 release on the Sega CD, Smoke and Mirrors was due to be published by Absolute Entertainment but they went out of business before the game’s release and it therefore sank without a trace.
Developed by Software Creations for Sales Curve Interactive, Solar Jetman is a legendary ‘lost’ game that was canned by its publisher in 1991 and has since resurfaced and been ‘preserved’ online.
This 1989 BBC Micro conversion of Taito‘s classic arcade game, Bubble Bobble, was never commercially released. Which is a shame because it is rather excellent.
***CANNED GAME***
Lode Runner on the Atari Lynx was developed but never officially released. A prototype version was leaked onto the internet in 2008.
It’s pretty much complete in terms of gameplay – all 150 original levels have been verified as being in there and the game plays as it should, without any real problems.
The King of Grabs 