Exclusive CD demos

[MrFlibble]

It appears that the demo of Hammer of the Gods I've posted about in another thread has not been released through means other than that Interactive Entertainment cover CD, making it a CD exclusive demo. The recent additions to cd.textfiles.com also feature a few more of those:

A seemingly rare demo of Crusader: No Remorse on the PC Gamer Magazine cover disk #14 (January 1996):
http://cd.textfiles.com/pcgamer/pcgamer014/CRUSADER/

A demo of William Shatner's TekWar that appears to be different from the usual web download demo (called "beta Demo" in MANUAL.TXT), on the PC Gamer Magazine Cover Disc #12 (November 1995):
http://cd.textfiles.com/pcgamer/pcgamer012/TEKWAR/

And this demo of Lords of Magic Special Edition seems to differ from the one usually found online (I haven't checked out yet, but the demo EXE is about 10 Mb larger), found on the PC Games EXE Cover Disc (February 1999):
http://cd.textfiles.com/pcgamesexe/pcge199902/LOM/

Also, according to this, there was an exclusive demo of Witchaven II that was only published on cover disks of PC Gamer UK (Issue 33, August 1996) and PC Power UK (Issue 31, July 1996). I wonder if anyone ever bothered uploading those CDs, or that demo at least, somewhere.

archive.org has a few more PC Gamer disks than cd.textfiles.com (the two collections seem to partially overlap though), but you can only download entire ISO images, no content browsing there:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... ate&page=3

[Litude]

IA demo of William Shatner's TekWar that appears to be different from the usual web download demo (called "beta Demo" in MANUAL.TXT), on the PC Gamer Magazine Cover Disc #12 (November 1995):
http://cd.textfiles.com/pcgamer/pcgamer012/TEKWAR/

Curiously, that demo still seems to be newer than the demo available online. At least judging by the modfy dates of the game files.

I know of there being at least three different CD exclusive demos of Star Wars: Dark Forces. Also know of there being a CD exclusive demo of Heroes of Might and Magic, which can be downloaded from here.

The problem with all these demos is that they require the CD to be in the CD-drive to run (the HOMM demo didn't even work on the CGW CD since it requires the game files to be in a specific directory on the game CD, something that whoever put together the demo/CD overlooked..

[MrFlibble]

Also know of there being a CD exclusive demo of Heroes of Might and Magic, which can be downloaded from here.

The problem with all these demos is that they require the CD to be in the CD-drive to run (the HOMM demo didn't even work on the CGW CD since it requires the game files to be in a specific directory on the game CD, something that whoever put together the demo/CD overlooked..

Wow, this is awesome Thanks for sharing that, I never knew there was a HOMM 1 demo anywhere

The CD in the drive stuff shouldn't be a problem with DOSBox though, right?

[Litude]

The CD in the drive stuff shouldn't be a problem with DOSBox though, right?

Actually it seems the copy on that CD isn't even complete since it is lacking the sound folder. Ironically, the game CD check which is broken anyways since it expects the game to be located in <CDROOT>\HEROES\HEROES (yep under two HEROES folders for some reason) actually checks for one of the sound files, HEROES01.82M more specifically. A dummy file should work so to make the demo work do the following:

1. Download all the files off that website.
2. Copy/cut the ANIM folder into a separate location under ...\HEROESCD\HEROES\HEROES as you will use have to mount the HEROESCD folder as the CD-ROM drive under DOSBox later on.
3.1 If you don't have the full game, create a dummy file called HEROES01.82M and move it into ...\HEROESCD\HEROES\HEROES\SOUND\
3.2 If you have the full game, copy over the sound folder from it to ...\HEROESCD\HEROES\HEROES\SOUND\ so that you get to hear the game music
4. Mount your HEROESCD folder as your CD-ROM drive in DOSBox and you're ready to launch the demo

[MrFlibble]

Wow, cool, thanks for the info. I remember HOMM2 also uses the check for a seemingly random file or two in some of the folders on the CD.

[MrFlibble]

Corvin of RTCM managed to download the TekWar beta while retaining the original date stamps on all files, and uploaded it on the site in a zip archive:
http://dukertcm.com/knowledge-base/down ... ARCDSW.zip

I know of there being at least three different CD exclusive demos of Star Wars: Dark Forces.

I've been distracted by the HOMM demo but the demos of SWDF interest me as well I know that apart from the one downloadable on FTP, a demo of the game can be found on the CD with the full game, and another one on the Full Throttle CD. However, I don't know what the differences between them are.

[Edit] Hmm, this list mentions a HOMM demo on a CGW disk, but apparently from a later date:

33) COMPUTER GAMING WORLD – MARCH 1996, NO. 140 – Demo’s: Cry.Sys – Space Bucks – Hardball 5 – 11th Hour – Age of Rifles – Full Tilt Pinball – Heroes of Might and Magic – NCAA College Basketball – FPS Football 96

The same disk is also mentioned here:

The March 1996 edition of Computer Gaming World Extra, the free CD that came with issue 140 of the magazine, contains a demo of Hardball 5 as well as CRY.SYS, Space Bucks, 11th Hour, Age of Rifles, Fulltilt! Pinball, Heroes of Might and Magic, NCAA College Basketball and FPS Football 96 packed into a disc with patches, a comic strip and the obligatory AOL installation. It was a very typical magazine CD back then.

Maybe that version was functional after all..?

[Edit 2] Interestingly, the same list mentions HOMM on a PC Gamer CD as well:

24) PC GAMER DISC – MARCH 1996 – heroes of might & magic – hexen – pitfall: the mayan adventure – earthsiege 2 – hardball 5 – lion – star rangers – full tilt pinball – vigilance on talos V – advanced civilization – space bucks – the incredible machine 3.0 – shockwave assault – locus – black knight: marine strike fighter – a-10 II: silent thunder – cyberia 2 – I have no mouth, and I must scream

[Edit 3] Jason Scott has this PC Gamer CD in his collection, but it hasn't been uploaded yet, as it seems.

[Litude]

Corvin of RTCM managed to download the TekWar beta while retaining the original date stamps on all files, and uploaded it on the site in a zip archive:
http://dukertcm.com/knowledge-base/down ... ARCDSW.zip

That can be easily done using e.g. Free Download Manager (just remember to tick "Set the date of a file identical to the date specified by the server" under Options -> Settings -> New Download -> Advanced -> Miscellanous). Couldn't survive without it since a great deal of games seem to be available only unzipped at cd.textfiles.com.

The hours are usually off though due to different timezones which you have to fix manually by changing your computer time zone, zip up the game, and then change it back and it's all good. I usually try to find some file I have from the site that I know carries the original modify date and then compare how many hours off the timestamps are and fix them accordingly. In rare cases the time might also be off by some hours and 30 minutes since some time zones also have a 30 minute time difference compared to other time zones.

In the archive you linked, all file modify dates are off by exactly -5 hours.

I've been distracted by the HOMM demo but the demos of SWDF interest me as well I know that apart from the one downloadable on FTP, a demo of the game can be found on the CD with the full game, and another one on the Full Throttle CD. However, I don't know what the differences between them are.

Haven't looked into it too much either. The Full Throttle version is some special demo with more levels than the normal one (IIRC the original has one, this has three).

Besides that, the demo on the full CD and the internet demo there's also an earlier CD demo. It's actually the earliest demo being about a week older (EXE dated 94-12-14) than the internet demo. It's available on the PC Gamer (US) Disc #4 (March 1995). If you're interested I could upload it (~12 mb).

[Edit] Hmm, this list mentions a HOMM demo on a CGW disk, but apparently from a later date:

33) COMPUTER GAMING WORLD – MARCH 1996, NO. 140 – Demo’s: Cry.Sys – Space Bucks – Hardball 5 – 11th Hour – Age of Rifles – Full Tilt Pinball – Heroes of Might and Magic – NCAA College Basketball – FPS Football 96

The same disk is also mentioned here:

The March 1996 edition of Computer Gaming World Extra, the free CD that came with issue 140 of the magazine, contains a demo of Hardball 5 as well as CRY.SYS, Space Bucks, 11th Hour, Age of Rifles, Fulltilt! Pinball, Heroes of Might and Magic, NCAA College Basketball and FPS Football 96 packed into a disc with patches, a comic strip and the obligatory AOL installation. It was a very typical magazine CD back then.

Maybe that version was functional after all..?

[Edit 2] Interestingly, the same list mentions HOMM on a PC Gamer CD as well:

24) PC GAMER DISC – MARCH 1996 – heroes of might & magic – hexen – pitfall: the mayan adventure – earthsiege 2 – hardball 5 – lion – star rangers – full tilt pinball – vigilance on talos V – advanced civilization – space bucks – the incredible machine 3.0 – shockwave assault – locus – black knight: marine strike fighter – a-10 II: silent thunder – cyberia 2 – I have no mouth, and I must scream

[Edit 3] Jason Scott has this PC Gamer CD in his collection, but it hasn't been uploaded yet, as it seems.

Time to start hunting, I guess!

[MrFlibble]

That can be easily done using e.g. Free Download Manager (just remember to tick "Set the date of a file identical to the date specified by the server" under Options -> Settings -> New Download -> Advanced -> Miscellanous). Couldn't survive without it since a great deal of games seem to be available only unzipped at cd.textfiles.com.

Thanks for the suggestion! I used FlashGet when I had dial-up, and it would keep the date and time stamps if a file was downloaded from an FTP, but I thought it was some kind of "side effect". I've never thought download managers would have such an option built in.

The hours are usually off though due to different timezones which you have to fix manually by changing your computer time zone, zip up the game, and then change it back and it's all good. I usually try to find some file I have from the site that I know carries the original modify date and then compare how many hours off the timestamps are and fix them accordingly. In rare cases the time might also be off by some hours and 30 minutes since some time zones also have a 30 minute time difference compared to other time zones.

Yeah, I've noticed those time zone discrepancies before sometimes, didn't seem like a big deal to me

Haven't looked into it too much either. The Full Throttle version is some special demo with more levels than the normal one (IIRC the original has one, this has three).

Whoah, three levels seems pretty generous I wonder what the differences between them and the final version could be...

Besides that, the demo on the full CD and the internet demo there's also an earlier CD demo. It's actually the earliest demo being about a week older (EXE dated 94-12-14) than the internet demo. It's available on the PC Gamer (US) Disc #4 (March 1995). If you're interested I could upload it (~12 mb).

Once again, that's very interesting What are the differences between that one and the regular Internet demo?

It's a pity that they did not use the Star Destroyer mission as a demo mission:

8.5 What happened to the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mission?
===============================================================
The DF box shows a Mission aboard an Imperial-class STD that doesn't appear
in the game. Daron Stinnett has this to say:
Originally, that was our first level. It was a really well designed
level, but we decided that it was too big for the first level of the
game. We were concerned that the puzzles were too difficult and that the
level was too non-linear for beginners. So instead we created the secret
imperial base. Much of the geometry for the Imperial-class Star Destroyer
was carried over to the Executor. But the mission was different, so not
all of the geometry could be reused.

I wonder what other unused levels could have been there. I think I've read somewhere that initially, the number of levels in SWDF was supposed to be larger.

[Litude]

Actually I got a bit confused regarding the Dark Forces versions in my previous post and it contained some faulty information. To reiterate, I know of the following versions of Dark Forces:

Code: Select all

DEMO VERSIONS
VERSION      DARK.GOB      NOTES
0.16D        94-12-14      Included on the original Dark Forces retail CD
0.163D       94-12-22      Internet demo
1.0D         95-03-06      Later demo version (with just one level), can't remember where I found it
1.0L         95-07-21      Special Demo with three levels

RETAIL VERSIONS
VERSION      DARK.GOB      NOTES
1.0 (B1)     95-02-14      Retail version
1.0 (B1) DE  95-03-02      German retail version
1.0 (B2)     95-03-22      Updated retail version (still says B1 at startup but updated and CD identifier says B2)

[MrFlibble]

I would assume that the v1.0D demo doesn't have all those little differences found in v0.163D? (AFAIK the only thing that is not mentioned on the page I liked to is the different sprite of the blaster energy cell pickup)

[leilei]

I thought 0.16D to 0.163D had the biggest hugest differences. I remember comparing both at one time, and they're like only a week or two apart in December 1994. Amazing rushed polish development, one of the obvious changes is the status thingy and lack of difficulty

[MrFlibble]

Amazing rushed polish development, one of the obvious changes is the status thingy and lack of difficulty

Can you tell more? Are there things like different graphics, level design and stuff like that?

[MrFlibble]

A demo of Settlers II that includes the intro video, from the CD Action disk:
http://cd.textfiles.com/cdaction/cdacti ... TLER2.DEM/

Here's a demo of Alien Trilogy, looks like this one has both the intro movie and the music in WAV format (?):
http://cd.textfiles.com/cdaction/cdaction09a/TRILOGY/

[MrFlibble]

And this demo of Lords of Magic Special Edition seems to differ from the one usually found online (I haven't checked out yet, but the demo EXE is about 10 Mb larger), found on the PC Games EXE Cover Disc (February 1999):
http://cd.textfiles.com/pcgamesexe/pcge199902/LOM/

The demo mission is exactly the same as in the other demo version, but the music, sounds and other media are of higher quality, hence this demo is about 10 Mb larger.

[MrFlibble]

Here's a demo of Alien Trilogy, looks like this one has both the intro movie and the music in WAV format (?):
http://cd.textfiles.com/cdaction/cdaction09a/TRILOGY/

Checked out the Alien Trilogy demo, it's the same first level as in the regular internet demo, but there's the intro video, one music track and you can either play in 256 or 16-bit colour.

And here's a large demo of Dark Colony:
http://cd.textfiles.com/cdaction/cdaction16b/DCOLONY/