Some missing game versions

[MrFlibble]

I've also found a January 1997 Chasm demo (1.28) - this demo doesn't beep on startup.

Is it any different from the other demo versions except that? If not, is it the three-level one or the Egyptian one-level demo?

[MrFlibble]

Recently Frenkel, the admin of S&F Prod. website made a post in the 3D Realms Forums about a version of Pharaoh's Tomb which was previously unknown to general public. This version, called Pharaoh's Pursuit, was released by a company called Lone Star Micro. Some of the levels are in different order compared to the Apogee version, and there are a few levels that are exclusive to Pharaoh's Pursuit. Apparently, the game had been only sold commercially, as it is not split into episodes.

[MrFlibble]

Regarding the pre-release Warcraft: Orcs & Humans demo versions, a user at Abandonia Forums has recently posted a load of interesting information about the game:
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showth ... post448371

Here are some of the more interesting bits:

So, to wit: there are no less than six distinct "versions" of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (not counting the various updates). These are--in order--the initial two (2) very slightly different "pre-release demos", which were not playable and consisted of Bill Roper's narration on top of images of gameplay, the two retail demos (the first and earlier of which at times goes by the name 'Interplay Demo', as it was meant to be exclusively distributed by Interplay Corp, and even shamelessly plugs the company any chance it gets), the floppy version of the retail game, and finally the CD version of the retail game. All playable demos report themselves as version 1.12, even though there are many differences between the versions (the so-called 'Interplay Demo' contains data for the Orcish hero Klaron, for instance). The retail CD release however reports itself as "version 1.22", which is merely a cosmetic difference; the CD version itself is identical to version 1.21. The final, downloadable patch updates the game to 1.21, so it is not to be used on the CD retail release.

The "non-interactive demo" is the same as the media distributed in issue five of Interactive Entertainment, only packaged as a self-playing file. The two first "demos" of the game are those; the media folder, and a self-playing version of it. (Treat them as one, add the two early pre-release demos and the demo Blizzard had on their FTP and you get a grand total of four.) If you are aware of any video version of IE's distro, I would be happy to know, too. In any case, the demo was supposed to be shown at the last summer CES 1994 in Chicago (before CES became a winter-only event), but I am unaware of it being shown there. It might have been; Blizzard did not exactly have a major presence there.

I've also told the guy about the Warcraft Alpha Screenshots thread at BetaArchive Forums, here's his comments on the alpha screenshots:

Regarding the linkage, the alpha screenshots in the first posts are not exactly correctly captioned. To wit; examine the first screenshot in the "Alpha Stage 2" section, and compare it to the screenshot captioned "Alpha Stage 3", and you can see they are in fact the same screenshot only with a different side panel, and three Warlocks plus a Knight added for good measure. In addition, the "Alpha Stage 1" screenshot is the same as the first "Alpha Stage 1.5" screenshot, only with different building graphics. Most of the screenshots in Hallfiry's post are presentation mock-ups. These mock-ups were created throughout the early phase in production for a variety of purposes; some were created for magazines, for reviewers and such, some for presentations, and some were simply for internal, in-house use. There were, in fact, no such versions as "Stage 1", or "Stage 2", or any other stage either. I have not seen a single actual screenshot with the non-isometric building graphics; they have all been mock-ups created to show the then-intended graphics.

The isometric graphics, of course, were then later created by 3D software--if I am not mistaken it was Animator by Autodesk (hence the FLC animation files), and Warcraft 2 used an early version of 3DSMax, if I recall correctly--and resampled/resized to fit the 320x200 canvas. You can see the 3D resampling at work in the screenshots in Hallfiry's post; if you take a look at the screenshot with the purple trees (the same image is on the back of every Warcraft retail box), you can see the Orcish farm's 3D model rendered from a slightly different angle. This camera repositioning can be seen in other screenshots, too, but there are relatively few screenshots available from this period in development, and none of the other ones' are in Hallfiry's post. (As an aside, the purple trees are probably due to Ron Millar's insistence on having very colorful GFX in the game. He insisted the game should be very colorful in contrast to the rather dreary, black and shadowy GFX that seemed to be all the rage back in the day.)

[MrFlibble]

Speaking of the Deluxe Edition of Rise of the Triad: The HUNT Begins, I didn't realize that the free pack Apogee released in October 1999 actually works with the shareware version of the game as well:

All 6 levels were designed by Tom Hall, and you can use these either on your registered Rise of the Triad game, or on the shareware edition. The other levels in these level packs are the existing shareware levels - these extras are in addition to the shareware levels that are already in your game.

I was confused by the fact that the pack is listed under the files that require the registered version to run. I also did not realize that the levels were made by Tom Hall, somehow I thought that the levels were made in-house by Lasersoft.

BTW, Litude, since you apparently own an original Deluxe Edition CD, can you tell what version number it reports? Also, does it have any other differences, maybe ordering information screens etc. etc.?

Oh, and one more thing, are the extra single-player levels warp-only, or do they work as regular levels in the CD release? PsychedelicSA's review describes them as warp-only, but this post suggests that they are regular levels inserted right after The HUNT Begins:

Here are the first 4 levels:

The HUNT Begins
Prelude to a Kill
Jumpin' Jehoshaphat
GADZOOKS!

[MrFlibble]

3D Realms
Duke Nukem 3D
Found a Computer Gaming World exclusive one level demo version of Duke Nukem 3D. No idea why it was produced since the shareware version had already been released.
CGW 1-Level Demo Version 1.1 - Files

You know what's funny? This demo was published on the May 1996 issue CD, right? (I'm using Hallfiry's CD database to get info.) And the full v1.1 was published on the cover CD of the next issue of the magazine. However, v1.3d already came out in April 1996, according to the date stamps and the info here on the Duke Nukem 3D page. I wonder why they didn't publish v1.3d straight away in the June 1996 issue?

[MrFlibble]

Here's another demo of In Pursuit of Greed, this time it's an early one, from 1995:
http://cd.textfiles.com/pcgamer/pcgamer014/GREEDEMO/
The installer identifies this as v2.0.

DOSGuy, if you have doubts about the authenticity or completeness of this installer package, you can compare it to the demo of Iron Seed, which was also developed by Channel 7 (apparently, In Pursuit of Greed changed the developer at some point or something, but it's easily noticeable that the shape of the cursor is very similar in both games, and both feature music by Andrew Sega).

Both shareware games use the same installer:


The only thing is that Softdisk is indicated as the publisher in case of In Pursuit of Greed:


The Iron Seed demo package (ISDEMO.ZIP) consists of the installer which is split into several parts which may fit on floppies. Each part is called ISDEMO.*, as is the entire ZIP archive. The same can be observed with the demo of In Pursuit of Greed: all parts, as well as the archive from which they were extracted into the directory on the CD are called GREEDEMO.*. The only thing that was added is the RUNGREED.BAT. In either case, there is no readme file in the archive, all documentation is extracted with the rest of the shareware files and can be viewed after the installation.

[Litude]

BTW, Litude, since you apparently own an original Deluxe Edition CD, can you tell what version number it reports? Also, does it have any other differences, maybe ordering information screens etc. etc.?

Oh, and one more thing, are the extra single-player levels warp-only, or do they work as regular levels in the CD release? PsychedelicSA's review describes them as warp-only, but this post suggests that they are regular levels inserted right after The HUNT Begins:

Here are the first 4 levels:

The HUNT Begins
Prelude to a Kill
Jumpin' Jehoshaphat
GADZOOKS!

There are actually two different versions of the LaserSoft build. They are both called version 1.3 but the earlier one still calls the build shareware version in some places while the later one has been updated to refer to it as special version. Here's my ROTT change log, though it is lacking especially in the differences between the LaserSoft 1.3 build and the normal 1.3 build and 1.0 to 1.1 changes section.

The exclusive levels are added after the first level just like mentioned in that quote. After that the level progression proceeds as normal.

You know what's funny? This demo was published on the May 1996 issue CD, right? (I'm using Hallfiry's CD database to get info.) And the full v1.1 was published on the cover CD of the next issue of the magazine. However, v1.3d already came out in April 1996, according to the date stamps and the info here on the Duke Nukem 3D page. I wonder why they didn't publish v1.3d straight away in the June 1996 issue?

Computer Gaming World like many other magazines in the USA has/had this weird practice where the current issue of the magazine had the name of the following month or even the month after that (I guess to make it sound very new and have potential sales for the following two to three months). Adding that to the fact that the magazine cover CD probably needs its content finished at least a week or two before the magazine gets published explains why they couldn't release 1.3d on the magazine in the June issue.

[MrFlibble]

There are actually two different versions of the LaserSoft build. They are both called version 1.3 but the earlier one still calls the build shareware version in some places while the later one has been updated to refer to it as special version. Here's my ROTT change log, though it is lacking especially in the differences between the LaserSoft 1.3 build and the normal 1.3 build and 1.0 to 1.1 changes section.

The exclusive levels are added after the first level just like mentioned in that quote. After that the level progression proceeds as normal.

Thanks for the info! I've noticed that the date/time stamp on the level files in the LASRROTT.ZIP package indicates the time as 1:31, suggesting that this was a special v1.31 (?). However, the date on these files is May 25, 1995, although the regular shareware v1.3 that I have (from Apogee's website) has August 1, 1995 as their modify date. But then again, this is the repackaged relese with the new installer, maybe they changed the original date for some reason.

Computer Gaming World like many other magazines in the USA has/had this weird practice where the current issue of the magazine had the name of the following month or even the month after that (I guess to make it sound very new and have potential sales for the following two to three months). Adding that to the fact that the magazine cover CD probably needs its content finished at least a week or two before the magazine gets published explains why they couldn't release 1.3d on the magazine in the June issue.

Ah, right you are! I didn't think of that obvious explanation.

[leilei]

Yeah, the way CGW handles things led to me unearthing the elusive Hexen beta demo (in its original archive form!).... from the DECEMBER 95 CD when the final demo was already out XD

[MrFlibble]

Hmm, while the demo of CyClones that is available from the archived copy of Raven's website (cyclones.zip) is identical to the one we have here, the demo from Megamedia's site (cycdemo2.zip), despite its file name, is actually a different, earlier demo version (most files have date stamps from summer 1994).

[DOSGuy]

Interesting find on Cyberboard Kid/Cyril Cyberpunk! Now we have proof that the game was released under both names.

Your cybkid.zip file contains a file called game_bkp.exe ("game backup"?), which is a self-extracting archive with all of the other files in the zip file except for go.bat. It looks like someone zipped the contents of the folder after running game_bkp.exe, adding 4 MB to the zip file by duplicating every file in it.

Did you get it from http://cd.textfiles.com/moonshine7/MOON ... DE/CYBKID/? I downloaded the install.exe and install.cfg from that folder. It's a customizable installer that's included in every game folder on the CD, and it mentions that you can type "go" (because it creates the go.bat file) when you're done. Suffice it say that I don't think this is how the game was originally distributed by Reality Studios.

I used Archive.org to look up Reality Studios' old website (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://pur ... /reality/*). None of the pages are archived, but I can see that a file called cyberkid.exe was crawled, so that seems to support that Reality distributed a self-extracting archive of the Cyberboard Kid demo. A number of websites, including Happy Puppy, had links to a file called cyberkid.exe. Most list the size as "4157 KB" or 4,257,229 bytes, which unfortunately doesn't match game_bkp.exe. Most of them link to AOL's old FTP, so I can't find a copy of the file anywhere. Nevertheless, I'm going to throw away cybkid.zip and rename game_bkp.exe as cyberkid.exe and assume that's what it was originally called.

[Litude]

Did you get it from http://cd.textfiles.com/moonshine7/MOON ... DE/CYBKID/? I downloaded the install.exe and install.cfg from that folder. It's a customizable installer that's included in every game folder on the CD, and it mentions that you can type "go" (because it creates the go.bat file) when you're done. Suffice it say that I don't think this is how the game was originally distributed by Reality Studios.

Yeah I got it from there (the download link is linked there). I don't think it is the original distribution either, but considering it's a file mainly distributed only in Australia I think it's going to be quite the task trying to find the original distribution. From what I remember when looking into the game, CYBERKID.EXE was actually the original distribution of the Cyril Cyberpunk.

[Litude]

Been digging through discussions held on newsgroups a lot recently and have found some quite interesting information:

Code: Select all

  * The current version of the game is v1.1.  There was a v1.0, but it was not
    an official Apogee release.  v1.0 of Wacky Wheels was released in the UK
    only, on a cover disk.  It does bear the Apogee name, but it is not an
    "official" Apogee disk.  While it's not illegal, Apogee strongly recommends
    against using this version, since the game was not completed.  The next
    version will be v1.2.  We do not know when this will be released; however
    late November is a good guess at this time.

Seems Wacky Wheels v1.0 is in fact not a leaked release, just a magazine exclusive version. So it should be fine to distribute it after all. Also wonder whatever happened to v1.2 of the game...

Also found some other interesting stuff regarding v1.0 of Halloween Harry and Mystic Towers that I suspected all along but finally got confirmation about it:

Code: Select all

Note: This is the first release of this software.  There was never a v1.0
      released by Apogee in the US.  If you see a version that claims to be
      v1.0, ignore it, as it's not an official Apogee release, and obtain this
      official first release of the software (which is v1.1).

That is an excerpt from the official Mystic Towers Apogee pres release.
Also found this regarding Halloween Harry.

[MrFlibble]

Nice findings!

However, regarding the version number information, IIRC there's some official source (FAQ, press release or something) from around 1996 or so where Joe Siegler had stated, among other things, that there was a v1.2 of Duke Nukem 3D of which there had been a "minor leak" so the official release line skipped v1.2 altogether and jumped straight to v1.3D. Whereas in reality, as we know, here had never been any v1.2 in the first place.

What I mean is those official sources aren't always as reliable as we'd like them to be.

UPD: Just googled the "minor leak" thing, in fact it's in the v1.3D "What's New" readme section, and it's signed by George Broussard, not Joe Siegler.

[Litude]

I thought the reason 1.2 was skipped was just so that they could have the retail release of the game as 1.3d, hadn't even noticed that leak story earlier. Besides even if we haven't found a version 1.2 it's not like it doesn't mean that the thing was leaked/released. Plenty of leaked builds have been lost since later official releases have been made available, while some of these have resurfaced from some pirate compilation CDs later on. Just like official releases have also been known to slip through our fingers.
Or the reason it has disappeared could be that it was quickly discovered that it was just a hack of v1.1 where the version string was changed to v1.2.

I mean the reason Wolfenstein 3D v1.3 was supposedly skipped, the adult mod. I've been looking for it, (purely out of historical interest, mind you ) but it seems it's just not anywhere to be found anymore. But I don't see any reason why Joe Siegler would lie straight to our faces so it was probably out there back in the day.

But setting that aside, I did find mentions of the Wacky Wheels cover disk release by other people than just Joe Siegler over there as well. I guess the official Apogee FAQ actually tries to say this, but at least I misunderstood the way it was expressed as the version being produced for review/preview purposes.

And considering that both Mystic Towers and Alien Carnage/Halloween Harry were developed by Australian developers, I don't find it that hard to see that Manaccom published versions 1.0 over there and then Apogee slightly later published updated versions to the US. Also note that the post I've linked saying that Halloween Harry was already being sold in Australia wasn't by anyone from Apogee.

Here's another quite good source all 3rd party which confirms v1.0 of Wacky Wheels was a cover disk release. Also you can see that Samuel Stoddard assumed that v1.0 of Halloween Harry and Mystic Towers had the same deal, which is probably why this misinformation ended up in the Apogee FAQ.