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Hendricks, I have theory about those "mysterious" sprites from your SW Beta Analysis page:



I think they got something to do with this:

Quote

source: http://web.archive.o...adow/qanda.html

So I think those sprites were supposed to represent Kirins failed experiments at genetic engineering.

Daedolon, on 30 August 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

At least Lot7P was based on a novel which had 7 heroes(yeah, original the novel only had 3, but got extend to 7 in later revisions by other authors.) so that's it.

It was "released" public, so you guys can see that boxart, yeah, it's real.

Jimmy, on 30 August 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

In Taiwan, it WAS a proper release(when you can see a box like those pictures), and in that era, Taiwan had bad reputation about pirating copyright things...shitloads of such bootlegs about many famous titles from US, JP...nah, it just some dishonorably past...

Considering its BUILD engine never got proper licensed from Apogee Co. LTD. and then just sold it to some Asian countries that didn't care copyright laws in that time, sure it's just a "slightly high end" bootleg from Asian.

But at least this one better than that stupid MARS, which just nearly never did any advertising and got sold in "secretly"......I only saw a small AD pic. about MARS in one of Taiwanese gaming magazine and then I heard it never sold in public, no box or whatever else at all...


Hope I can get that 11/1 version of the game and see what's different in that "new version"... I searched whole Internet, only found the 9/26 version...which just a shame when I heard the "enhanced version" was better.

As I haven't found clear info on the web (very few search results coming from a specific web search engine)...

Anybody knows something about the following (apparently fake) ripper heart on the top left of the image?
Source: Shadow Warrior: Twin Dragon, Hide And Seek. (Level 8, or 4th in the add-on.)

Note: I *can* climb to there (using a barrel), but I can't seem to obtain the heart, even though I don't have 5 ripper hearts at possession in the game.
If you don't recognize this place, it comes after using the blue key card and then walking in some greenish liquid (apparently not slimy). You may further check the compass as a reference (looking south-east in this shot).

Note 2: Yeah, I know I can probably use a map editor to check that. But I'm less familiar with the tiles than others and someone already knows some more details (even though there are probably few of these), which can be better.

Player Lin, on 31 August 2013 - 02:07 AM, said:

What files are you using to differentiate the game? All I know is the demo and a version from 22.9.94.

Also what's MARS? Cheers.

Daedolon, on 31 August 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

Whoops... looks like I misread the datestamp...the demo should be 94/9/22...(but the datestamp may changed by the timezone for some reasons so maybe it's not real) stupid me.


Here shows the files list.

This is the demo from JF's Build games site.


The release one isn't the copy I owned, that copy was missing for a long time, bad friend borrowed it and never return back, lost it forever...
I just got a copy from one of some pirate sites...
(The "someone's" extracter still on there just lazy to remove... )
Some of EXE missing in this release version just because got changed to L?ART000.DAT for no reason...



MARS, it's a game made by a Taiwan company that never did any FPS game, never sold in public so no one really know this game...it used DooM 1 engine but illegally hacked it with their custom gamedata, but still leave many remains of doom.exe in its exe, they even changed the string "DOOM Operation System" to "MARS Operation System" in startup screen... the game just so bad and I don't know how to explains why it's bad...bad story, bad level design, bad voice acting, bad texturing...bad......ah, holy s---...
I should recording some footage about this one, it really rare and near nobody knows at all...but other problem is...seems I still don't know how to install it properly...or it just that buggy so crashing a lot...

That looks completely different from what I've seen.

Daedolon, on 31 August 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

Yours is the same as the demo one in his post...

Oops, checked the wrong dir then, haha. I seem to have the same one then, sans the LOTSPE stuff.

Daedolon, on 31 August 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

I put the LOTSPE stuff in the release one, read my post carefully.

For the hell of it, I decided to see how many maps in the Shadow Warrior beta matched areas shown in pre-release screenshots. Turns out that quite a few pre-release screenshots originated in maps included with the beta! The upper screenshot is a pre-release screenshot made by 3D Realms, while the lower one is taken by me in the Shadow Warrior beta.

First up is Palace2.map:




There are two interesting things about these: first, the magic scroll found in the pre-release screenshot is still in the beta and can be picked up! However, it does nothing when you get it. Second, there is a red potion behind the magic scroll in the pre-release image. However, in the beta, a Portable Medkit is behind it.




Same location, but the pre-release screenshot was taken in 1995. Seems not a lot changed, architecture-wise.

Next up is prison.map. Despite the name, this area has several areas that appeared in pre-release screenshots that don't look like they come from a prison.




There are some interesting differences between the pre-release and beta versions. It looks like the crystal ball props got a redesign between the pre-release and beta versions. Second, the DELETE ME object in the beta is a vial with some sort of dark blue liquid in it. Makes you wonder what it was used for. Finally, there are two ninjas roaming around the yard in the beta version, but there are two tall Lo Wangs in the ledge above the statue. Did they move the ninjas between the pre-release and beta images, or did the ninjas hop down and pursue the player when the pre-release image was taken?




Looks like the beta version added two more ninjas/tall Lo Wangs to the front of the door. There's also a tall Lo Wang behind the doorway in the beta, which probably explains where the ninja in the pre-release screenshot came from.




oohh, some actual differences! It seems that earlier versions of this room had a path on the right side of the room. However, the version of the room seen in the beta doesn't have that path anymore. There's also a Guardian in the pre-release screenshot, but the version seen in the beta doesn't have one. This is a Guardian Head behind the door on the other side of the room.




A large Lo Wang makes it hard to see the door on the right side in the beta screenshot. However, if you look at the door logo in the pre-release image, it is smaller and less detailed than the one seen in the beta screenshot.



Tank.map:




Nothing special, but it does show that the sight on the tank was changed between the pre-release and beta screenshots.




The architecture is the same, but there are no ninjas/large Lo-Wangs in the pre-release screenshot. The version of this map in the beta also lacks the Guardian seen in the pre-release screenshot. Also of note is that the fortune cookie on the crates in the upper left side of the room is another mysterious potion.





I couldn't get into the turret because the switch that raises the wal that allows the turret to view the pool room doesn't work in the prototype. This is the same area seen in the previous comparison, but at a different angle. Again, no ninjas in the pre-release screenshot version of this map.



Palace1.map:




Looks like the blood was darkened between the time the pre-release image was made and the version of the map seen in the beta. Also, there is no Guardian in this room. The Baby Rippers are still there.



Unfriendly Skies:




Just some minor differences. The handrails and painting seen in the pre-release screenshot are not in the beta version of the map. Also, the beta version has less lamps than the pre-release version does.

Continues in the next post because I hit the limit for amount of images.

Part 2

Boat.map




The doorwary seen on the right side of the beta screenshot is completely missing in the pre-release screenshot (which was taken in April 1996)! The doorway leads to a rough outline of what appears to be a store, but using generic brick and marble textures. There's also no Guardian in the beta.



Water1.map:




The waterfalls have been lightened up between the pre-release and the beta versions of the map, but the actual water is the same color. There are Coolie Ghosts in the beta version, but the knockback from their projectiles makes ti hard as hell to take a good screenshot, so I blew them up. Also, the per-release screenshot was taken on August 11th, 1995. Looks like nothing was changed.




Same area as before, but this screenshot was taken in 1996.


Combat3.map:




Fun bit of trivia: the pre-release screenshot was taken on June 20th, 1995, making it one of the earliest Shadow Warrior Screenshots out there. The architecture and prop layout is identical to the version seen in the beta version of Shadow Warrior, which was compiled almost two years later. The only differences is that the beta version has no enemies and the smoke emitting from the crater is different between the two.




There are some interesting differences here. First off, a dead Coolie with arrows in his back that's not seen in the final game appears in the pre-release screenshot, but a dead Master Leep appears where the Coolie is in the version seen in the beta. My guess is that they overwrote the dead Coolie with Master Leep. Second, there is an impaled ninja in the pre-release screenshot, but not in the beta. Finally, the blood is darker in the beta version.

Of note is that the pre-release screenshot was taken on June 20th, 1995, making it one of the oldest SW screenshots out there. Looks like it didn't change much between the 1995 and 1997 beta versions.


Mine.map




I couldn't find an area in mine.map that was a direct match for the pre-release screenshotk, but this area seems to fit it best. This could be images of the same area, as the hole in the wall seen in the beta screenshot is caused by a large explosion that happens when you shoot a rocket at the wall. There's a huge explosion in the pre-release screenshot where the hole would be.


That's all I could find. I'm working on compiling more cool info.

I feel like someone should go into some of those unused or altered maps and fix some of the doors not working because I feel like they would still be fun to play through.

Very nice research

For me, the Skeleton Priest enemy of SW looks like a hybrid of the Guardian and the Coolie. The lava boss seems like an early interpretation of the Serpent. Those pics are cool though.

Lunick, on 31 August 2013 - 10:19 PM, said:

You can use noclip to get through most of them. However, there are some thick doors that make the beta crash with a "number of sectors has exceeded maxsectors" error. It makes one of the levels, Flood.map, impossible to explore because the only way to acess nearly everything in the map is to go through a thick door. You also have to be careful, because some areas may look like doors, but they aren't. If you try and noclip through them, you'll get the same error I mentioned earlier.

I've extracted some of the maps to fool around in non beta versions but some of them crash straight away like water1.map.

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 31 August 2013 - 11:37 PM, said:

Sounds like that's the error it throws when the player goes out of bounds, ending up with the engine functions for determining the sector of a particular point returning -1 which can be interpreted as exceeding MAXSECTORS if the value of -1 is read as unsigned.

In other words, just go into the editor and remove the door!

MYHOUSE.MAP, those sure are awesome findings!

BTW, I've always liked the design of SW from the pre-release stage that had more medieval Japan themed areas, and Lo Wang's design in the black suit, with weapons such as the wrist-mounted blade and the crossbow.

Player Lin, on 30 August 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

I find this gameplay aspect of 7 Paladins as actually the most original and memorable thing about it. For me it is very intriguing way of starting game, where you begin in "real world" and then have to enter "game world". (If so bit immersion breaking, but I dont mind.) Imagine if Duke3D began with player in room with computer, and he/she would have to come to computer and then "launch game" on it with space key, then on computer screen would appear logo of game and then it would zoom in to fill whole screen (like loading saved games in ROTT does) and game itself would truly start. Starting "real world" room (or even whole flat with multiple rooms) could also hide some extras (e.g. radio for listening to game music), easter eggs or cleverly inmplemented credits, or original ways to adjust options by using its enviroment in various ways.

Quote

Is it possible to somehow skip trough levels? I am very interested in seeing some later/boss levels, because every video of it I have ever seen so far included only starting level at train station and first game level. Also could I ask you to upload ripped sprites from it? I found only two sprite resources (>first< & >second<) for it and I strongly suspect that both of them are significantly incomplete (no sprites for any boss character - I presume this game features some boss/bosses, right?).

t800, on 01 September 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

That's some(not so many) of Chinese novels/games/dramas tend to do such things, starting from real world(modern) and then go into the game world(ancient time) with whatever reasons, sometimes it maybe a reversed one(ancient -> modern)...some kind of time travel......

t800, on 01 September 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Not known any built-in cheats in this game...sadly...even I hope it had...

I guess they just get those data from the L0ART000.DAT & L1ART000.DAT because they're just pure Tiles000.ART files with different name(the author of LOTSPE said that), use EDITART with the game's palette file should be work I guess...

I guess all sprite works should be on those two files, because other L?ART000.DATs just looks like not sprite files at all, the M is map data and V is music, sound and pictures for stuffs like loading screen, copyright declaration screen(LOL) and those upcoming games screens.

A and T are just executable files, check them in WinHex and found the executable file header...
C, F and G... I don't know what they're at all...too bad I'm not good at trace things like those unknown things...

I just still wait until I found the "Enhanced" version of the game.....

t800, on 01 September 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Player Lin, on 31 August 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

I'd really love to hear more about this. Not many third party developers used the Doom engine, so an entire unlicensed game built on it would be a pretty obscure gem. What was the theme of the game? Fantasy/magic like Legend of the Seven Paladins?

RinyRed, on 01 September 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

Seconded, this is not the first time MARS is mentioned in this thread (or on the forums), and I'm kind of intrigued by it. Googling did not produce any results so far, so any screenshots/video records or whatever would be more than welcome

That monkey is using the ripper heart as a weapon?

And well, the guardian uses a sword? didn't pay much attention to that when I played

Fox, on 01 September 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

It is winning pose of Baby Ripper, which it also shares with its adult counterpart. After it kills Lo Wang, it will rip his heart out in front of him in its "victory pose" like some kind of trophy, (think of it as something like Predator does in its films with human skulls ). Ripper heart weapon was meant as irony, because Rippers are known for ripping hearts out of their prey (hence their name "Rippers"), so player can do the same to them (but only to adult normal version and only in full registered version, usually by killing them with some explosive weapons) and use it against them in twist.




What is strange about that screenshot is that normally Ripper/Baby Ripper does it only to player after killing him/her. So maybe that is just some sprite mock-up, or they behaved differently in old betas - maybe monster-in-fighting was included in it (so if it for example killed Evil Ninja, it would rip his heart out)? hmmm....

EDIT: It makes sense after thinking more about it: Rippers are just very agressive wild beasts, so it would be natural for them to lose temper if some strayed bullet from Evil Ninjas Uzi hit them.
-----------------------------
BTW I am interested in knowing any other FPS games where monsters can interact with players corpse.

More!

Take a look at this screenshot taken in the beta version of Shanghai Shipwreck:



It's the Eel enemy! Turns out they did enough work on it that the developers actually put it in levels. However, the Eel does nothing and cannot be killed. He'll just use that one frame forever.

Shanghai Shipwreck in the beta also has something interesting. Normally, the map uses the final ninjas, as seen below.



However, if you dive underwater in the area you spawn in, you'll find this:



A tall Lo Wang! Looks like someone forgot to remove all of the old ninjas in this map. Just more proof that the old and new ninjas are two separate objects for some reason.



Here's an interesting little thing I noticed about the end level switches. If you play the beta normally, you'll find a rough draft of the final's end switch at the end of the first level.



However, when you get to the end of level 2, Zilla Construction, you'll find that the end level swtich is completely different!



Now, if you go into the old levels buried in the beta, you'll find that some of the levels have end switches. Interestingly enough, these end switches use the same one that was used in Zilla Construction! Take a look at Boat.map's end level switch:



Same thing. You can also see this switch used in beta levels from SW's “crypts and palaces” era and the more recent, Duke3D-like levels, such as Unfriendly Skies.

The end of Shanghai Shipwreck somewhat bucks the trend by using the rough version of the final's end of level swtich in Shipwreck's end puzzle.


The thing is that using the correct one does not lead to the end of the level. Perhaps they were already considering the final end of switch design when they were working on Shipwreck, but didn't really start implanting the final end switch until they did a lot of work on Level 1.

Basically, the conclusion of all this seems that the developers kept the same design for the end switch for the vast majority of the game's development. When they swapped it for the final's design, they repurposed the old design as a regular switch, which you can see in some levels in the final game.






There's something really cool in the beta's Unfriendly Skies that wasn't in the final game. The level's architecture is mostly the same as the final's. However, when you get to the end of the level, you'll notice something is a bit..off.




Unfriendly Skies had a completely different ending at one point! Instead of facing off mini-Sumos, you'd be stuck in a large outdoors area with a lot of enemies and have to use the giant APC to take them down. The APC has plenty of cover and two machine guns, making it perfect for taking down large groups of enemies with no problem.




It's a really cool idea, but was probably cut for performance sake. However, this area does have something more significant which will be shown very soon.





In an earlier post, I noted that some of the unused levels in the beta are earlier versions of levels that appeared in the final game. What's strange about it is that the levels have the tall Lo Wangs, meaning they were using the old ninja enemies when these levels were last worked on.

Here's the start of Floating Fortress:



...and the lobby near the end of Unfriendly Skies:



Now here's where things start getting weird. Here's a picture of Floating Fortress' start area that was posted on the Shadow Warrior site on December 1996:



It's clearly the map layout seen in the beta and shown a few pictures up, but if you look on the right, you can see the final ninja on the boxes at the top. That's unusual. That picture was posted in December 1996, but the beta was compiled on April 1997 and still has the old ninjas in Floating Fortress.

Look at this frame extracted from an animated .gif that was on the official Shadow Warrior site at one point.



It matches the old Unfriendly Skies ending shown earlier, but notice that there's a final ninja attacking the player on the right side of the screen. The Unfriendly Skies in the beta has the APC arena, but uses the old ninjas. See below for a very rough recreation of the location shown in the .gif to see the old ninjas:



Isn't it weird that, despite being compiled on April 1997, the beta has levels that used the old ninja enemies, but pre-release screenshots uploaded earlier than when the beta was made use the final ninjas?

Looking at it, the most likely conclusion is that the SW beta is based on an earlier version of Shadow Warrior than was being worked on when the beta was made. Based on what I've seen of game development, it's likely that the developers split the shareware branch as we know it from the main build around the time the new ninja enemies were developed and were slowly replacing the old ninjas in maps. I would've dated it earlier, but some non-shareware maps, such as a beta version of Rising Son, use the new ninja enemies. The shareware branch was updated with things like voxels and new art for the shareware levels, but the old maps and art resources that were in the game when the shareware/retail split happened were not removed until it came time to actually make the final shareware game. As a result, the beta has lots of resources that were long obsolete in the same time period the beta was compiled, such as the old temple and shrine levels, rough versions of some of the final's levels, art for removed enemies like the Skeleton Priest and Eel, and other stuff.

Basically, the beta is significantly more valuable than it looks at first glance because it's basically a 1996-era build with 1997-era shareware resources and coding laid on top of it. I don't think we really need a SW beta from mid to late 1996 because we essentially already have it. The currently-released beta provides an opportunity to see how far along the game was back in mid to late 1996 and how incompatible and different it is with the changes that were made in 1997.

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 September 2013 - 03:13 AM, said:

I think that single frame extracted from GIF was made from combined two different shots. Left and right halves are two diffrent shots with bit blurred/partially transparent border area between them in upper half of picture
(sorry for very quick and crude enlarged visual explanation of it):



First thing that I noticed as wrong is ammount of rounds in ammo counter (I think we can with confidence say that beta versions we know never ever had higher ammo limit for missile launcher than 50 rounds). That launcher is not related with ammo counter, ergo it is definitely from some other captured shot. Also that ceiling struck me as odd, because vehicles in SW cant enter indoor areas. So I think that ninja is in no way connected with APC, thus this picture is not contradicting your theory and could be made from shots depicting two different develpment versions.

P.S: That APC is way too cool, great finding! I played many SW user maps and mods, but I never encoutered any driveable vehicles with roof.

MrFlibble, on 01 September 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

The problem about this bad shit is "super ridiculously rare", and like I was said, it never sold in public, not like NS:Lot7P had sold in public, or even got JF's notice and put the Lot7P Demo on his site...

I just so lucky to got a copy of image file from someone had a copy because he lucky brought this game from a sales man from the company of developer in Taipei computer exhibition about many years old(around 1996-1997), and said they secretly sold this game for some reasons...

The other problem is the installer, I use DOSBox 0.72, 0.73 and 0.74 with official one or ykhwong's SVN build. Both give me the same problem -- the "install" button in the installer didn't work at all, it thought I already installed the game and disable the option...copy the files from the CD didn't work neither, because the maindata file just invalid unless you "install" the game.

Then I tried use Virtual PC with a DOS 6.22 installation, and it works and let me installing the damn game...but then due some reasons, it can't run with EMM386 and smartdrv at all, or it will crash or damaged the maindata file, cause memory error when starting the game. Still taken many works to get the game out and copy it to my local hard drive...

After all, I finally get this shit started with DOSBox, except bad things in whole game(also like Lot7P, it had many Chinese characters in whole game, but at least it had cheat code! Just needed use our common input method to triggered it...like "j62u6" -> ["無(ㄨˊ)敵(ㄉㄧˊ)", means "invincible"] = god mode.)

The game just keep crashing with memory error messages when I try to load my savegame...made me totally pissed off after completed level 1, then rage-quit and killed it...

If I want to run it again then I had to find a way to get that ****ing shit works again...

Hey, this game used DooM 1 engine, doesn't it looks so weird if I post things related about that on DN3D/Build-related topic?

EDIT : I found I still had that completed installation in one of my Virtual PC HDD...and I just try to run it and then...f***...



Well, I knew it's not that easy...


EDIT 2 : Screw all I said in "EDIT", I got that works with my ykhwong's DOSBox SVN-Daum build 20130506(yeah, not the latest one, but whatever) after I copied files from the VPC HDD to my local HDD...and seems working better than last time I checked in 2010/2011...

I will finding some time to record the footage about this game, maybe I will start new thread in the General Gaming forum when I done...

The game's files list...


Title screen, full title is "3D Action Arcade - Mars (3D), Its Chinese name translate to English is "The Ultimate(/Final) Fighter".

Player Lin, on 02 September 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

You should send MARS over to someone at Doomworld, like myk, fraggle or Quasar. They love messing with the Doom engine, and what's basically a Doom hack would be perfect for them to mess with and analyze. Heck, they could probably get it working.

t800, on 02 September 2013 - 04:24 AM, said:

I thought you were right at first, but I took at look at an archived version of the official Shadow Warrior site from December 1996 and I found something very interesting: the full-sized version of that image.



Looks like it is real. The only suspicious thing is the ammo counter, but that could've been them tweaking things.

And, for reference, here's the site I found it at.

http://web.archive.o...com/catalog/sw/

This site also has some interesting screenshots of maps located in the beta. What's interesting is that, like before, the screenshots that were released on December 1996 1996 show a more up-to-date version of a level than the actual 1997 beta does! See below (upper image is pre-release, lower image is from 1997 beta):










The December 1996 screenshots show the new ninjas, but the versions of the maps in 1997 still have the old ninjas/large Lo Wangs. Unfriendly Skies' lobby also looks slightly less detailed in the 1997 beta than it does in the December 1996 screenshot.

Each developer probably had their own directory full of development stuff that they didn't necessarily send updates to other team members for. I know the code released for SW's version of the Build editor had some stuff in it that alluded to very strict time management, where the editor would log how much time you spent actually pressing keys and doing stuff versus just having it open and doing nothing, etc, so the manager of the product could have been anal about everything going through him too. I wouldn't be surprised if the beta is an archive of one developer's directory of stuff, kinda how LameDuke was full of old maps that hadn't been worked on in months.