[MYHOUSE.MAP]

I fucking knew it! The Serpent God was meant to be the final boss at one point! Excellent find!

[Marphy Black]

MrFlibble, on 13 October 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

BTW, do I remember correctly that you start outside the Dojo in the beta, and not sliding down into it as in the final release?

You're correct, the beta woods map begins outside the dojo while the finished version begins inside it.

Micky C, on 13 October 2013 - 04:53 AM, said:

I always thought it was a bit too simplistic fighting Zilla in a small area with no cover where the slope changes like a seesaw. That area didn't really make sense.

There's more evidence to suggest that the final boss encounter was rushed. According to the July 1997 development updates, the robot suit Zilla boss didn't even exist as a concept on July 7 and was only implemented into the game on July 29 while they still planned to finish the game by mid-August. Conversely, the Serpent boss had been seen as early as mid-to-late 1996.

Looking deeper into the timeline, the Shadow Warrior beta is dated April 4, 1997, and the volcano map (started by Jim Norwood as early as August, 1996) seems to already establish the Serpent as the final boss of the game while the unfinished Sumo is placed as the boss of the woods map. The first version of the shareware episode, released May 13, 1997, had by that time replaced the Sumo with the Serpent as the boss of the woods, although the battle ends ambiguously with the Serpent escaping mid-fight.

I find this timeline a bit confusing as it appears the game lacked a Zilla all the way up until July, the final month of the development, yet many maps in the April 4 beta (namely Zilla Contruction, aka dozer.map started as early as October, 1996) had already demonstrated the existence of the Zilla character and his corporation, the same beta which places the Serpent as the final boss. Where could Zilla be if the Serpent was supposed to be the final boss of the game?

Hence, I'll go a step further with my initial hypothesis: Not only was the Serpent supposed to be the final boss of the game, but I posit that the Serpent was also originally intended to be Zilla himself.

I believe this to be true as it's clear the developers had already established the idea of Zilla and his corporation at this point of development (again, see the Zilla Construction map and the fact that it's near complete in the beta). I don't think it's a coincidence that the Serpent had also been placed as the final confrontation at that time. That the change requiring the creation of a new Zilla occurred fairly late would also explain why the final Zilla was honestly a bit underwhelming. Therefore, placing the Serpent/Zilla as the boss of the shareware episode can then be seen as a last minute change made out of necessity as their old Sumo boss wasn't in a finished state yet, and having the Serpent/Zilla escape mid-fight was a cop out to make the player want to buy the game to finish the fight with the big baddie himself. However, come the finished game, 3D Realms probably realized that fighting the same boss twice at the end of both the shareware and registered episodes wouldn't set well with players. Hence, they relegated the Serpent to a sub-boss (his death in the registered episode doesn't even warrant a cutscene) and capitalized on the fact that his identity as Zilla was largely ambiguous by then, the only hints in the shareware being the opening line "Zilla sends his regards" and all of the Zilla corporation signage throughout the levels.

Not to mention, "Zilla" is a name much more suited to a four-armed reptilian god than some guy in a weird robot suit with jetpack legs.

[Fox]

Interesting. The tiles for Zilla sprites are indeed in the very end of the art files. Checking the source code I couldn't find much evidence, they are refered as serpent boss and Zilla respectively, which of course doesn't dismiss the idea of Zilla being added latter as such.

[Marphy Black]

I mean to say that the Serpent boss pre-dates the concept of Zilla (and may have even been "Kirin", although that's reaching), then became Zilla once the idea came to be, and ultimately lost the identify of Zilla after 3D Realms hastily repurposed him when throwing the shareware demo together. Also, the idea of the intended final boss being demoted to a sub-boss after the developers hinted otherwise doesn't seem so far-fetched to me. In fact, the the Serpent/Zilla connection came to me after I remembered reading about a similar situation on the Doomworld forums regarding Raven Software and the intended boss of Hexen after Heretic.

On a related note, there's another instance I forgot to mention in the Shadow Warrior beta of a Serpent appearance being different. In the final version of Rising Son, the first map in the registered episode, the level ends with you solving a weird color puzzle to open a door leading you to the arena where you finish off the Serpent boss from the shareware episode. However, in the beta version of Rising Son, the level just ends with you opening the silver key door to this room:


It appears the developers already intended for you to fight mini-Sumos throughout the registered episode after you were supposed to defeat his boss version in the previous woods map, the cut off for Shadow Warrior's shareware episode. Ergo, this is another example of the Serpent being missing in the beta maps which lends more credence to the idea that he was supposed to be the one-time final boss of the game.

And incidentally, the mini-Sumo pictured above doesn't actually function. It's just a static sprite.

[Jimmy]

I always suspected the reason Shadow Warrior wasn't as good as Duke was because of rushing. This confirms that fact, to me at least. Some of the levels really suck (and no surprise, they're the ones by Randy fucking Pitchford!)

[MrFlibble]

Hmm, it just occurred to me that perhaps they decided that the Sumo wasn't a good character to use as a degraded boss (unlike the Battlelord/Mini Battlelords in Duke3D), maybe because of the special attacks.

Another possibility though is that perhaps the Sumo was at some point scrapped and later re-introduced into the game. The fact that the final version of this boss has completely different graphics might be indicative of this.

Or maybe because of the ongoing redesign, they had to swap bosses for the shareware version release.

[necroslut]

MrFlibble, on 15 October 2013 - 11:26 AM, said:

Hmm, it just occurred to me that perhaps they decided that the Sumo wasn't a good character to use as a degraded boss (unlike the Battlelord/Mini Battlelords in Duke3D), maybe because of the special attacks.

Another possibility though is that perhaps the Sumo was at some point scrapped and later re-introduced into the game. The fact that the final version of this boss has completely different graphics might be indicative of this.

Or maybe because of the ongoing redesign, they had to swap bosses for the shareware version release.

If you compare old screenshots, it would seem like most of the enemies had their artwork replaced at least once.
Were there really no mini-sumos in the released game? Maybe they were only in Wanton Destruction...

I think claming that the serpent god actually was Zilla is reading a bit too much into stuff. Maybe Zilla wasn't the main bad guy even though he existed as a character. And of course, making changes to a game isn't instant - he might have been planned as a boss for quite a while before they actually got around to implementing him.

[Fox]

Huh? There are plenty of Sumos in the second episode.

necroslut, on 15 October 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

If you compare old screenshots, it would seem like most of the enemies had their artwork replaced at least once.

I think that is also true for Duke.

[necroslut]

Fox, on 15 October 2013 - 01:32 PM, said:

Huh? There are plenty of Sumos in the second episode.


I think that is also true for Duke.

In the case of Duke many had their whole design changed. In Shadow Warrior, it is quite easy to follow which enemy is which just by looking at them.

[Jimmy]

It's because the enemies were redesigned by Chuck Jones.

[Marphy Black]

Hendricks kindly shared with MYHOUSE.MAP and I another Shadow Warrior pre-release version dated 8/10/97 first mentioned here. This version was sent to publisher Wizardworks and Shel Mann, apparently a game producer affiliated with Wizardworks, and dates 15 days before the final registered 1.2 GRP. Since this was only a little over two weeks prior to release, there aren't any massive differences, but we can see they still made a few tweaks during the final stretch.

• When you start up the executable, the following message precedes the loading sequence and must be acknowledged:
  

                            SHADOW WARRIOR(tm) Version 1.2                      
                      Copyright (c) 1997 3D Realms Entertainment                
  
                This is a version of Shadow Warrior(tm) supplied to 
                        Shel Mann/Wizard Works 8/10/97.
  
                             DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!
  
                        <Press any key to continue> 

  
  
  
• The parental lock cannot be enabled from the menu as the "Kid Mode" setting is missing from the options menu.
  
  
• There is an unedited version of one of Lo Wang's lines. In the final version of the map Unfriendly Skies, when Lo Wang enters the room with the C4, he will proclaim "Holy pile of dynamite!" However, in this 8/10/97 build, the full line plays as such: JG44014.WAV. It's the same take, but the "Batman!" part was removed within the next 15 days for some reason.
  
  
• I ran all of the maps through a binary checker and found 18 maps to be different between the 8/10/97 build and the final version. However, this check doesn't necessarily imply the differences are significant. An overhead 2D map comparison of every map in Build confirmed that there were no major layout changes between the two. Nonetheless, I did spot one noteworthy change in one level.
  
  In the 8/10/97 build of the map Floating Fortress, when you enter the pump room in the partially flooded freighter, the door behind you will lock closed and nothing more. However, in the final version of the map, a minor addition was made. When you enter the pump room and the door locks behind you, a hidden compartment will also open up on the opposite side of the door to reveal a switch. When pressed, this switch will open the otherwise locked door. Here's a comparison between the 8/10/97 build (top) and the final version (bottom) after the door closes:
  
  
  
  I assume this change was made for co-op purposes so players who don't make it through the door before it closes and locks aren't permanently barred from progress.

I'll try to do another pass through the maps in Build to search for any changes in object and item placement, but the differences could just be as technically minor as texture alignment alterations.

[Jimmy]

I'm curious, did you pay special attention to Master Leep's temple? The Seppukku Babe was cut from the level but they left the artwork in, which makes me think it was a last minute decision.

[Marphy Black]

Unfortunately, Master Leep's Temple is one of the maps that match between both versions on a binary level. I did a quick playthrough of the level just to be absolutely sure, and she was not there.

[Marphy Black]

I was looking through the Shadow Warrior 0.90 beta (that's early one, not the WizardWorks one posted above) again and noticed a change that I don't think has been explicitly pointed out yet.

In the final game, the Evil Ninja's pants are a solid blue that is palette-swapped for the other Ninja types:


However, the coloring is slightly different in the 0.90 beta. The Evil Ninja's knee pads are clearly visible thanks to a green coloring. The knee pads are technically still there in the final sprite, but they're hard to distinguish from the rest of the Ninja's pants. Also, in a difference that's somewhat difficult to spot, you can see a grey clasp (it's called a thong, apparently) separating the Ninja's toes on his feet, sort of like a sandal:


But that's not the only difference as there's even an inconsistency within the 0.90 beta's sprites as well. During the sword-sliced animation, the Evil Ninja's shins suddenly become brown, presumably part of an older iteration of the sprite set that had not been converted yet:


I would guess that the simplification made to the coloring on the Evil Ninja's pants was to make it more visually obvious what type of Ninja you were facing. As it turns out, we can see the beta coloring and the visible toe thong on the Ninja's sorta-high resolution render on the original GT Interactive Shadow Warrior site. The brown on the shins appear to be wrapped bandages, and the tan pants and grey wrist gauntlets are presumably the original chosen colors the model was created and rendered with:


Speaking of the GT Interactive site, there are some anomalies there as well. That enemies page mentions of vague "Reptile-like creatures" and an "Underwater Creature" that "has lot's of big teeth, and can shock you like an electric eel from a radial distance." I assume the "Reptile-like creatures" are supposed to be a reference to the Guardians, but the "Underwater Creature" appears to describe the cut Eel monster. I suppose having some outdated information is not too surprising considering the site exclusively shows off nothing but beta screenshots.

Additionally, the image file of the Evil Ninja render on the GT site is named "ripper.gif". I assume this is just a simple mix up with the name of the actual Ripper monster, but the image file for the Coolie Ghost is inexplicably named "cryptboy.gif". I have no idea where this name could have come from since, as far as I know, "Crypt Boy" isn't even an internal name in the code for the Coolie Ghost or anything else in Shadow Warrior.

[Marphy Black]

I apologize for the triple post, but I just came across something in the Shadow Warrior 0.90 beta that proves very intriguing. I was looking over BOSS2.MAP, the level with the partially functioning Lava Boss, and couldn't help but feel it resembled something I had seen elsewhere. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I noticed one of those "DELETE ME" pickups on a raised platform. Then it became obvious.

On the left is BOSS2.MAP with the Lava Boss, and on the right is the boss lair in the 0.90 beta VOLCANO.MAP with the Serpent God that I posted about earlier:


The real damning evidence lies in the overhead 2D view of both maps:


So, clearly, 3D Realms reused BOSS2.MAP for the Serpent's boss cavern in the 0.90 beta version of VOLCANO.MAP. Of course, they ended up eventually cutting most of this anyway when they replaced the cavern with a seesaw. But I wondered, is this just another example of 3D Realms re-purposing one of their old maps, or could it hint at something more? I began wondering just exactly how the enigmatic Lava Boss was supposed to fit into Shadow Warrior, so I took a look at how he's defined in the source.

In the code, you can tell the programmers were mostly appending their new code to the ends of files, so you can see a somewhat chronological order in which things were added. As an example, for the final Zilla robot suit boss (which I pointed out earlier was added within the last month of development), virtually all references to him are at the very bottom of their respective C files (and he even takes up the very last tiles in the ART files). But I digress: In DIGI.H, the header file that defines the names of the digitized sounds, a number of enemy NPC sounds are defined near the beginning of the file, suggesting these are some of the earliest enemies added to the game (pre-Lo Wang era). Here's a trimmed down excerpt from DIGI.H:

// NPC'S //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// COOLIE
...

// COOLIE GHOST
...

// NINJA
...

// RIPPER
...

// GUARDIAN 
...

// SKELETOR PRIEST
...         

// ACCURSED HEAD
...   

// HORNET
...    

// SERPENT GOD BOSS
...         

// LAVA BOSS
...

Note that these names are listed in alphabetical order after having already been separated into different tiers: Coolies, Coolie Ghosts, Ninjas, and Rippers form the low tier, Guardians and Skeletor Priests form the middle tier, Accursed Heads and Hornets form what I would consider the "non-standard" enemies tier, and the two bosses finish the list off. However, assuming that the bosses form the single highest tier together, note that the two bosses are not in alphabetical order. This could just be a monumentally trivial matter of order, or it could signify something more interesting. Perhaps the Serpent and Lava Boss have conscientiously been separated and the Lava Boss was deliberately placed after the Serpent. Given how the enemies appear to be sorted from low to high tier (aside from the non-standard ones), could this imply that the Lava Boss had a higher supremacy over the Serpent?

Don't forget, as I pointed out in a previous post, that it was strongly implied the Serpent was going to be the original boss of Shadow Warrior before Zilla came to be as indicated by the 0.90 beta version of VOLCANO.MAP. However, that's in the post-Lo Wang era when 3D Realms re-tooled the game to be more like Duke 3D. Looking before this, could the final boss have been different in the pre-Lo Wang era?

There's other evidence to add here as well. The Lava Boss only appears in one level, BOSS2.MAP, while the Serpent appears in two pre-Lo Wang levels, OLDBOSS.MAP and COMBAT3.MAP. This suggests that the Serpent was going to have a boss and mini-boss version in pre-Lo Wang Shadow Warrior, which further suggests that he was not going to be the final boss of pre-Lo Wang SW. Add to the fact that the Lava Boss's map would become the basis of the final boss encounter in the post-Lo Wang SW, I feel there's enough evidence to make another crazy hypothesis: Before Zilla and before the Serpent, the Lava Boss was going to be the original boss of pre-Lo Wang Shadow Warrior.

Also consider the fact that apparently in all forms of Shadow Warrior, the final boss encounter is supposed to take place at a volcano or a volcano-ish area. What kind of boss would you expect to find at a volcano? A boss made of lava, of course!

However, since the Lava Boss consists of hand drawn art rather than a 3D model render, I assume that he probably originates from the earliest Shadow Warrior concept that was advertised here and here. As for his ultimate fate, I would surmise that the introduction of the Sumo boss made him redundant and he eventually fell by the wayside as the rest of the bosses got shifted around.

Phew, that was quite a lot to say! I hope it all makes sense.

[Fox]

It seems the Pigcop sound is actually of a bobcat. Someone may look for it a sound gallery or something.

[OpenMaw]

Sound Ideas Series 5000 I believe.


The same sound is also used for the Orge in Quake at a different pitch.

[Lunick]

Commando Nukem, on 01 November 2013 - 03:48 AM, said:

The same sound is also used for the Orge in Quake at a different pitch.

Can. Not. Unhear.

[MusicallyInspired]

I noticed the pigcop sound in Quake right away. I had already played Duke3D for many years before playimg Quake, though.

[Lunick]

I love both games but... something like that has never clicked in my head before.

[dnskill]

RinyRed said:

Shadow Warrior

Seriously how do these 3 post get ignored by discussion over a sound file? These are some great findings!

I think Shadow Warrior would've made an amazing game had they not tried to make it like Duke in late development. I think (judging from those screenshots found on the HOCUS POCUS thing) that Shadow Warrior actually predates Duke development wise. Maybe the decided to do Duke instead and then they went back to Shadow Warrior? Who knows.

Shadow Warrior's development has always amazed me. It is a great example of alphas and betas appearing better than the final product.

[leilei]

Lunick, on 01 November 2013 - 05:25 AM, said:

I love both games but... something like that has never clicked in my head before.

Also the wolf in Tomb Raider.

Pig Cops make the Hexen ettin idle sound too.... and yes i'm also leaning on Sound Ideas 6000 for their common source. Can't pin down the exact disc/track for those sounds though...

[MrFlibble]

Hmm, I think that Vampire Ancients in Daggerfall also make a sound that is the same/similar to some PigCop sound (not sure).

[necroslut]

gerolf, on 01 November 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

Seriously how do these 3 post get ignored by discussion over a sound file? These are some great findings!

I think Shadow Warrior would've made an amazing game had they not tried to make it like Duke in late development. I think (judging from those screenshots found on the HOCUS POCUS thing) that Shadow Warrior actually predates Duke development wise. Maybe the decided to do Duke instead and then they went back to Shadow Warrior? Who knows.

Shadow Warrior's development has always amazed me. It is a great example of alphas and betas appearing better than the final product.

IIRC Shadow Warrior wasn't developed internally at 3DR to begin with, that might explain the different look of early materials.
Oh and SW is a pretty amazing game

[dnskill]

I'm not quite sure about that, as the earliest known screenshots that came from that Hocus Pocus preview, it said coming soon from Apogee, but you could be right, maybe it wasn't theirs at first or something. I know that Blood was theirs but they gave it to QStudios which joined Monolith and they made it, and that Exhumed/Powerslave was also originally a 3DR's game but was given to Lobotomy to finish.

I don't know how much 3DR actually did for Blood but I do know they did quite a lot for Powerslave:

Spoiler

These types of images really make SW look older than DN3D, but maybe it was just a style of art they were going for at one point? They could all just be placeholders awaiting Chuck Jones, but that would make no sense as these characters are pretty damn detailed..

Spoiler

[necroslut]

gerolf, on 03 November 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

I'm not quite sure about that, as the earliest known screenshots that came from that Hocus Pocus preview, it said coming soon from Apogee, but you could be right, maybe it wasn't theirs at first or something. I know that Blood was theirs but they gave it to QStudios which joined Monolith and they made it, and that Exhumed/Powerslave was also originally a 3DR's game but was given to Lobotomy to finish.
I don't know how much 3DR actually did for Blood but I do know they did quite a lot for Powerslave:
These types of images really make SW look older than DN3D, but maybe it was just a style of art they were going for at one point? They could all just be placeholders awaiting Chuck Jones, but that would make no sense as these characters are pretty damn detailed..

What I meant was that like most Apogee titles it was (IIRC) originally developed by external people (Norwood) and to be published/produced/whatever by Apogee, but they then instead brought it in-house some months before release. There's a Twitter post by Broussard somewhere mentioning this but I can't find it.
That would also explain the radically different art style (Duke 3D's game design went through a major overhaul, but in SW's case also the art did) if people like Chuck Jones were not working on it at that time.

[Jimmy]

Notice it says Apogee Software, so it certainly predates the name 3D Realms by a long shot.

[dnskill]

Something tells me Shadow Warrior was scrapped at one point for them to focus on Duke, then the got carried away with Blood and Powerslave but decided to give those to other companies to finish so they could focus on Shadow Warrior?

So maybe Shadow Warrior was started around.. 1994 prior to Lameduke, or maybe they made both and decided to go with Duke first?

[MrFlibble]

gerolf, on 03 November 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

I don't know how much 3DR actually did for Blood

Well, IIRC the leaked Blood alpha was yet 3D Realms stuff. Anyway, there are archived pages for the game at 3DR website, including weekly development updates (in the same format as Shadow Warrior) that date back to June 1996. Apparently, the rights were sold to Monolith in early 1997.

[dnskill]

Yep. Q-Studios was like an "Apogee West" and was stationed in Washington state, just like Monolith. So Q-Studios did most of the work and then joined Monolith and finished the game.