[TerminX]

Yeah, it's possible. I've run Blood in DOSBox at a higher resolution than that.

[Hendricks266]

Psh, 1280x768.

# define MAXXDIM 7680
# define MAXYDIM 3200

[NNC]

 High Treason, on 01 August 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

As I said a long time ago;


I found my VHS. Volume is a little low, if that really is a problem I can go back and press normalize.

About 14-15 seconds in.

Yeah, I remember that movie, it was scary, early Spielberg style. And remember that exact sound as well, although I think it have been used in other movies with "monster" trucks, like the episode in Knight Rider against Goliath etc.

Just like the Sentry Drone sound, which have been used frequently, the Imp sound is rather similar from Doom, but it's mostly used as a Dragon attack sound. Like this (at 0:20 for example):

[NNC]

 MYHOUSE.MAP, on 16 August 2013 - 08:51 PM, said:

I'm sure that some people have noticed this before, but some of the dead and tortured NPC sprites seen in the final version of Shadow Warrior are based on beta designs for enemies.

Do you know something about the 4th girl from Master Leep's Temple? The one with a red hair... It didn't appear in the final release sadly.

[Jimmy]

She was likely just removed because of nudity/suicide.

[Marphy Black]

There's not a lot of unknown content here, but I came across some nice high quality GameFan Magazine scans of console Duke Nukem game previews.

Duke Nukem 64 Preview
Still featuring a lot of PC graphics, most conspicuously a green Expander.

Second Duke Nukem 64 Preview Pg. 1
Second Duke Nukem 64 Preview Pg. 2
Pretty close to the final, but the Duke Rally screen in Gun Crazy is using the goofy Duke wanted animation and the ID4 movie clip is tinted red rather than blue.

Lobotomy Software Exposed Pg. 1
Lobotomy Software Exposed Pg. 2
Lobotomy Software Exposed: Duke Nukem Saturn Preview Pg. 1
Lobotomy Software Exposed: Duke Nukem Saturn Preview Pg. 2
A really interesting read of the technical challenge behind porting Duke Nukem to the Sega Saturn. Unfortunately, I can't identify any particularly interesting beta differences in the screenshots. However, note the projected release date is May.

Second Duke Nukem Saturn Preview
Still can't see any differences in the screenshots, but the projected release date is now September.

Third Duke Nukem Saturn Preview
The release is now set for October. I didn't realize the Saturn port of Duke 3D had been delayed for so long.

And on a different note, a preview of Duke Nukem 64 from Game Play 64 magazine: Page 1, Page 2. The most interesting bit here would be the SMG concept art, I believe.

Also, a full page French advertisement for Duke It Out in D.C.

And finally, not game-related, but I think this magazine cover art is pretty neat.

[Fox]

Thanks for these, there is a lot going on the Duke Nukem 64 scans. There is a suspiciously small Cycloid Emperor on an unknow level, but it appears to be on a standing pose. An old explosion and old Pistol (even with Dum-dum rounds). And a weird texture (my guess is #382) in Piracy.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

 Nancsi, on 21 August 2013 - 01:07 PM, said:

Do you know something about the 4th girl from Master Leep's Temple? The one with a red hair... It didn't appear in the final release sadly.

Fun bit of trivia: The artwork for her does not appear in the leaked beta's files, but does in the final game. She was added in the small gap between the beta and the shareware version, but was removed. She was in the game long enough for the artist that made the image of Master Leep and his girls (the one that hides a secret in the third map) to put her in the texture.

[Jblade]

This reminds me of that art tile in Duke of the impaled Women that was never used in the game. I imagine it has a similar story to that artwork, it was made but someone decided it was too graphic/disturbing to use ingame and so it was removed, but not from the art tiles.

[Fox]

She is also coded.

[t800]

Nancsi, on 21 August 2013 - 01:07 PM, said:

Do you know something about the 4th girl from Master Leep's Temple? The one with a red hair... It didn't appear in the final release sadly.

Jimmy, on 21 August 2013 - 01:52 PM, said:

She was likely just removed because of nudity/suicide.

NSFW!!!
http://www.spriters-...ar/sheet/24878/

I think they removed her because it clashed too much with overall mood of game (+ being the only girl with fully visible half-nudity in game). I mean seeing innocent girl commiting seppuku right after she notices you...

[High Treason]

I never figured out why the sprite was animated, doesnt look right looping over and over - you'd think the animation should be handled by code or something (to play once and stop when the player can see the sprite) which makes me think that she wasn't around for long at all, makes me ponder if she was ever even placed into a level. Or else they removed it because the looping animation looked silly.

[Jimmy]

I would imagine she would have been placed near Master Leep with the crying girl. In fact, I'm surprised that one made it into the game, I know it's an anime character, but she looks really young.

[Fox]

Japan

Spoiler

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

The Shadow Warrior beta has sprites for an unused green guy in ninja gear that appeared in some 1995-era screenshots. I think I might've found what he was meant to be.

A peek at the source code shows code for an unused enemy, called the Skeleton Priest. The code for him can be found in SKEL.C. Here's a list of his states:

Quote

SKEL_RUN
SKEL_SLASH
SKEL_SPELL
SKEL_PAIN
SKEL_TELEPORT

Now, let's take a look at the green guy.

Hmm, doesn't this look like teleportation?






Wait a minute, one of the Skeleton Priest's states is "SKEL_TELEPORT"! Looks like I'm onto something!

I'm not done yet tho. Look at this image.



There is a blade on his left arm.

However, if you look at this sprite:



You'll see that he's swinging with his left arm! One of the Skeleton Priest's states is "SKEL_SLASH". Looks like the green guy is slashing to me!


Seems to me that the green guy is actually an older, pre-Chuck Jones version of the unused Skeleton Priest enemy. The green guy's animations match up with the states listed in the Skeleton Priest's code. The art showing the green guy blocking is probably the "SKEL_SPELL" animation, since it's the only unique-looking animation that doesn't directly match the Skeleton Priest's unique states.

[Fox]

RinyRed, on 22 August 2013 - 12:43 AM, said:

And on a different note, a preview of Duke Nukem 64 from Game Play 64 magazine: Page 1, Page 2. The most interesting bit here would be the SMG concept art, I believe.

About these two scans, I have seen all these screenshots at IGN website (except for the watermark). That gun model is a MP5A3, not a MP5K (slightly modified to avoid copyright issues) like in Duke Nukem 64. Also that green tone and blood seems atypical, so I am guessing it's just a stock image they threw on the article.

Edit: Now I realized something quite important about these screenshots. It's very obvious they used the images from IGN website but removed the watermarks by pasting another area of the HUD over it.

Compare the first screenshot:

[CryptKiller]

Some interesting tidbits, nothing too shocking.

Apparently, the Devastator was called at one point Pulverizer: http://i.imgur.com/Ps1pHfD.jpg also the boss sprite seems a little different?
A shot of early version of strip club: http://i.imgur.com/AiINUO2.jpg

Early ad for ROTT: http://i.imgur.com/jaknb86.jpg
An early preview of Shadow Warrior in Polish magazine, 3 screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/Yz2mwb2.jpg interestingly, the release is stated here for February 97.
A mention of SW in CGW with 2 screenshots,: http://i.imgur.com/vrR9eqB.jpg
And finally, a four-page SW ad.

[1] [2] [3] [4]

[TerminX]

Nice find! That's the second frame of that version of the Overlord that I've ever seen (the first one being the common one shown on the back of the 1.3D box).

[Player Lin]

Some Pointless Miscellaneous Knowledge about RS:Lot7P... I wonder who still care this illegal shit game...

0.The released version(1994/9/26) in TW market was dated 3 days after the demo version(1994/9/22). There was also an updated version named "Enhanced version" dated 1994/11/1 and an modified version for the KR market, but I still not found any of them.

EDIT : Changed the date about demo because I misread the data...


Lot7P was based on its Chinese name, same as the historical novel - The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, for some reasons about common translating rules in Taiwan at that time, they used the word "Paladins" for 俠(Heroes)'s translation, it also applied or other games in that time or even something should be translate to Ranger or similar names. Like this one.


1.The Intro can be skipped by setting a option in the Setup.exe -- it's called "A.S.D.F. mode", you can select Low or High, if it's on Low, the Intro level will be skipped when you started a new game, it just send you to the character and difficulty selection area, it also use min. HUD which won't showed your current weapon's BIG sprite, only the small icon of weapon sprite showed on the upper-middle of screen for indication. OH, you can't use this option in Demo version, it never existed in demo's setup.exe.

2.The Intro level's building is the Taipei Railway Station, even its layout didn't same as the real one, it just a plain building, texturing with some walls, signs and objects from the Taipei Railway Station in pre-1994 era. It also has some billboards showing a meaningless fighting scene and some games that Accend Inc was published in that time, including some Apogee (Co. Ltd.) games, but its sequence will go back after showed the last frame and then just go back one by one until to the first frame and then play forward and then backward...again, looping forever...

According the background story in this game, the train you take is a mystery train that take you to the game world, but it's weird when if you're not leave the train after it arrived the entrance of game world, it will just move and send you back to the train station for no reason...and yeah, it just go forward and then go backward in between two "stations"...

3. In the demo version, the first one option "Accend Information" won't worked because lack of required files in that version. It works on the release version, showing 4 of upcoming games made by Accend Inc...

A. Devil from Hell 3D (?)

B. 末日(Doomsday) - Without End 3D
(Looks like Blood or something...)

C. 搖滾少林系列 - 廖添丁傳
Rock 'n' ShaoLin - Legend of Liao Tian-Ding 3D
(Looks like the sequel of the Lot7P...)

D. Never Break 午夜狂飆(Midnight Racing) 3D
(I heard it's a racing game but I never see it ever comes out at all...)

My DOSBox screen go nuts after go back the main menu...I guess the display got messed up when showing those screens...

I guess they'll all made with Build engine... but who knows, Accend Inc. just dead after short time...
(I'm not sure they even ever was published DN3D at all, maybe I'm wrong...but I'm sure ROTT classic was.)

4. In the character selection screen, you can selecting one of those "Seven Paladins" as your player character, but I can't finding any difference between characters except attacking power...also there is only one character got his name showed out with his attacking status after you selected him - 展昭/Zhan Zhao, others just "no name", only the attacking status.

I guess they showed other characters' name in the instruction manual but sadly I didn't had it...

5. If you use "spell" attacks, your character will roaring the name of current spell, of course, in Chinese.
Those spells was based some movements of martial art on various famous Wuxia novels in TW, HK and CN.
EDIT : Add something on last sentence.

6. Save/Load function looks like working good (unlike MARS, keep crashing after I tried to load my damn savegame...), but it seems didn't saving the count of enemies on that level and your enemy kill count, it may got reset to all 0/0 if you saved your game near the exit and then reload it and go exit.

7. I didn't completed the whole game because the 9/26 version is so hard and I sucked at it...even I were tried to use a memory scanning and hacking tool and cheating the game by locked my health value, but feel boring after completed some levels... I checked someone's Lot7P Extracter, it extracted 35 maps from LMART000.DAT... the level didn't had actual name, instead it named "Chapter X, Section Y, Round Z", like the first level is "Chapter 1, Section 1, Round 1" , and next one is "Chapter 1, Section 1, Round 2", I don't have enough time to check the whole game to finger it out what's the rules about the naming, maybe later...


Sure, I sucked at this game...

[Daedolon]

Really cool information, thanks for sharing! But why does everything have to be The Legend of Seven something?

I'm unsure if these have been in the thread yet, but contrary to at least some beliefs (don't want to say popular) the game actually got a proper retail release. Anyway:

[Jimmy]

I'm not even sure it's a proper release. More likely just one of the high end Asian bootlegs.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Hendrick's site for the Shadow Warrior beta mentions that there are a lot of unused levels hidden in the beta, so I decided to check them out.

The first one I checked out was Boss2.map.



I found something very interesting in the distance: The Lava Boss sprite in the beta's files.



Turns out the Lava Boss is mostly functional in the beta! He has no animations, so he just slides on the ground. His only attack is to throw one or two lava rocks at you at a time. If they hit you, you're instantly killed. However, his hitbox is extremely wonky, as most projectiles simply fly through him. To take him out, you need to enter God mode and hack him to death with the sword.

I decided to look at Tank.map. I knew something was up when I saw this:



This looks very similar to this:



A level shown in a pre-release screenshot on the SW site back in March 1996.

Looking a bit further, I found that the level matches other parts of the same level seen in pre-releases. Turns out that Tank.map has been shown in several pre-release screenshots! In fact, all of the images featuring the player using a tank come from this level!

To drive the point home, I “remade” several pre-release screenshots taken in tank.map.








There are more instances where pre-release screenshots match tank.map, but I couldn't make an exact remake because of various issues.

Up next is Combat3.map.

I knew something was up as soon as I loaded this map. The first area in this map is a direct match for a location shown in a screenshot made in 1995. Check it:




The architecture and prop layout in the 1995 shot in Combat3.map are a direct match.

That's not all: Combat3.map also has a location that appeared on the Shadow Warrior site in September 1996.




They're a direct match. The 1995-era screenshot with bodies everywhere and the human sacrifice chamber seen in the screenshot posted on September 1996 are from the same level!

Last up (for now) Water1.map.

At first, there's noting special about Water1.map. Howeve,r if you dive underwater, explore for a bit, then get out of the water, you'll find Skeleton Priests wandering around!



They behave almost exactly like how the source code for them tells them to do. The only thing is that they don't teleport, but this is a nice find!



Here's a picture of one dying to show you that they can be interacted with and aren't just static props.

Another interesting tidbit is that this exact section was shown in a screenshot published October 1996.




If you hop back into the water after saying hi to the Skeleton Priests, you can continue further. Soon, you'll end up in a flooded temple. If you explore it for a bit, you'll find a lake with a Buddha statue in the middle of it. This location actually appeared in a pre-release screenshot that appeared on the official Shadow Warrior site on November 1996.




There's a lot more in the beta, but I need to get some screenshots and digest it. The unused maps are a goldmine of content. The shareware maps that normally appear in the beta don't scratch the surface of the old content in the beta.

[Lunick]

 CryptKiller, on 28 August 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

An early preview of Shadow Warrior in Polish magazine, 3 screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/Yz2mwb2.jpg

Is that ripper heart connected to Lo Wang?

[Jimmy]

[Daedolon]

IIRC it did a flashing lightning when you used it or something. So it gets like the essence of Lo Wang and creates a clone from that.

[Hendricks266]

 MYHOUSE.MAP, on 30 August 2013 - 03:13 PM, said:

There's a lot more in the beta, but I need to get some screenshots and digest it. The unused maps are a goldmine of content. The shareware maps that normally appear in the beta don't scratch the surface of the old content in the beta.

Holy shit! I had no idea there was so much. You're doing good writing too. If you make the style a little more encyclopedic, it would be awesome if you allowed me to include your writing on my site under the currently-empty MAPS heading.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

OK, I've done more research on the maps and I've found some very interesting stuff.

Several of the maps have large Lo Wangs with different pallets just standing around. It's clear they're supposed to be some sort of enemy, but they don't do anything and you can't kill them.




However, there's one giant clue that points to what the Lo Wangs were supposed to be. Look at the colors used by the ninjas on the images below:




Don't they seem very familiar? The blue one the blue vest one looks really close to the blue seen on most of the Lo Wangs, while the red ninja's color scheme matches the type of colors used on the red and grey Lo Wang. The only one that doesn’t have a beta ninja color counterpart is the Lo Wang with the green pants, but that could be a ninja variation that wasn't shown in screenshots.

Now, look at these two screenshots showing the same area. The first one is a pre-release screenshot, while the second one was taken in the Shadow Warrior beta:




Zoom into the pre-release image, and you'll see a beta ninja in the distance. However, the screenshot taken from the Shadow Warrior beta shows one of the large Lo Wangs. In addition, the beta ninja has a blue vest, while the Lo Wang has blue pants.

My theory is that the Lo Wangs are actually the old beta ninjas. The colors on the beta ninjas and the Lo Wangs are a good match. What's weird is that the ninjas from the final game are in the beta and work just fine. My theory is that the final ninjas were given a separate listing instead of making them overwrite the old beta ninjas. The old ninjas were then modified to the point where they couldn't do anything and their sprites were overwritten by the final Lo Wang sprites. I have no idea why they did this, because every other enemy in the unused maps that appears in the final are in the maps.

My second theory is that several of the maps in the prototype were already long obsolete when this beta was compiled. There are several things that hint this.

First off, the maps that look like they came from 1995 or early 1996 have no functioning doors nor switches. The only way to get past them is to use noclip. That's a big sign that things were rearranged internally after those maps were last worked on, but were never updated to use the new tags and the like. If they didn't care about continuing the maps, they wouldn't update the tags to make doors and switches work.

Second, the 1995 to early 1996-era maps have lots of floating“DELETE ME” signs or objects with “DELETE ME” on them. You can't interact with a vast majority of them, suggesting their code was already stripped from the game when this prototype was compiled. If they did intend to continue work on these maps, then those items would surely be removed.

Third, they never bothered to replace the old ninjas discussed above with the final ones.

Fourth, the maps that have locked doors don't have the Duke 3D/Shadow Warrior-style locks on them. Instead, it seems that the doors would act like Doom's; as soon as you had the key, you could open the door. No having to insert the key into the keyhole. Of course, since their tags are broken, it's impossible to figure this out for sure, but it seems to point that way because they have no locks for the player to use.

It seems that several of the maps were added to this prototype with no intention of putting them in the final game. It's possible that development for the Shadow Warrior shareware (which this is supposed to be a pre-release version of) split from an old version of Shadow Warrior, and therefore had maps that were stripped from the final version. When it came time to get the shareware version made, all they needed to do was remove the old maps and use the latest .exe and art instead of having to branch from the still-WIP full version.

One bit of interesting information is that there are maps from several stages of development hidden in the beta.

*The first stage consists of maps made for the old Shadow Warrior that was about temples and ruins. I've shown off some maps from these before.

*The second stage consists of early versions of maps that would appear in the final game, but still have some quirks from the old Shadow Warrior in them, such as the beta ninja placeholders and some of ruin and village textures used in areas you wouldn't expect them to be, such as in Unfriendly Sky's bar and Floating Fortress' dock. They don't have any DELETE MEs in them.

*The third stage consists of barebones layouts that have no enemies, but only have the final's objects in them. Two of them are prototypes for levels in the final game, but others don't appear at all.

*The fourth stage consists of pretty-close versions of maps that appear in the final game. These have the final ninjas and geography of the final levels, but have several different things in them. For example, the prototype has a mostly-complete version of Rising Son, but the door to the turret and bath is locked behind a Bronze key. The key is hidden in the Grenade Launcher secret area found at the start of the map.

*The fifth stage is the shareware levels you can access in the beta normally. These are the most complete maps in the beta.

That's the second part of my research. Still lots more to come!

[Lunick]

Keep the posts coming

[Jimmy]

I would assume at one point that Lo Wang had the same sprite as the early ninja enemy.

[TerminX]

Yeah, that was the case with early versions of Blood, too.