[tdoccc]

Thought you'd all find this at least a little bit interesting - what appears to be a later build of LameDuke on the 90s UK TV programme GamesMaster. (Apologies if it has been posted somewhere before.)



Footage starts at 09:02 and 13:18
Note the different HUD and the fact it seems... a bit more playable than usual, complete with laser trip-bombs which I don't think were in the beta?

[Jimmy]

"Pintched by the doors!"

Oh boy, 3D Realms.

Good catch man, I've never seen this before. The plasma gun looks like it was an early form of the flamethrower really.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Very interesting! Here are the differences I could tell:

*The unused title screen graphic in DN3D's files is shown in the footage! Apparently, the transparent parts in the title would show a burning city.

*Tripwire mines appear to be slightly bugged. It took the player a few seconds for the game to register that the player was touching a mine.

*Level is completely different from anything seen in LD or the final game. It seems to be a bit like something you would see in LD, as most of the level consists of tight corridors. The levels also have lots of dark areas, like LD's space levels do.

*Most of the textures used appear in the final's space levels.

*The Troopers use the design that appears in the preview images released in June 1995. When they are killed by the Plasma Cannon, their sprite jumps back a bit to simulate being shot back by a frickin' powerful plasma ball.

*The green flying robots from Lameduke appear in this build! They seem to work like they did in LD, but their attacks do no damage. At the end of the Indian guy's session, he's in a room with several robots shooting him. In LD, he would've taken significant damage, but he's unharmed after several seconds of fire.

*Pipebombs seem much less powerful than they are in the final game. The Indian guy detonates a pipebomb near himself, but only loses about 60 health. In the final game, he would be dead.

*The explosion sprite that appears when a plasma ball hits something is different from Lameduke.

*The font used for in-game messages is completely different from anything in LD or the final game.

*Windows showing the skybox in space levels can be destroyed. If they are, any enemy in the room will be sucked out while airlock doors seal the breech. It seems to be a bit bugged, as the enemies instead are sucked near a window and are tossed around, like they're in a tornado, instead of actually being ejected.

*Armor is in the game, but it seems to work a bit differently from the final game. From what I can tell, armor completely absorbs most attacks. When the players are being harassed by Troopers, their armor goes down, but not their health. However, this doesn't work for tripwire blasts. The tripwire blasts instantly kills the player from 100 health, but no armor points are deducted.

*The enemy alert message from LD is used and appears to be used every time an enemy detects the player, unlike Lameduke.

*When the first player starts, the message "Loading Quick Game..." appears. My guess is that a quicksave putting the players at the start of a level was made so the producers wouldn't have to muck around with an in-game level select or command-line parameters everytime they needed to start recording.

[Radar]

It's an early version of E2L6.

[X-Vector]

Eurogamer article on Gamesmaster: http://www.eurogamer...he-inside-story

Quote

"One of the first decisions we made was that we wouldn't try to be cool. Because we couldn't possibly pull it off, and it would just end up being horribly naff. If you try to be cool it's crap, isn't it? So we thought, 'Let's see if we can at least manage witty.'"

I know one current Dutch videogame show that should take this to heart:

[DNSkill]

I remember High Treason was going to write to this news channel thing that had an early version of Duke playing during a John Romero interview (I don't know if he ever did though). Anyone know how to contact the people of GamesMaster? Not necessarily to see if they can give us this version of the game (I doubt they'd still have it, but it may be nice to ask where the copy went, as in did an employee/guest get to have it or did 3DR get it returned, depending on the answer would depend on asking about an upload), but to get further information?

[hismasterplan]

Was the sound Duke made when he jumped the same used in Duke Forever? Sounded like it.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

hismasterplan, on 08 October 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

Was the sound Duke made when he jumped the same used in Duke Forever? Sounded like it.

That's Lameduke's jump sound.

[Radar]

This is newer than lameduke, but older than the footage HT uploaded awhile back. Where do these guys get ahold of this stuff?

[Person of Color]

LOL one of the kids is named Samir. I seriously can't even hear that name without thinking of Office Space.

That beta looks fuckin' boss, it would be great if we could get a hold of it.

[DNSkill]

I'm trying to find someone to contact that worked for Gamesmaster that might be able to give some information.

I think Dominik Diamond might be worth a shot but he was just the host and I'm not sure how much he'd know or remember.

I'm contacting the magazine owner, as the magazine is still active, and I'm asking if he knows anything, or knows someone who I could contact that would.

[DNSkill]

Okay, I got a response from the former owner of the magazine.

Quote

Hello Stan
Sorry for not replying sooner.
I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help with this.
As you suspected, the magazine didn't have much of a direct link to the TV show.

The Producer of the TV show was Johnny Ffinch I seem to remember but I don't have any contact details for him.
Another approach might be to try and track someone down at GT Interactive who I guess were publishing Duke Nukem 3D and would have arranged for that version to be on the show.
But again, I have no leads for you.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

(I don't actually work on GM any more either!)

Good luck tracking it down.

Cheers
Robin

The email I sent (it included the video details as well):

Quote

Hello, I recently saw an archived episode of GamesMaster, episode 14 of series 5. In it, 2 contestants played Duke Nukem 3d. The copy of Duke Nukem 3d was not the retail copy of the game, it was some early version not seen anywhere else.

I know you just run the magazine, and so I'm not sure how much you had (if at all) to do with the show (I'm not completely familiar with the magazine or show as I'm from the US) but I am desperate. Do you know anything about that version of Duke or do you know anyone I could contact about it? Someone who was on that series, the contestants, etc?

[Tea Monster]

I would check the credits and see if you can chase up any of the assistant producers or 'production assistants' on IMDB or Equity (the UK TV and Film trade union). It's more likely that they would be in charge of sourcing the disks from 3DR in the first place. Whether they would have kept anything after all these years is kind of remote, but if you don't ask... Find out what they are doing now and see if you can contact them. Equity should give you the name of their agent at least. IMDB should give you what they are doing now and you can write to that production office to get hold of them.

Probably a more viable route would be to chase down the video editors or producers at the time and see if there would be any extra footage or out-takes kept around. Because it wasn't a BBC TV show, you might have a chance of some of it still being around!

[DNSkill]

First I'm going to see if I can find a way to get in touch with Johnny Ffinch, and I might try to find someone who worked at GT (but I'm not sure how helpful that'll be). I'm going to see what I can do. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have this version anywhere, unless they may have given the copy to the winner of that episode, or if someone in the show took it home with them, that's the only way I could imagine them having it still.

My main priority is to find out who gave the show this version and what became of this version. I know it would be someone from 3DR, but I'd like to know who that someone was.