[K1n9_Duk3]

I have been examining the BioMenace executables over the past couple of months and I found something that might be of interest to you:

There is a variable in the game that, if it's non-zero, will activate some restrictions in the game:

When the game is started, the demo loop (Apogee logo, title screen, credits and other demos) play as usual, but when you press a key, instead of opening the main menu, the program just starts a new game (at normal difficulty). There is no way to bring up the menu, so you cannot load or save a game at all. The game is also limited to the first three levels, so after you complete "City Park", the game goes back to the demo loop.

I am convinced that this would be the kind of game version that would have been used in certain game stores back in the day.

I took the executables from the shareware versions (v1.0 and v1.1), unpacked them with UNLZEXE, changed the 0 into a 1 and compressed the files with LZEXE again. Here's the result if you want to see it in action:
biomenace_in_store_demos.zip

BM1DEMO.EXE is for version 1.0
BM11DEMO.EXE is for version 1.1

The game's data files are identical in all releases of version 1.1 (including the freeware release), you should be able to just drop the BM11DEMO.EXE in your game folder and run it. If you have the earlier version 1.0 (shareware or registered), use BM1DEMO.EXE instead.

To exit the game, you need to press CTRL+Q while playing. You can also use CTRL+S to toggle sound on an off, but that is buggy. Pressing F1 will show the usual help menu.

[MrFlibble]

Interesting!

On a vaguely related note, I just remembered that when I was messing with the Dune II executable, I found a bit switch that would turn off the intro, main menu and mission briefings. Upon start the game would go straight to the House selection screen, and then right into the game. You could still replay the briefing from the Mentat screen IIRC. I don't think this was for a demo version though, probably just a debug switch.