[Hendricks266]

Frenkel, on 29 July 2017 - 02:19 PM, said:

Those images are in NINJA.DAT?
They don't show up in the game.

Yep, they sure are.

Frenkel, on 29 July 2017 - 02:19 PM, said:

I've disassembled NINJA.EXE to see which keys you can press on your keyboard and I couldn't find a fire-key.
It does set a bit from 0 to 1 when you press Enter one time and it stays 1, but I don't know what this bit does.

Very cool, thanks for looking into this.

Frenkel, on 29 July 2017 - 02:19 PM, said:

BTW Hendricks266 do you have Cybertank and does it use the same file formats as Monster Bash, Scubaventure, Realms of Chaos beta and this Shadow Warrior prototype?

Yes it does, both in terms of the DAT container and the file types inside. In-game it's clearly based on the same engine too.

[Hendricks266]

K1n9_Duk3, on 28 July 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

Since there are 4 parts, I would assume it's interleaved. Many Mode-X VGA games (Wolf3D, Hocus Pocus, Realms of Chaos) store image data in four planes to make copying the data into the 4 VGA planes easier.

Malvineous took another look and this indeed seems to be the case:



A section on the file formats is now available on his wiki.

[High Treason]

For the record, your custom 950908 EXE doesn't run on any DOS machine I've tested it with yet, guess I'll have to use DOSBox for that one.

[Hendricks266]

Interesting. I compiled it in DOSBox, so maybe that's the problem. I also don't recall doing anything with DOS/4GW, and I'm not sure if that happened automatically. How far does it get? Do you see the "****** CUSTOM EXE BUILT 20170714 FROM 19951031 SOURCES FOR 19950908 BETA ******" message? Does DOS/32A help?

[High Treason]

I took screen captures of the error conditions;

Spoiler

Pentium (Early "P5" chip)

I can go through the menus but as soon as I try to load a map this happens. When testing again I saw a glimpse of the level and then the game locked my system - oddly, CTRL+Break worked and yielded the same error.

Pentium II

This one runs under Windows 98SE. I disabled sound here because the (likely fake) YMF744 I have installed doesn't work with DOS applications at all.

5k86

Basically looks the same as the Pentium II. These don't get to the menu. I once saw it crash just before the switch to graphics mode should take place, think that was the PII, wasn't capturing at the time and was too tired to remember which one I was using, didn't change anything that I remember and it was seemingly a one-off. I'd discount the PII anyway, to be honest, because it has stability issues and isn't entirely predictable, the other builds at least start though.

DOS extenders (and other commonly used stuff like mouse drivers, which I didn't have loaded as I have no need for it here) are always within the scope of my PATH anyway.

I wouldn't worry about it anyway, it was just a note in case anyone else ran into it, hence I didn't bother to write detailed system specs.

[leilei]

Interestingly, PCem (latest mainline) also has a crash with it in pure DOS on 486 (SiS497) and Pentium (Advanced/EV). Other builds before and after work. 430VX Pentiums work.

Attached File(s)

•  pcemcrash.jpg (150.37K)
  Number of downloads: 37

[High Treason]

That's kind of interesting, especially the chipset notes regarding the 430VX; Only the Pentium II uses an Intel chipset, the i440BX, both the P66 and K5 use SiS 5XXX chipsets. The Pentium II is also the only system with ATI video, the P66 and K5* use a Trio 64V+ and Virge 325 respectively - essentially the same 2D core, both Diamond Stealth cards, both also have MVP boards installed. Sound cards vary greatly, from YMF744 to PAS16/Maui to Terratec Maestro (The one in this demo) though I did try disabling sound in the Setup menu, knowing Apogee's audio drivers were generally poor at best and are often a source of problems like this.

* The K5 previously used a Mach 64 card, though replacing this for testing would probably be pointless as the 2D core of the Rage is basically just a Mach 64 anyway.

[Hendricks266]

Sorry about this, guys. No idea if the crash is caused by my modifications, the original source itself, or a mismatch between the Watcom I used (10.6) and whatever the devs used at the time in question. I'm unlikely to spend any effort on tracking this down. I would much rather spend any such time picking the AEGIS lock.

[NY00123]

Just a few more notes about the prototypes, leaving the rest for the readers as usual:
- During the last month, there have been some updates at TCRF (5 prototypes are still not covered as of typing this): https://tcrf.net/Pro..._Warrior_(1997)
- If you have difficulty with locating cheat codes, maybe pressing on 'F1' can give you a hint. This applies to sw950908 (with custom SW951031.EXE build) and sw960611.
- For cheat codes in builds later than sw960611, this might assist: https://forums.duke4...002#entry277002
- In sw950210, the "2D Zoom in" functionality (as observed in SETUP.EXE and SW950115.EXE) was re-purposed for top-down map view. The "KP Enter" key can be used with the prototype, as retrieved from Steam. (btw, I think that "2D Zoom in" and "2D Zoom out" are more-or-less swapped in SW950115, compared to the descriptions in SETUP.EXE.)
- Don't expect the early '94 and '95 prototypes to feel exactly like LameDuke. They're more-or-less barebones, with a lot of work still not being done by then. In certain ways, they may remind you of Ken-Build, or Legend of the Seven Paladins (or possibly some other early Build-based title).
- The later SW950908 prototype (with the custom SW951031.EXE file) should actually feel way more like these 96 builds, but it's still clear that it's an earlier build. For instance, there are virtually no sound effects, and the remaining few... I shall let you figure these out, heh.

[leilei]

The 97 proto has bots. They're slow and dumb but have some hilarious attempts at chatting (i.e. "Human's suck").

There's a 3d Realms office easter egg in Airport on the August 96 proto. Don't know if that was mentioned before or not.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Not one, but FOUR new prototypes have been documented on TCRF.

https://tcrf.net/Pro...type_1993-09-16
https://tcrf.net/Pro...type_1995-09-08
https://tcrf.net/Pro...type_1996-06-11
https://tcrf.net/Pro...type_1996-06-27

Enjoy!

[DavoX]

Fucking awesome man, all those details, must´ve taken a shitload of time to make!

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

All of the SW prototypes are now documented. Here are the last few pages that needed to be done.

August 1996
November 1996
April 1997

[Hendricks266]

Excellent work.

Quote

The Female Warrior and Zilla are nowhere to be found in this prototype. Considering how close this prototype is to the final game, they must've been very, very late additions to the game.

Indeed. Among the source code backups, GIRLNINJ.C appears on 1997-05-29 (previous backup 1997-05-19) and ZILLA.C appears on 1997-07-10 (previous backup 1997-07-08).

[PikaCommando]

Is it ever explained anywhere what these things are supposed to be?



The article mentioned it was part of the Battleship/Yamato level, but it doesn't fit the rest of the game (although it does fit that genetic engineering plot that earlier versions had). Are there more to the levels than meets the eye?

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

PikaCommando, on 08 October 2017 - 10:06 PM, said:

Is it ever explained anywhere what these things are supposed to be?



The article mentioned it was part of the Battleship/Yamato level, but it doesn't fit the rest of the game (although it does fit that genetic engineering plot that earlier versions had). Are there more to the levels than meets the eye?

You misread. The point is that the creature textures are a part of the "BIOLOGICAL HAZARD" texture set found in Battleship, but don't actually show up in that map at all in any form.

[leilei]

The 1.0 / 1.1 shareware versions could probably be covered too, they're a bit on the early side (May 97)

[Hendricks266]

Today I successfully ran the September 95 beta on my retro rig with the AEGIS dongle that Joe sent me. Getting it to work without the dongle is another problem...

[Phredreeke]

I feel a bit slow here... When was the 1993 prototype released? I don't remember it being there last I checked

[Phredreeke]

BTW, one thing I've wondered for a while, perhaps it's been answered elsewhere but what versions of the Build engine did these protos run on?

[Hendricks266]

Phredreeke, on 20 November 2017 - 04:51 PM, said:

BTW, one thing I've wondered for a while, perhaps it's been answered elsewhere but what versions of the Build engine did these protos run on?

Open any map file in a hex editor. The very beginning of the file is a little-endian int32_t, mapversion. For example, SW94 is version 4. This thing is version 3.

[Phredreeke]

Checking now, the 1995 prototypes were version 6 and from 11 June 1996 prototype and on it used version 7. So Shadow Warrior's development spanned at least 3 different versions of the Build engine.

[MrFlibble]

Anyone have an idea how many levels each episode of the three-episode versions (June, August 1996) were supposed to have? And how many of these are actually complete?

I'm asking 'cause the Summer 1996 builds appear pretty close to what could be considered completion, and maybe if polished a bit this phase of development could stand on its own as a different game based on the same concept, even if only the shareware episode levels are in any state of completion? That would make for a "Doom clone" era SW as opposed to the "Duke3D clone" vibe of the final version.

Is it theoretically possible to use the source (I gather that the source for many if not all of the beta builds is available in the archives) to build a native port for modern platforms?

[Hendricks266]

The source backups begin on 1995-10-31, so only betas after that point have sources.

Yes, it is theoretically possible to port beta source.

[ReaperAA]

I would love to see someone make a mod of shadow warrior based on the late 1995 build. In fact someone ported the sounds and maps from June 1996 build to the October 1995 build and it looks pretty good.

https://www.youtube....h?v=TwdFbbh1LpM

[MrFlibble]

I wonder if it would be possible to make an entire game with all the resources? Is the community allowed to do something like that?

I mean of course that such game would not be a separate project but a reconstruction of what the early builds could have ended up if their development took a different direction (or rather, stayed on the old course instead of evolving into the final 1997 version).

[Phredreeke]

That sounds like an interesting concept. Would probably have to be done as an eduke32 mod given how unfriendly Shadow Warrior is to modding

[OpenMaw]

ReaperAA, on 13 October 2018 - 12:12 AM, said:

I would love to see someone make a mod of shadow warrior based on the late 1995 build. In fact someone ported the sounds and maps from June 1996 build to the October 1995 build and it looks pretty good.

https://www.youtube....h?v=TwdFbbh1LpM

Gotta be honest, I like the look of it moreso t han the release version. It has more of it's own identity.

[ReaperAA]

Commando Nukem, on 17 October 2018 - 08:18 AM, said:

Gotta be honest, I like the look of it moreso t han the release version. It has more of it's own identity.

Looks are arguable, but this version really does feel like its own thing rather than the duke-like feel of final version

[PikaCommando]

Oh man, the enemy ninjas' death screams are so delicious.

MrFlibble, on 11 August 2018 - 12:31 AM, said:

Anyone have an idea how many levels each episode of the three-episode versions (June, August 1996) were supposed to have? And how many of these are actually complete?

I'm asking 'cause the Summer 1996 builds appear pretty close to what could be considered completion, and maybe if polished a bit this phase of development could stand on its own as a different game based on the same concept, even if only the shareware episode levels are in any state of completion? That would make for a "Doom clone" era SW as opposed to the "Duke3D clone" vibe of the final version.

One of the 1995 builds have E1L8, so I guess it should be around 24 levels total. Final game only has 20 levels though, but I forgot how many are repurposed maps from older builds and how many are created from scratch after the switch to the final ordering/style. It looks like the bosses have always been the Serpent God for E1, Lava Boss for E2 (up until November 1996 where the Sumo took his place), and whatever Kirin was at the time for E3 (no proof he ever had art before he became Zilla).

I remember there were some talks about releasing the design documents last year but it looks like that won't be happening anytime soon.