[Kawa]

Can confirm, TILES004.ART tiles 160-165 are a cacodemon, former human, sergeant, imp, cyberdemon, and spider mastermind.

[icecoldduke]

Kawa, on 25 July 2017 - 06:54 AM, said:

Can confirm, TILES004.ART tiles 160-165 are a cacodemon, former human, sergeant, imp, cyberdemon, and spider mastermind.

That's kinda cool that we know they used Doom art as temp assets.

[Hendricks266]

Everyone did it. The Corridor 8 prototype comes to mind.

Similarly,

Quote

04/07/1994: Here is an early snapshot of the Build Engine distribution: Build_Apr1994.zip (515,806 bytes, 02/08/2008) At this point, the editor and sample game are looking a lot like the final version. Of course it's missing many of the bells & whistles which were to come. Note: I removed the Doom guy (used only in serial link mode) and 1 wav file to avoid copyright issues.

[CryptKiller]

Corridor 8 is basically a kit bash of Doom and Duke 3D assets and engine. BTW, how Build engine was distributed to its licensors? Was it just a source code, or there were some assets added to it, for example, the textures and sprites from Ken Silverman's demo?

[leilei]

It was just only compiled .obj files (Build itself) and some sample game source (Kenbuild). The 94 beta shows a very Kenbuildian state

[Hendricks266]

The 1993 proof of concept and the custom exe for September 1995 are now live on Steam.

[neznam]

I think the 1994 build did get developed further, someone some time ago posted this scan (from July 1995) with a SW screenshot featuring a centred uzi and the old sumo wrestler in the top right-hand corner.

[Kawa]

Ah geez that '93 POC is just so... so barely Shadow Warrior it almost made me choke on my cereal.

[PikaCommando]

neznam, on 25 July 2017 - 11:44 PM, said:

I think the 1994 build did get developed further, someone some time ago posted this scan (from July 1995) with a SW screenshot featuring a centred uzi and the old sumo wrestler in the top right-hand corner.

It appears that there's a '95 ninja there though.


Anyway, just checked out the new stuff.

'93's build starts out with a funny cutscene






but it's a pretty barebones demo with no weapons or functional enemies (outside of some walking ninjas). The HUD reminds me of Ultima (is this really built on the ROTT engine?).






The late '95 build is pretty fucking awesome, even though it's obviously more unfinished than the first '96 build. Sound effects are almost non-existent and weapon sprites aren't displaying correctly (there's no uzi viewmodel sprite, but the reload animation appears; could be a result of the .exe hack). I've only tested E1L1 so far. Unlike the other builds where you start on a boat (mid '95) or already inside the compound ('96 builds), this one starts at the side of a temple with the sea behind you.





The first enemies you encounter are fully functional Coolies that are now hostile to you.




But the coolest thing by far is that magic spells are still in the game this late (though snuffed out between now and the first '96 build, sadly).




(no fancy hand movements though)

The vomiting head thing started here, and enemies actively try to kick your head around (did Blood come up with this first or SW?)





As usual, thanks to Hendricks for working on their release, but I hope there's documents explaining the shifts in the directions and the plans for the game at the time of compilations so we can better understand the context behind each build.

[Hendricks266]

You should find a way to take better screenshots. These should all be at 320x200, not your laptop's res (1366x768).

Press Ctrl+F5 to DOSBox to drop a PNG in the capture folder.

PikaCommando, on 26 July 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

(is this really built on the ROTT engine?).

Has someone been making things up and sharing them as fact again?

See KareBear's post.

[icecoldduke]

I have to say, I really like the 95 build. Out of all the beta's, this one is my favorite. I like the art style, it feels like a nice mix of Quake and Hexen.

[Hendricks266]

I'll upvote anyone who can rip the assets from the 1993 proof of concept, so we can compare them to the 1994 build.

[icecoldduke]

Hendricks266, on 26 July 2017 - 08:41 AM, said:

I'll upvote anyone who can rip the assets from the 1993 proof of concept, so we can compare them to the 1994 build.

How much stuff is actually in there?

[Svanis]

I really love the chain lightning weapon, so cool. I think I saw a ninja kill himself, so that might be implemented here. You can for some reason rotate the entire screen with the keys right of L.

Also, I'm suprised nobody has commented on the wonderful text files left in the folders by the developers, detailing map changes and so forth. Check the sw950210 folder.

Is the October 31 build something that will be released in the future?

[Hendricks266]

icecoldduke, on 26 July 2017 - 08:48 AM, said:

How much stuff is actually in there?

Not much.

[CryptKiller]

That late 95 build has a surprisingly good third-person view, way better (more dynamic camera) than in any released Build game.

[Svanis]

CryptKiller, on 26 July 2017 - 10:06 AM, said:

That late 95 build has a surprisingly good third-person view, way better (more dynamic camera) than in any released Build game.

I second this, also it's made even better when you die and see your decapitated head puke enemies to death that come near it, which is even animated on the minimap (TAB).

It seems to use the menu music unless you type SWWARP 11 or restart the episode, which will start the level with the correct music.

[leilei]

The grenade launcher's rotated drawing animation suddenly makes a lot more sense now. Fun that the recoil is still intact


Also did anyone notice the 9-95 beta has the earliest Mark Build sound/screen setup program? It has a few differences (old Build videomode list rather than VGA + VESA1/2 modes, norton-ish light blue window background for submenus, no RTS support and no names). Duke3D keynames are still left over so don't make bullshit rumors about lo wang having a holoduke in a hidden still not yet unearthed beta. Doom already had that kind of shit when 0.99 shareware had a contribution from Cygnus for their Raptor setup program

[Hendricks266]

Hendricks266, on 26 July 2017 - 08:41 AM, said:

I'll upvote anyone who can rip the assets from the 1993 proof of concept, so we can compare them to the 1994 build.

Half the puzzle is solved: the NC1.FLI file is a FLIC animation of the same format you can find in Duke Nukem II, and is viewable using K1n9_Duk3's Enormous Tool.

A direct conversion to gif, using the tool:

[Hendricks266]

gamearch.exe from Camoto by Malvineous is able to identify the NINJA.DAT file as the same kind of container as the one used in Monster Bash and ScubaVenture, but there must be some slight variations because it is unable to extract everything.

This lends support to KareBear's recollection that the engine used in this beta was written by Gerald Lindsly, as he wrote the F.A.S.T. engine used in Monster Bash and ScubaVenture.

One of the things it can extract successfully is "Palette1", a standard VGA palette, 6-bit per component.

[icecoldduke]

So what was the story Jim pitched to Scott? Was Shadow Warrior supposed to be a superhero style game, where you play as a ordinary guy that puts on a ninja costume and magically has super powers? That's what I see from the gif you posted.

[Hendricks266]

I have no information that could answer your question.

[Romulus]

I wish it was possible to have developer commentary available for these alpha/beta concept builds.

[Frenkel]

Hendricks266, on 26 July 2017 - 05:27 PM, said:

gamearch.exe from Camoto by Malvineous is able to identify the NINJA.DAT file as the same kind of container as the one used in Monster Bash and ScubaVenture

The beta of Realms of Chaos also uses this file format.

[Hendricks266]

Malvineous has generously been lending his talents to get at the data in NINJA.DAT. Progress so far:

Spoiler

Incorrect:

[Fantinaikos]

It is evident that the first Shadow Warrior ideas where inspired by the 80's Chi Kueng "Godfrey" Ho filmography. Or better to say, by the countless movies who he stole and glued together. The final version is more 90's Ninja Turtles.

[Lunick]

Wow, that background image is animated? Sweet!

I really like the art style of this version.

[Hendricks266]

I don't know if it's actually intended to be animated or if the 4 parts are supposed to be interleaved to form a bigger image, because it looks rather strange as an animation. I would need to decompile the executable to see if there is any code referring to it in there.

[K1n9_Duk3]

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.

[Frenkel]

Hendricks266, on 28 July 2017 - 03:49 AM, said:

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

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.

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?