Shadow Warrior shareware version comparison

[MrFlibble]

As with many other shareware games of the time, the initial shareware releases of Shadow Warrior (v1.0 and v1.1) have been made before the registered version was completed (v1.2) and as such reflect a pre-release state of the game.

While the general content of the early shareware versions is the same - there are four levels, and available weapons, items and monsters are similar to the final release - there are quite a few noticeable differences worth mention:

• First off, versions 1.0 and 1.1 have self-running demos, similar to other FPS games of the time, including Build games in general and the direct predecessor of Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem 3D. Both early versions feature demo records of two levels, Zilla Construction and Master Leep's Temple. The self-running demos can be turned off with the -nodemo command line parameter.
  
• Further on, the early versions use the rotating shuriken selection marker, as opposed to v1.2 that uses the Yin Yang symbol as the selection marker. Here's a screenshot from v1.1, with a similar screenshot from v1.2 for comparison:
  
• Versions 1.0 and 1.1 also do not have episode titles yet. On the episode selection screen, the episodes are simply called "Shareware levels" and "Registered levels":
  
• Versions 1.0 and 1.1 do not yet have the air meter that shows the amount of remaining air while underwater, or the boss health meter. Those were added in v1.2, along with a command line parameter that allows to disable the meters.
  
• In both versions 1.0 and 1.1, it is impossible to switch between single UZI and dual-wielded UZIs after the second UZI had been picked up. It is not clear whether this was an oversight in the earlier versions, or the intended effect which was changed in v1.2.
• Once a heat seeker card is picked in v1.0, the missile launcher automatically switches into heat-seeking mode. In v1.2, you still need to manually switch it to heat seeking mode after picking the card. This turned out to depend on whether the missile launcher is the currently selected weapon when the card is picked, and is unrelated to the version number.
• Compared to v1.0, most of Lo Wang's voice clips have been edited to increase their volume in v1.1. These new versions remain unchanged in v1.2.
• Version 1.2 added sprites for broken neon lamps, which are used in the first level of the shareware version:
  
  Another example is the seats at the train platform (v1.0/1.1 only has flickering lights):
  
  Interestingly enough, v1.2 does not seem to have any neon lamps that can actually be destroyed by the player, even though this feature was already present in Duke Nukem 3D. Some lamps were made destructible in v1.2 but others remains as they are in v1.0.
• Throughout the levels, there are many minor differences concerning placement of certain item caches, switches and the like, which do not, however, affect the general layout of the levels. For example, in level 3, the niche that contains sticky bombs was moved from one side of the pool to the other:
  
  The same level has a secret underwater area with a switch, which was moved from one wall to another:
  
  (This change actually occurred in v1.1 already.)
• One of the notable graphical differences between v1.0/1.1 and v1.2 is the appearance of Lara Croft in the secret area on level four. Early versions use the same graphics as the beta version, with a more anime look. Version 1.2 replaced this with an appearance that is much closer to the original character:
  
• The built-in command line help in v1.0 mentions two command line parameters, -commbat# and -coop#, which turn on fake multiplayer and fake co-op modes in single-player game:
  
  Version 1.1 removed the description of these parameters from the built-in help, but they are still listed in the electronic manual (SWHELP.EXE). Version 1.2 removes all mention of these from its electronic manual as well. Nevertheless, the -commbat# and -coop# parameters work in all three versions, although no parameter that would actually turn on bots in "fake multiplayer" single-player games is mentioned in any of these versions.
• There is a Win95 compatibility mode for MIDI music in early versions which can be activated with the -win95 or -win95awe32 command line parameters. Version 1.2 also makes no mention of this whatsoever.

[DOSGuy]

Very cool research!

My guess is that the shuriken pointer was replaced with a yin yang symbol when 3DR found out that they would need to remove shurikens from the UK version of the game to comply with anti-ninja weapon laws.

[MrFlibble]

My guess is that the shuriken pointer was replaced with a yin yang symbol when 3DR found out that they would need to remove shurikens from the UK version of the game to comply with anti-ninja weapon laws.

Good guess, it hadn't occurred to me, but you're probably right There's no coincidence that the shareware version 1.2 also includes the dart replacement sprites for the UK version.

TBH, I've always thought that the Yin Yang was more logical because it's just like the nuke symbol in Duke3D - it functions as the level exit marker and as the item respawn point in multiplayer games (SW already has the Yin Yang as the respawn point marker in v1.0, although it has a different design compared to the level exit switch).

[Litude]

I love lists like these that break down the differences in the versions. Personally I've been doing the same kind of research for pretty much every Apogee game (hadn't gotten around to the 3D Realms games yet though ). It would be awesome if there was some website somewhere where such information could be published in a wiki-like format to allow contributions by anyone.

[leilei]

Oh it exists. The Cutting Room Floor Wiki can cover "prototypes" (such as the shareware pre-releases, which can fall into the prototype category) and revision changes.

[Litude]

Ah, I thought the Cutting Floor was a place where people gathered pretty much all information there was about pre-release stuff about the game. Had no idea version changes were also covered.

[MrFlibble]

BTW, does anyone know what version of SW shareware is the retail shareware CD release? I also wonder if it actually has CD audio tracks as opposed to MIDI music.

[leilei]

Ah, I thought the Cutting Floor was a place where people gathered pretty much all information there was about pre-release stuff about the game. Had no idea version changes were also covered.

I think you're confusing it with Unseen64, aka 'that blurry 240p game trailer site that calls everything a beta'

[Litude]

BTW, does anyone know what version of SW shareware is the retail shareware CD release? I also wonder if it actually has CD audio tracks as opposed to MIDI music.

It says v1.1 on that website, so I'd guess 1.1. I haven't tried if the shareware version supports CD audio but if it doesn't I think it would be safe to say it uses MIDI music as I doubt they would have made a custom version for the retail shareware release.

Ah, I thought the Cutting Floor was a place where people gathered pretty much all information there was about pre-release stuff about the game. Had no idea version changes were also covered.

I think you're confusing it with Unseen64, aka 'that blurry 240p game trailer site that calls everything a beta'

I just checked it again and it's not exactly what I was looking for. Sure it does cover some version differences but mostly differences between different region versions of the game.
I'm looking more for a kind of place where you could publish the differences in a changelog type format (e.g. my Monster Bash, Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold lists).

[leilei]

Have you seen the Doom article?

[MrFlibble]

• Once a heat seeker card is picked in v1.0, the missile launcher automatically switches into heat-seeking mode. In v1.2, you still need to manually switch it to heat seeking mode after picking the card.

My bad, this actually depends on whether the missile launcher is selected when the heat seeker card is picked (when the launcher is the currently selected weapon, it will switch into heat-seeking mode automatically), and this behaviour is identical in all versions.

Interestingly enough, v1.2 does not seem to have any neon lamps that can actually be destroyed by the player, even though this feature was already present in Duke Nukem 3D.

This is also not entirely correct, as there are some breakable neon lamps; others remain indestructible, like in previous versions.

Anyway, I also noticed this little thing:

The simple sky texture in level 3 was replaced by a panoramic view of mountains and forest. This change, however, is not very obvious because most of the sky is obscured by structures in the open areas (temple entrance and courtyard; the area with chasms later into the level has a different sky altogether), with only the sky being visible in both versions unless you really look around.

Another difference is that v1.2 seems to have weapon priorities: for example, if you start level 3 with no previously collected weapons, pick the UZI and then pick sticky bombs, you'll switch from the UZI to the sticky bombs; however, if you pick the bombs first you won't switch to the UZI automatically when you pick it. In v1.0, you'll switch to whatever newly acquired weapon you've picked, no matter what it is and what you already have in your arsenal.

BTW, does anyone know what version of SW shareware is the retail shareware CD release? I also wonder if it actually has CD audio tracks as opposed to MIDI music.

It says v1.1 on that website, so I'd guess 1.1.

Whoah, I'm being quite inattentive here

I'm looking more for a kind of place where you could publish the differences in a changelog type format (e.g. my Monster Bash, Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold lists).

Thanks for sharing these, very interesting! Also heads up on such extensive research

[MrFlibble]

Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold

That's a very interesting read! BTW, what's the status of the development versions that are marked as v2.0 in your changelog? Were they released somehow, or were they only in-house testing versions?

Also IIRC v1.0 doesn't seem to allow to increase the view screen size so that there is no blue border around the screen, so the maximum screen size is pretty much like that in Wolfenstein 3-D. The ability to increase the size further to remove the border must have been added in some later release, but I haven't been able to spot this information in the changelog.

[Litude]

Have you seen the Doom article?

Right, I guess they do have some version to version differences though. I'm not sure if they'd appreciate getting the differences in a change log format though.

I'm looking more for a kind of place where you could publish the differences in a changelog type format (e.g. my Monster Bash, Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold lists).

Thanks for sharing these, very interesting! Also heads up on such extensive research

I do have a bunch more, for pretty much every Apogee game except for the very early text-based ones. Though their coverage is varying.

That's a very interesting read! BTW, what's the status of the development versions that are marked as v2.0 in your changelog? Were they released somehow, or were they only in-house testing versions?

They were leaked during development, they were never officially released.

Also IIRC v1.0 doesn't seem to allow to increase the view screen size so that there is no blue border around the screen, so the maximum screen size is pretty much like that in Wolfenstein 3-D. The ability to increase the size further to remove the border must have been added in some later release, but I haven't been able to spot this information in the changelog.

Thanks for that! I do remember noticing that, but I guess I forgot to add it to the change log.

[MrFlibble]

That's a very interesting read! BTW, what's the status of the development versions that are marked as v2.0 in your changelog? Were they released somehow, or were they only in-house testing versions?

They were leaked during development, they were never officially released.

These builds have actually attracted my attention not because they were never officially release but because some major changes between v1.0 and v2.x, such as light diminishing and some other stuff, have occurred in these builds, an since they are listed separately after the public releases, I found it a bit confusing while reading the changelog for the first time that some obvious changes between v1.0 and later versions were apparently not mentioned.

Maybe it would be a good idea to duplicate the changes in the v2.0 regular release section while making a note that those were already introduced in the unreleased builds?

[MrFlibble]

BTW, Litude, since you're interested in the comparison of the versions, I've posted more tech details (like the comparison of GRP contents) in the Duke4.net Forums.

If you scroll up a bit, there's also some info about the shareware versions of Duke Nukem 3D. Feel free to incorporate this stuff in your research!