Others

Starcraft [PC – Prototype / Beta]

The pre-alpha version of StarCraft was still very similar to Warcraft II in terms of user interface and style. After receiving much criticism on the 1996 E3 for this lack of technological improvement, Blizzard started to rework the game engine. This included changing the interface from the distinctive Warcraft II-sidebar to the now common bottom bar. Further improvements included pre-rendered sprites and backgrounds using 3D Studio Max. An isometric view was used, unlike Warcraft II’s top down perspective. – [info from wikipedia]

Thanks to MicroChirp for the contribution!

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[images from www.sclegacy.com]

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Prospero [Cancelled Valve MMORPG]

Prospero is a cancelled PC game that was in development by Valve while they were working on Half Life / Quiver. Initially the game was meant to be an action adventure, with an “science fantasy epic” storyline, lots of exploration and a complex combat system with psionic powers, but after a while the project became a MMORPG in which Valve wanted to let users to create their own worlds to have an ever-expanding universe. Prospero was canned in 1997 when Valve decided to move their effort to Half Life. Key features that were planned for Prospero were later integrated in other Valve projects, as Steam and Portal 2.

 As we can read on Half Life Wikia:

In the Half-Life sound files folder (Steam version), the music files commonly known as “Dimensionless Deepness”, “Steam in the Pipes”, “Threatening (Short)”, “Traveling Through Limbo” and “Vague Voices” are named “prospero01” to “prospero05”, which could imply that the tracks were initially made for Prospero.

Thanks to an interview with Marc Laidlaw by François Aymes for Jeuxvideo.com, we can read some more details on the project:

The Prospero development was halted in 1998, was it because of Half-Life ?
It was halted because some of us went to game shows and saw things that looked like Prospero, and felt that we weren’t doing anything that was going to make us stand out in the crowd. The project was flailing, struggling for identity, and there wasn’t a sense of great confidence. It was a natural thing to move more of our attention to Half-Life. Prospero was dead in the water well before Half-Life 2 came along.

Was Prospero supposed to feature a single player adventure ? Can you give us an idea of the plot ?
It straddled the line between single player and MMO, which was not something we could have pulled off back then. There were all sorts of possible plots, but we never got far enough to have to decide which one would work for what we were building.

Thanks to Valve Time we are able to know more about this interesting project, check the video below!

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Half Life (Quiver) [Beta / Concept / Prototype]

half-life-logo

Half-Life was the first product of Valve Software, which was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell. They settled on a concept for a horror-themed 3D action game, using the Quake engine as licensed by id Software. Valve eventually modified the engine a great deal, notably adding skeletal animation and Direct3D support; a developer stated in a PC Accelerator magazine preview that seventy percent of the engine code was rewritten. The company had difficulties finding a publisher at first, many believing their project “too ambitious” for a studio headed by newcomers to the video game industry. However, Sierra On-Line had been very interested in making a 3D action game, especially one based on the Quake engine, and so signed them for a one-game deal.

The original code name for Half-Life was Quiver, after the Arrowhead military base from Stephen King’s novella The Mist, which served as early inspiration for the game. Gabe Newell explained that the name Half-Life was chosen because it was evocative of the theme, not clichéd, and had a corresponding visual symbol: the Greek letter λ (lower-case lambda), which represents the decay constant in the half-life equation. According to one of the game’s designers, Harry Teasley, Doom was a huge influence on most of the team working on Half-Life. Subsequently, according to Teasley, they wanted Half-Life to “scare you like Doom did”.

The first public appearances of beta Half-Life came in early 1997; it was a hit at Electronic Entertainment Expo that year, where they primarily demonstrated the animation system and artificial intelligence. Valve Software hired science fiction author Marc Laidlaw in August 1997 to work on the game’s characters and level design. Half-Life’s soundtrack was composed by Kelly Bailey. Half-Life was originally planned to be shipped in late 1997, to compete with Quake II, but was postponed when Valve decided the game needed significant revision.

In a 2003 “Making Of Half Life” feature in Edge, Newell discusses the team’s early difficulties with level design. In desperation, a single level was assembled including every weapon, enemy, scripted event and level design quirk that the designers had come up with so far. This single level inspired the studio to press on with the game. As a result, the studio completely reworked the game’s artificial intelligence and levels in the year leading up to its release. At E3 1998 it was given Game Critics Awards for “Best PC Game” and “Best Action Game”. The release date was delayed several times in 1998 before the game was finally released in November of that year. [Info from Wikipedia]

Below you can see beta screenshots and videos from the early Half Life development, with many differences and removed content.

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Project X [Nuon – Proto]

Nuon originally started off as “Project X,” and was featured in EGM’s 1999 Video Game Buyer’s Guide. One of the Nuon’s main software developers was Jeff Minter, who created a version of Tempest (entitled Tempest 3000) for the system, and the built-in VLM-2 audio visualizer. NUON was created by VM Labs who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001. The rights to the NUON technology was purchased in 2002 by Genesis Microchip. – [Info from Wikipedia]

 

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Duke Nukem Forever [PC – Prototype]

Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) is a first-person shooter that was being developed by the now-defunct 3D Realms. It follows Duke Nukem 3D as the next game in 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem series.

Duke Nukem Forever was officially announced on April 28, 1997 along with the purchase of a license to use the Quake II engine and the intention of releasing the game no later than mid-1998. Original prototype work on the game had begun as early as January. However, 3D Realms did not get the Quake II engine code until November 1997, and the earlier screenshots were simply mock-ups with the Quake engine.

In June 1998, the 3D Realms team switched to Epic’s Unreal Engine. Broussard said that the transition from the Quake to the Unreal engine would take from “a month to 6 weeks” and that the game would not be significantly delayed. He also reassured gamers that the items unveiled in the May 1998 E3 demo would carry over on the Epic engine. He also said that DNF would be released in 1999.

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In 1999, 3D Realms announced that they had upgraded to the newer version of the Unreal Engine. They released a second batch of screenshots on November 1 that showcased Duke Nukem Forever on the Unreal engine for the first time. In December, 3D Realms released a Christmas card that suggested that DNF would be released in 2000.

At the May 2001 E3, 3D Realms released a second video that showed a couple of minutes of in-game footage, which notably showed the player moving in a what appears to be Las Vegas and a certain level of interactivity (the player buys a sandwich from a vending machine and pushing the keypads).

In 2002, after hiring several new programmers, the team completely rewrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. Broussard estimated that around 95% of the previous level design work was scrapped in the process. He also later stated that they were never less than two years away from shipping with the UT based version of the game.

On September 9, 2004, GameSpot reported that Duke Nukem Forever had switched to the Doom 3 engine..On March 20, 2007, Scott Miller explained in an interview with YouGamers that they were still using the Unreal Engine, albeit a heavily modified version at this point.

Rumors in April 2005 suggested that the game would appear at 2005 E3, along with 3D Realms’ previously canceled Prey. While Prey did make an appearance, the rumors of Duke Nukem Forever’s appearance turned out to be false.

In April 2006, Broussard demonstrated samples of the game, including an early level, a vehicle sequence, and a few test rooms. One notable  demonstration, according to the May 2006 issue of Computer Games magazine featured the interactive use of an in-game computer to send actual e-mails.

A new video was released on December 19, 2007 claimed to be made by employees of 3D Realms during their spare time to show at the annual Christmas party.

On June 5, 2008, in-game footage of the game was featured on the premiere episode of The Jace Hall Show. Filmed entirely on hand-held cameras but not originally expected to be publicly released[50], the video showed host Jason Hall playing through parts of a single level on a PC at 3D Realms’ offices.

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Two unlockable screenshots were included with the September 24, 2008 release of Duke Nukem 3D on the Xbox Live Arcade. Located in the game’s art gallery upon earning all of Duke Nukem 3D’s achievements, one DNF screenshot featured a first person view of Duke reloading his pistol, while facing an Octabrain, with another in the distance, in a Dam. The other screenshot depicted a frontal close-up of Duke in a strip joint.On May 6, 2009, due to lack of funding, major staff cuts were initiated with the entire development team being laid off and other employees being given notice of their employment with the company being terminated.

It was reported on May 14, 2009 that Take-Two, holders of the publishing rights of Duke Nukem Forever, filed a breach of contract suit against Apogee Software Ltd (3D Realms) over failing to deliver the aforementioned title. Take-Two has asked for a restraining order and a preliminary injunction, to make 3D Realms keep the Duke Nukem Forever assets intact during proceedings.

On May 18, 2009 3D Realms key executives released the first full official “press release” with their side of the developments. “… 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing. … Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th,… While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to licence and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise. … Take-Two’s proposal was unacceptable to 3DR for many reasons, including no upfront money, no guarantee minimum payment, and no guarantee to complete the DNF game. …we viewed Take-Two as trying to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise in a “fire sale.” … …we believe Take-Two’s lawsuit is without merit and merely a bully tactic to obtain ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. We will vigorously defend ourselves against this publisher.”

[Infos from Wikipedia]

An interesting article on Wired also explains better the problems with Duke Nukem Forever’s development:

Broussard simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of Duke Nukem Forever coming out with anything other than the latest and greatest technology and awe-inspiring gameplay. He didn’t just want it to be good. It had to surpass every other game that had ever existed, the same way the original Duke Nukem 3D had.

But because the technology kept getting better, Broussard was on a treadmill. He’d see a new game with a flashy graphics technique and demand the effect be incorporated into Duke Nukem Forever. “One day George started pushing for snow levels,” recalls a developer who worked on Duke Nukem Forever for several years starting in 2000. Why? “He had seen The Thing” — a new game based on the horror movie of the same name, set in the snowbound Antarctic — “and he wanted it.”

[…]

Developers want to make their product superb, and the publishers just want it on the shelves as soon as possible. If the game starts getting delayed, it’s the publisher that cracks the whip. Broussard and Miller were free to thumb their noses at this entire system. Indeed, they even posted gleeful rants online about the evil of publishers and their deadlines. “When it’s done” became their defiant reply whenever someone asked when Duke Nukem Forever would be finished.

[…]

But the money was finally running out. Broussard and Miller had spent some $20 million of their own cash on Duke Nukem Forever — and their current development team would likely burn through another several million dollars a year. Miller and Broussard were forced to break their cardinal rule: They went to Take-Two with hat in hand, asking for $6 million to help finish the game.

[…]

Many observers think Take-Two is attempting to bleed 3D Realms dry until it has no more cash, then convince a judge to force Broussard and Miller to hand over intellectual-property rights to the Duke Nukem franchise to repay the $2.5 million advance. “It’s an IP grab,” says one Dallas-area developer.

In June 2011, after 14 years of development hell, Duke Nukem Forever was officially released worldwide by 2K Games, with development handled by 4 studios: 3D Realms, Gearbox Software (who helped polish and port the game), Triptych Games (a studio comprised of ex-3D Realms members that worked on DNF in their homes until Gearbox began helping them), and Piranha Games (who worked on the multiplayer). While the past iterations (2001, 2003, etc.) of the game can be considered cancelled due to the vast differences between those versions and the final, the footage from 2009 can be considered beta footage, considering that most of the elements of the footage appear in the final game.

As a reward for finishing the game, Duke Nukem Forever includes never-before-seen footage and screenshots from the game throughout all of the years of development, all of which can be seen below.

Thanks to Timothy Adkins and destructor for the contributions!

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1998

2001

2003

2006

2009

2009 Triptych Trailer

Screenshot Gallery