List of Apogee betas and mods (please contribute)

spikey · Post by **spikey** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:50

Hey folks,

Long-time Apogee lurker, only sometime poster here.

Within the community is a lot of fragmented cliques (I could say "Shattered Worlds", but that would be bad of me), and so there seems to be a large portion of people who know some things in the community and not others.
I was thinking that 3DRealms is largely defunct, and there seems to be a bit of a resurgence in the Apogee community. So, it would be great now to list, and perhaps later archive, of all the changed Apogee games out there to make sure they're preserved, and just as importantly, known about.

(I will be posting this on other forums, so apologise for the X-posting. Just want to get it out there.)

Without further ado:

Beta Versions of Retail
Hocus Pocus
Realms of Chaos
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
Keen 1 (2 dates from same week)
Keen 2
Keen Dreams
Raptor
Wacky Wheels (called "Wacky Kart" at the time)

Fan Mods/Games
(I'm not mentioning Keen edits for obvious reasons, there's a zillion and those are much more well-known.)
Hocus Pocus Xmas (same as retail release; sprite changes for Xmas-y feel- I think Violet CLM did it?)
Bio Menace levelpack (from 2011, forget who did it)
Duke 1- Proton's Revenge/Master Plan levelpacks (Nicks Software, ~2006)
Duke 1- The Returning levelpack (2010, _DNV_)
Cosmo levelpack- NewCosmo (2010)
Hocus Beta- Windows (remake of HP beta in Windows, 2007)
Special Agent- Windows (Windows remake of Secret Agent episode 1, David Newton, 2006)

Now, I KNOW there are more out there. Please help me complete and tidy up this list, people!

Roobar · Post by **Roobar** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:17

This looks very interesting! However, can you also provide links?
btw welcome to the forum.

Nospike · Post by **Nospike** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:47

I didn't know there was a beta of Keen Dreams!

troublesomekeen · Post by **troublesomekeen** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 6:25

Wacky Kart? Interesting! And there's more Hocus Pocus? More interestingness...es..ss

Nospike wrote:I didn't know there was a beta of Keen Dreams!

All I know is that there's a version 1.0 that mentions "Keen Meets the Meats" and a version 1.13 that doesn't.

BrainRain · Post by **BrainRain** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 17:21

I have everything listed. And most of the stuff is really easy to find! Xenophage Alien Bloodsport - Beta 1995-12-29
The Lost Adventures of Kroz - Press Version 1.1

These are not listed. If you are interested in these kinds of stuff, BetaArchive is the best place for.

Here is everything that we can get: http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17581
Most of these came from the Apogee Collection torrent from Underground Gamer uploaded by Litude, but there's a few missing.

http://vo-noobs.com/apogee/
Some of the missing ones from the BetaArchive post.

I'm pretty sure some members from the 3drealms forum have even more, but they don't want to share them with the community. So screw them... The only interesting ones are Keen, Hocus Pocus, and the registered beta version of Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold.

spikey · Post by **spikey** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 19:47

This looks very interesting! However, can you also provide links?
btw welcome to the forum.

Thanks guys. i'm not sure what the forum policies were, so I didn't link to anything just yet. I was pretty specific, most things can be found via Google or via the Beta Archives forum that BrainRain linked to.

Wacky Kart? Interesting! And there's more Hocus Pocus? More interestingness...es..ss

All I know is that there's a version 1.0 that mentions "Keen Meets the Meats" and a version 1.13 that doesn't.

Yeah, there's supposedly another WW beta from a bit later that I haven't got my hands on just yet. I think it is called WW and not WK at that point.
Haven't played Wacky Kart yet but I think 6 of the 8 sprites of the racers are different.

On Keen Dreams, beta may be a bit misleading. It's the older version which I think of as a beta that mentions the sequel about Meat.

I think there is another difference or two, though.

Yeah, Hocus Pocus beta is interesting. The music is different, a liitle more complicated than the final versions, although the same tunes are used.

He doesn't have his robes yet, I think some of the levels are different (episode 1) but I haven't played it just yet. There's a lot of mention of hundreds of levels in the archives, too. I wonder if they're accessible..

Here's a couple of interesting screens I've uploaded:
http://www.sierramusiccentral.com/assorted/DOS.bmp
DOS prompt screen which mentions a trilogy, with episode 2's boss being Trolodon and episode 3 being "the evil Megameanie". The princess is also Angela.

http://www.sierramusiccentral.com/assor ... ed_end.bmp
This is an unused ending screen for episode 1, with the Mad Monks tied up and a really ugly Hocus sprite sans robes holding a journal of some kind, not sure what.

Thanks to BrainRain for the links.

Yeah, some people on 3DR definitely are holding out, like the original Apogee people, George, Scott and Joe.. I don't understand why, i got a letter from Joe Siegler this week after I asked him a few things saying it would be like stabbing George/Scott in the back to release what he has. I don't really understand that comment, but I know he will never change, he never has in 20 years.

But anyway, what BrainRain said. We just need to band together and find things out ourselves. See below for some ROC beta info:

As most will know, "Realms of Chaos" started out back in 1992 as a Paganitzu sequel, "Paganitzu II", with a more action adventure theme. By 1993/4, it had become "Alabama Smith & The Bloodfire Pendant", which was changed for unknown reasons to "Realms of Chaos" in 1994, especially curious given the final game still features a Paganitzu sequel-style ending.

In the beta resources, there are several interesting Paga and Alabama references. The music for one, has the theme that would become the Realms theme titled "Paga Theme", and some pieces that did not make the final game are called "bfp2 (title)", referring to "Bloodfire Pendant, Paga II".

Additionally, there are images similar to the one that Joe Siegler posted on the 3DR forums of the Alabama Smith title screen, from the prototype he has (wish I could get that!!).
Title screen 1: http://www.sierramusiccentral.com/assorted/alabama1.bmp
Title screen 2: http://www.sierramusiccentral.com/assorted/alabama2.bmp
Title screen 3: http://www.sierramusiccentral.com/assorted/camelot.bmp

You can see that in 1993, Alabama Smith part 1 was called "The Camelot Portal". There are many levels referenced in the resources called Camelot something or other, but I couldn't get any to view. I wonder if someone can mess with the resources and get a working Alabama game out of it..

Finally,
Chimera: http://www.sierramusiccentral.com/assorted/chimera.bmp

I think this is a mini boss in the beta ROC, I forget if it's in the retail game, but I don't think so. I will play the beta sometime soon and post more.

Even in the ROC side of things, there seems to be a couple differences, with the name of the level on screen, the short intro slides, and the 7 DukeII style secret bonuses, and the warping Secret Areas.

Very interesting stuff!

Post by **Flaose** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 1:32

Yeah, posting direct links to abandonware and other technically illegal software (like unreleased alphas and betas) is a no-no, so thanks for erring on the side of caution. It's too bad so much of stuff is unreleased though, I find the building of a game to be so interesting!

Post by **Keening_Product** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 17:21

My understanding on abandonware was that it had been formally abandoned and is now free. I've seen plenty of popular PC mags running abandonware for free, saying that because Apogee etc. have formally said they aren't doing anything (or something like that) then everyone can have the game.

Nospike · Post by **Nospike** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 18:02

Product's right afaik, abandonware is technically freeware. Which would seem perfectly true as Keen isn't abandonware. Not sure about the beta thing though...

TerminILL · Post by **TerminILL** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 0:37

True abandonware is a legal grey area, regardless of stated developer intent. Unless the publisher or whomever owns the rights has explicitly declared that a work is freeware, it technically is a violation of their copyright to make unauthorised copies. That bit is set in stone.

Where it becomes grey is whether or not those holding the rights are actually going to bother to make a big deal out of it, which is the concept that most abandonware trades on - while distributing it is technically illegal, the chances of being prosecuted over genuine abandonware (where no-one retains the power/interest to exercise their copyright) are more or less nonexistent.

w/r/t your magazine example, Keening_Product, most of the features I've seen on the very same magazines, presumably, that you refer to, all involves software was officially released as freeware. I may be wrong, though.

Post by **Flaose** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 5:34

TerminILL's right. Abandonware isn't legal, because the company hasn't given permission for the software to be distributed (the retain the copyright), but at the same time they don't sell it either, i.e. they've abandoned it. As they don't care about it, they probably won't go after you, but it's still against the law.

Nospike · Post by **Nospike** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:05

I stand corrected

spikey · Post by **spikey** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 13:47

I mean, it's the old argument, what's actually legal as opposed to what's fair game. If we worried about ancient copyrights, noone would ever download The Armageddon Machine/Aliens, and we'd have about 50% less community members.
Noone would make fangames or recreate old music, either.

Anyway. Back on topic, I updated my original post, the Cosmo mod is called NewCosmo, and actually got an update in 2010 I didn't know about.

Paramultart · Post by **Paramultart** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 4:08

Welcome, Spikey!

I'm very glad you decided to post here, otherwise I might have missed this goldmine.

I am a longtime Apogee fan as well, so I am very excited to have access to any "bonus content" that can be squeezed from that wonderful era of games.

The Hocus Pocus beta in particular is of major interest to me. It really displays the bridge between Clyde's Revenge 2 and Hocus Pocus in its final form. Something I'm particularly excited about is the fact that now we have the soundtrack in IMF format.

Always happy to see posts like these.
Typically, information on these games is sparse, and people who have played them are few and far between.

Hope to see more posts from you in the future... Enjoy your stay!

Post by **Levellass** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 0:31

So this Keen Dreams... beta, or older version?