Leak of a cancelled 1996 “Duke Nukem Forever” side-scroller | Hacker News Reader

Leak of a cancelled 1996 “Duke Nukem Forever” side-scroller

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Lets not forget Duke Nukem started with two moderately popular platformers [0]

https://dukenukem.fandom.com/wiki/Duke_Nukem_I

Duke Nukem the side scroller was my first computer game and I loved it.

In my house we had floppies of Duke, Commander Keen, and... Mario is Missing.

Are you my sibling?

We had those plus Captain Comic, Jill of the Jungle, and Paganitzu.

We weren’t allowed to have a video game console, so Mario is Missing was the closest I got to having a Nintendo.

Recently someone has reverse engineered Duke Nukem 2 back to its original source code [1]

[1] https://github.com/lethal-guitar/Duke2Reconstructed

I loved those first two games. They were hard to complete and a ton of fun.

The screenshots reminded me of Secret Agent (sometimes rebranded as Agent Sam or Secret Agent Man), and indeed Jim Norwood worked on it, too. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Agent_(video_game)

I spent hours playing Duke Nukem when I was a kid. Based on my son's love for absolutely idiotic games, and the assumption that I was like him at his age, that may or may not say anything for its quality, but I have fond memories of it.

Could never get over seeing a bunch of stolen graphics from the Amiga game Turrican 2 in one of them.

Didn't help that that game was far superior to Duke

Amazingly nobody mentioned it yet, but around Christmas the leak of the 2001 DNF build came to some fruition with the release of the "first slice" from the DNF restoration project. If you liked Duke Nukem 3D, this will be a treat for you. It has that certain personality and charm that was long lost by the time DNF 2011 came out. You can download it for free on moddb: https://www.moddb.com/mods/dnf2001-restoration-project

What I'd love to see is a leak of the original "Prey". Not the id Tech 4-powered shooter by Human Head Studios, but the 3D Realms one.

So many stories about this one. At least 3 generations of creatives, a KMFDM soundtrack, a perhaps over-ambitious heavily portals-based engine, destructible environments, later engine work by Corinne Yu, etc.

Edit: Oh wow! I just googled for a YouTube video of the 199x E3 demos to link here, and the 1995 version apparently did leak days ago: https://archive.org/details/prey-1195/

Next, a leak of the 1997 rework please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBDzzOzS4E

The level of detail and the dynamic portals were just so cool at the time. The demos from about 4:00 onward and especially at 5:00 onward more or less predict the later gameplay of Valve's Portal games.

Edit 2: Since this is HN, after all, here's a fascinating Usenet discussion with on the of the Prey engine developers, W. Scarboro, on his experiences with the portals approach: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.graphics.algorithms/c/2Oa-M...

Unfortunately since passed away, at only 31, due to asthma.

You're in luck! An early engine test for the original Prey leaked just this last week. (So early, it's before the portals concept.)

Looks a lot like Abuse. I would have played it! The original Duke Nukem sidescrollers were fun. Them and Commander Keen, Dangerous Dave, Jazz Jackrabbit... what else?

Crystal Caves was a ton of fun.

I remember playing it on a compaq 286 with a monochrome TN display - huge ghost trails on everything - but it was great.

There's a modern "port" of it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330890/Crystal_Caves_HD/

and you can play the original

https://archive.org/details/CrystalCaves

Prince of Persia

That wasn't a side scroller.

The original was

Correction: The original didn’t scroll, it played a single screen at a time. It was a side view though.

Very true, I think of it as a side-view platformer but of course it wasn't a scroller.

This distinction was important at the time.

> The jump from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling graphics during the golden age of arcade games was a pivotal leap in game design, comparable to the move to 3D graphics during the fifth generation.

> Smooth scrolling on IBM PCs in software was a challenge for developers.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-scrolling_video_game

I instantly thought of Gods: https://www.mobygames.com/game/gods/screenshots

The colors, stone use, and cramped tunnels look very similar.

Thank you for reminding me this one! A shoutout to The Bitmap Brothers’ gorgeous pixel graphics!

Gods was beautiful and had a catchy soundtrack which is still stuck in my head, decades later.

In terms of actual gameplay, though, Duke Nukem was a far better game!

The Bitmap Brothers, one of the finest games developers of all time, I'm of an age to remember Xenon 2 and Speedball 2 on the Atari ST, total classics.

The soundtrack to Speedball 2 was great (on the Amiga anyways). Some dude did a remix of it a few years back and it's an absolute cracker.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kyeAX27GDC4

I think Gods looked way, way better than this leak.

Halloween Harry, Contra, Pitfall!, Captain Quazar (although more isomorphic). Dont make them like they used to.

Halloween Harry! Yes. The canister grenades and flamethrower were the best.

Secret Agent was another fun Apogee sidescroller. Someone else already mentioned Crystal Caves which is great.

One of my favorite games of all time. There is a full HD re-release with more levels: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607670/Secret_Agent_HD/

I would pay to play these on my iPhone now. Also, I would die for a modern version of Raptor: Call of the Shadows, and Uncharted Waters.

Scott is working on the former: https://youtu.be/AIonfuU7qJk

That was 2 years ago. Still doesn’t exist?

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the patron mode for game development. Would much rather pre-order.

Two years is not an abnormally long development cycle in game dev.

No but using patreon and paying monthly on the stated expectation that it would be released in 6 months is a bit annoying, no?

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not super familiar with the project, I just knew it was in progress.

SpaceVenture from the ex-Sierra Space Quest developers took 10+ years on Kickstarter. Easier to slip deadlines when you don’t have a studio making external commitments.

Raptor is being remastered by the original creator

https://m.youtube.com/@ScottHost

Looks almost like Blackthorne to me.

After seeing the graphics, my first thought was Blackthorne.

I really enjoyed Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. A lot of interesting features in that one and a great art style.

The Mac-only title Ferazel’s Wand is supposed to be very good, but I never got to play it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ZUALHwVjse

I loved Prince of Persia 2.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eGxb10aTe5g

Killing Gameshow was excellent, as was Onslaught. Both were released on Amiga and Atari ST.

Killing Gameshow was one of my fave games as a kid, beautiful graphics and amazing sound on the Amiga. Never see it mentioned anywhere so had to chime in.

Bio Menace, Monster Bash, In Search of Dr. Riptide

Wasn't there a Jill of the Jungle or something?

Jazz Jackrabbit was super fun over LAN.

> what else?

Lemmings?

2D side scrolling games were still popular in browser Flash games until the mid 2000s. I remember playing a few of them on Miniclip and other websites. Shoutout to anyone who remembers Bonus.com around the year 2000. The website was an ad infested mess, but also home to some decent games.

2d side scrolling games are still popular today*

I’m not sure if it is at the same level though. Both in terms of how mainstream they are and the calibre/size of the development studios behind them. I can’t off the top of my head think of a modern “AAA” sidescroller.

Have they done a 2D Mario recently?

They're rumoured to be working on it: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/mario-games-2d-nintendo-sw...

There was also New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros DS which were fantastic. There's also Super Mario Maker...so; yeah.

The last two installments of Mario had 2D sections and prior to that Nintendo had several releases of 2D Mario games used as launch games for their platforms.

Sonic Mania?

Metroid Dread maybe? Amazing game either way.

Metroid Dread is probably the latest significant AAA sidescroller.

Samus Returns was also incredible.

Lol that game makes me so stressed. When the robot shows up I experience dread, so mission accomplished. I had to stop playing it after awhile I just didn’t find the “Dread” parts fun. I’ll go play something less stressful like Elden Ring.

Aside the name, what does make Metroid Dread a triple-A title, though? After playing Blasphemous, Huntdown, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, and a few others for the past year, I can't say Metroid Dread has a distinctive trait that would make it standing out as AAA. The competition from indie studios is tough nowadays, many of them release AAA-grade titles without labelling them as such.

AAA used to simply imply good graphics. These days it tends to refer to that and the hand-craftedness of things. Like every moment being designed for some player impact. The new Tomb Raiders are the most emblematic of this imo, though not in a good way. AAA games tend not to feel like a set of standard mechanics and actors arranged in different levels. They have a lot more special circumstances. Worst case this is just cut scenes. Commonly it's special control schemes for specific situations that break the standard game design and may be cool or may suck. I haven't played any of these titles, including Metroid so I can't comment. But... idk Hollow Knight was an excellent 2d side scroller with beautiful art that was clearly not AAA to no detriment, imo. Nintendo does things their own way too so it's always funky.

In my headcannon this transitioned most clearly with the cultural shift of Halo 3 being AAA to CoD4 being AAA.

> AAA used to simply imply good graphics

Often, yeah, but it doesn't feel like that's what people mean by it in this comment chain.

For a specific example, I would say that the recently announced Hades 2 is an AAA roguelike, even though it isn't trying to be michael-bay-tier in the graphics department at all. Disclaimer: not to be confused with artstyle and the overall visual presentation, both of which were just fantastic in the original Hades, and I expect just as much from Hades 2.

Would Ori and the Blind Forest count? 2D, awesome and hand crafted in every way but I think the publisher wouldn't count as large?

No I wouldn't say it is a triple A but it is a legitimate installation of the franchise.

“AAA” refers to any game made by a larger publisher with a large budget. The general sentiment is they have large budgets so higher expectations are reasonable.

> I can't say Metroid Dread has a distinctive trait that would make it standing out as AAA.

I have never been aware of a meaning of AAA other than "current-generation graphics". Where do distinctive traits come into it?

Wikipedia edit history [1] suggests the definition has been a matter of some debate, but the current definition has more or less been static since a few months after the article was created; i.e. high costs, high-profile and high-expectations.

By that definition, a AA game could definitely look better than an AAA game, although it would be unexpected. On the other hand, BioWare's recent titles and the entire Cyberpunk 2077 debacle seems to have shaken things up quite a bit and many people now seem to have have _lower_ expectations on AAA titles, because the major players aren't trusted to release good titles worth their money.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AAA_(video_game_i...

> By that definition, a AA game could definitely look better than an AAA game,

Of course...?

> although it would be unexpected.

No it wouldn't; that would be completely normal. I didn't say AAA meant attractive graphics. I said it meant current-generation graphics. Compare a screenshot of Escape from Monkey Island to one of Curse of Monkey Island. No one is going to argue that Escape looks better. But if you released a beautiful 2D-animated game in 2000, that wouldn't be "current" technology.

Not sure if Wii U is modern, but since it's on Switch too...

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze? That's 100% a triple A 2D platformer, with incredible graphics, some damn impressive level design that takes advantage of multiple foreground layers and numerous interconnected level specific mechanics and one of the best soundtracks in recent times.

there's a newish crash bandicoot too

Trine

"I can’t off the top of my head think of a modern “AAA” sidescroller."

Dead Cells is great.

Rayman Legends on Nintendo Switch (2017) is one example, I guess?

Ori and the blind forest?

They really don't have to be "AAA" to be a decent product. My nieces and nephew(ages 4-6) are all playing a Hotel Transylvania app on their tablets, which is a pretty straightforward collectathon platformer with a gajillion levels and a three-star ranking to encourage them to speedrun it. There are a lot of games like it, but as a plain-vanilla flavor of platformer it definitely does the job, and those kinds of games are F2P and generally well produced, with plenty of animation; the mobile market has some of the most extravagant budgets for 2D gaming, it just doesn't read as "premium" because of the business model and positioning.

When we go upmarket from that it's more often a sidestep into indie games, which can address a specific niche better.

I was once ranked #10 on Case’s Ladder in Duke Nukem back in the day. With a dial up modem on a system called Kali.

Good times.

Ahh I remember Kali - thanks for the reminder. For others who have a tinge of memory on this, the Wikipedia article has a good summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_(software)

> Today, Kali's network is still operational but development has largely ceased.

It’s still going!?

https://nitter.net/vinciusmedeiro6/status/160718738233532416...

"Tweet not found". (Source link still works.)

refresh

That’s broken but other nitter instances work https://nitter.1d4.us/vinciusmedeiro6/status/160718738233532...

https://rentry.org/x0r_jmp is the source for this I believe.

Curious to know the history here. Was it scrapped because 3d was replacing this format? Duke Nukem 3d was also released in '96.

I vaguely remember seeing a black and white screenshot of this in the back of a 3D Realms manual/cd-booklet (possibly for another 3D Realms game, or for the Macintosh release of Duke Nukem 3D which would have released after development on Duke Nukem Forever was underway).

Hail to The King, baby

Blow it out your ass

I love seeing prototype and prerelease builds leak. I can only hope the binders full of discs at Harmonix follow that same fate some day in the future.

This would undoubtedly have been more fun to play than the real DNF.

What's a safe way to try this? DOSBox?

Through your browser, it's playable using this Archive link:

https://archive.org/details/duke-nukem-forever-1996-side-scr...

Looks very Robocop vs Terminator!

"I can't believe these fucking leaks

Also here's a link for it that will never expire"

uuuh ok

Does it have LAN multiplayer? Please say it has...

Now we need a leak of Flash Player source code :)

We meet again, Doktor Jones.

Duke Nukem Forever, the non-side scroller but released version, was the reason I stopped pre-ordering games. What a waste of money

It's funny how Bulletstorm with Duke Nukem in it is a better Duke game than the DNF we got.

We got a better game out of the Build Engine (Ion Fury) than we did from DNF.

You know you cared about computers in the 80s/90s if you're drawn to Duke Nukem headlines

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