Proto:Duke Nukem 3D/v0.99 Beta

A leaked build of the shareware demo marked Version 0.99 snuck out onto the internet back in the day. The included readme shows that it was intended for a magazine for previews. Compiled on January 4th, 1996, the game is in a near final state, but it still has many differences.



General Changes
There are five difficulties instead of four. The difficulty names are temporary and Duke Nukem does not speak when selecting a level.

Although the limitations are similar to the final shareware version, there is no indication of this in the beta.

The level fanfare is missing in this beta.

Duke also does not scream when receiving severe damage.

There is also somewhat less blood visible on the enemies.

A flamethrower is present in this beta, but it has already been altered to become the freezethrower. The messages for this power-up still remain unchanged.

The Pipebombs and RPGs are stronger in the final (According to the user.con file, the beta has 120 and the final has 140.)

The Chaingun is also stronger to a lesser extent (The user.con file has a strength of 5 for the beta and 9 for the final.)

Weirdly, the bosses were defined as being much weaker in the beta.

Many of the messages are also different:

Last and most certainly least, the game does not have any demos included while you are in the menu.

Enemies
Note that it requires some fiddling around with the game's data in order to be able to interact with some of the enemies.

Sentry Drones worked more like Lost Souls from Doom; there was some concept artwork showing an enemy that was a flying lizard head with a rocket attached to it's neck. Considering that the Sentry drone in the beta drips what appears to be blood and also considering the hissing sound it makes even in the final version, it is possible that the sentry drone was a last minute replacement. Unfortunately no sprite art is actually available for it so it's necessary to add placeholders.

Enforcers carried Flamethrowers instead of the machine gun. It is possible to catch on fire which in turn causes the "YOU'RE BURNING!" message to appear.

The organic turret works for the most part. It spits acid similarly to the Enforcers in Duke 1.3D. It seems to be quite buggy, so they may have already started to abandon it.

Also present in the code, there are references to a snake enemy. It was reworked into the exploding robotic drone enemy. According to GAME.CON, it slithered around dripping venom(spawning WATERDRIP entities) and spat acid at you like the Lizardmen, only using the hitscan-based SHOTSPARK entity instead of a physical projectile. When it was defeated it exploded into gibs. Evidently, it was slated to be a lower-middle tier enemy, as its health is higher than a Trooper's, but lower than a Pigcop's. It's possible it was cut due to multiple factors such as game balance, lack of originality/flying enemies, and the enemy not fitting well with the game's atmosphere.

Different Level Names
The level names are very different in this build. They mostly seem to be placeholders.

Episode 2 is called Cosmic Wasteland

Episode 3 is called Shut Down At Ground Zero.

definelevelname 0 0 E1L1.map 02:00 HOLLYWOOD HOLOCAUST definelevelname 0 1 E1L2.map 01:40 MEAN STREETS definelevelname 0 2 E1L3.map 02:45 DEATH ROW definelevelname 0 3 E1L4.map 01:10 TOXIC BEACH HEAD definelevelname 0 4 E1L5.map 01:40 INTO THE ABYSS definelevelname 0 5 E1L6.map 02:10 BONUS LEVEL: SPACEPORT 2000 definelevelname 0 6 E1L7.map 01:50 BLANK definelevelname 0 7 E1L8.map 01:15 BLANK

definelevelname 1 0 E2L1.map 00:00 MOONBASE 1 definelevelname 1 1 E2L2.map 00:00 MOONBASE 2 definelevelname 1 2 E2L3.map 00:00 MOONBASE 3 definelevelname 1 3 E2L4.map 00:00 SPACE STATION 1 definelevelname 1 4 E2L5.map 00:00 SPACE STATION 2 definelevelname 1 5 E2L6.map 00:00 POWER STATION definelevelname 1 6 E2L7.map 00:00 BOSS 2 definelevelname 1 7 E2L8.map 00:00 SECRET 1 definelevelname 1 8 E2L9.map 00:00 SECRET 2

definelevelname 2 0 E3L1.map 00:00 APOGEE ARMS HOTEL definelevelname 2 1 E3L2.map 00:00 S.P.E.R.M. BANK definelevelname 2 2 E3L3.map 00:00 SEWAGE COMPANY definelevelname 2 3 E3L4.map 00:00 THE SEWERS BELOW definelevelname 2 4 E3L5.map 00:00 RTD SUBWAY definelevelname 2 5 E3L6.map 00:00 POSTAL definelevelname 2 6 E3L7.map 00:00 SANTA MONICA PIER definelevelname 2 7 E3L8.map 00:00 ALIEN definelevelname 2 8 E3L9.map 00:00 EXTRA 3 9

definelevelname 3 0 E4L1.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 1 definelevelname 3 1 E4L2.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 2 definelevelname 3 2 E4L3.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 3 definelevelname 3 3 E4L4.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 4 definelevelname 3 4 E4L5.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 5 definelevelname 3 5 E4L6.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 6 definelevelname 3 6 E4L7.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 7 definelevelname 3 7 E4L8.map 00:00 GONETLEVEL 8 definelevelname 3 8 E4L9.map 00:00 USER FILE

Seems Hotel Hell was E3L1 and that perhaps maps based off E2L1(M1.MAP) and E2L2(M2.MAP) from LameDuke were to make an appearance as well.

The Atomic Edition's "Going Postal" appears to have been slated to be E3L6. Rabid Transit appears a level earlier(E3L5 instead of E3L6), and Bank Roll retained it's L2 spot. Anyone's guess as to what Santa Monica Pier was, and "ALIEN" seems to be a placeholder. Episode 2, in fact, is entirely placeholders at this stage. The two sewer levels referenced are likely cut levels that were made separately available by Levelord after the games' release. Should be interesting to note that each episode was nine levels at this point instead of up to 11 in the final.

Different Sprites
Every single piece of art unique to this version of the game can be seen at Hendricks266's Site. Since this material is in draft form and needs to be finalized (i.e. a table with comparisons to the final rather than just the pre-final art), this link will stay here for the time being.

The crosshair was initially much bigger, but the developers decided to shrink it down for whatever reason.

The scuba gear took up the entire screen in the beta, making it a bit difficult to see anything on the sides. This was resolved by having Duke only put on the scuba tank.

Different Backgrounds
The city background is a bit messy and incomplete at this point in development as the rightmost side is made out of lazily copy-and-pasted artwork. There is an inverted N and a vaguely visibly "Union 0" that got removed from the background in the final version.

This starry background actually had an ocean visible, but it was edited out in the final version.

Different Help Screens
The backstory for this game has yet to be placed in.

The help screen was much more rudimentary, contained non-existent key bindings and was likely a holdover from an earlier build. There also were no controls for the multiplayer mode nor the map mode... nor the items. Thankfully, this was fixed in the final version.

Red Light District/Mean Streets
The switches that destroy a building are out in the open.

Toxic Dump/Toxic Beach Head
You start off in a completely different area from the final.

Launch Facility/Bonus Level: Spaceport 2000
There is an extra path around the slime pool at the start of the level, that leads to the same forcefield as the original path

Changed sounds
This Remote Ridicule taunt was cut from the full game, and replaced with, for some odd reason, Duke's "screaming while falling to death" sound.

A beeping sound followed by wind. Purpose unknown. A short buzzing sound. A choking sound. Due to the wet dripping at the start, it could have been meant for Duke drowning. A drinking sound, probably meant to play when Duke drank from the health-replenishing water sources. A low-quality sound of glass breaking.

Early soundclips
These sound clips differ from the finals only in sound volume and quality : Hehehe, what a mess. Bitchin' ! That's one doomed space marine. Ambient sound. Duke gasping for air. Come get some ! Holy cow ! Holy shit ! Damn, I'm good. Hm, don't have time to play with myself. What, there's only one of you ? Yeah, piece o'cake. Who wants some ?