Proto:Daikatana (PC)/Pre-Alpha/Levels

Levels
The pre-alpha comes with two levels; E1M3 and E2M3.

E1M3
The pre-alpha E1M3 is a prison like the final's E1M3, but that's where the similarities end. Instead of being a mess of colored hallways with the occasional prison cell, the map is divided into four cell blocks, an Inmater bay and a teleport room\shower.

Start
E1M3 starts in an area that has a room to on the left side and the end of the hall contains a gate. The gate can be opened by hitting a switch inside the room.

The room contains a switch and several items; a pair of Jetboots (cannot be picked up), Plasteel Armor, a Health Field Cannister (sic), Oxylungs and a box of Ion Blaster ammo. A switch inside the room can be used and will open the gate.

After the gate is a cellblock with an Inmater and a two prisoners inside cells. Past the cellblock is the area that connects the rest of the map.

Hub
The Hub connects the Cellblocks, the focus of the map, together. The opposite end of the Start cellblock is the entrance to Cellblock 2, but there is a gate in front of it. To the right of Cellblock 2's door is a hallway that leads to Cellblock 1. To the left is a hallway with three cells and an Inmater. Past the cellblock is a path on the right that has a large “SLAMMCO” sign on it, while going forward will lead to the Inmater Bay, but the door is closed when you first see it. Shooting the center of the SLAMMCo sign will cause it to explode, but the pieces of wall released by the explosion can kill you if you touch or are crushed by them while they're in motion. Past the sign is a switch that, when used, opens the Inmater Bay's door.

Past the sign is a hall that leads to Cellblocks 3 and 4 and a Roboskeet. Cellblock 3 must be opened by hitting a switch in Cellblock 2, but Cellblock 4's door can be opened by using the “use” key on it.

Cellblock 1
Cellblock 1 contains two levels of cells. The top floor contains a hallway near the slope that connects the two blocks that leads to a switch that opens Cellblock 2's door, which also opens up a hallway to the left of the door that has an Inmater in it. The bottom cells contains a cell that has a very primitive bed, which is the only one seen in the entire map. Another cell contains a wall that can be blown up, revealing an entrance to the Sewer portion of the map, but the cell can only be entered by using a teleport that will be described later.

Cellblock 2
Cellblock 2's primary landmark is the large cluster of cells in the middle of the main room. There are two observation areas on each end of the main room. On the other side and end of where the player enters Cellblock 3 is an entrance to a small room. The small room contains an entrance to an observation room, a door to the right of the stairs and an entrance to the Sewers past the door (this opens up after the player has traveled through the Sewers). The room to the right contains an Inmater and a path that leads to the switch that opens up Cellbock 3's door. Beyond the switch is an catwalk that overlooks the Sewers, but it is impossible to jump down into it.

Cellblock 3
Beyond Cellblock 3's gate is a door with a switch nearby. Press the switch in order to open the door and enter Cellblock 3.

Cellblock 3 is an enormous cellblock and is easily the largest room in the entire map. It consists of two sets of cellblocks in the middle and bottom of the room, a tower with a spinning top, an elevator in the tower that leads to the middle cellblock, two Inmaters in the middle cellblock and an inactive Thunderskeet hovering above the tower. There is a stairway that leads to the bottom of the cellblock.

The bottom of Cellblock 3 has routes to two areas, the Teleport Room and a small room with two red drills. Underneath the staircase is a Health Kit; the only one in the prototype.

Cellblock 4
Cellbock 4 starts off as a room with a staircase on the right side and a door on the left side. The right staircase leads to a room that has a large meatgrinder with a cart of meat on one of the sides. A metal staircase leads to the top of the meatgrinder, where the player can jump into it. There are moving blades inside the meatgrinder, but they don't hurt you. The only way to die inside the meatgrinder is to position yourself so that the game counts your position as “crushable” and kills you.

Teleport Room
The Teleport Room can be accessed from Cellblock 3.It contains what appears to be a basic shower room with two prisoners and an Inmater. To the left of the back of the room is the actual teleport room.

The actual Teleport Room is a square room with two teleports on each side. The left teleport has warps to Blocks 1 and 2, while the right side has warps to Blocks 3 and 4. Block 1 warps to the cell in Cellblock 1 that leads to the Sewers, Cellbock 2 leads to an empty cell in Cellblock 2, Cellblock 3 teleports the player under one of the drills in Cellbock 3's ground level and Cellblock 4 teleports the player so that they fall into Cellblock 4's meat grinder.

Inmater Bay
The Inmater Bay is a large, square-shaped room with cube-shaped openings around scattered around the map. There are two Inmaters in the boxes and a Thunderskeet. The design seems to resemble a repair bay for the Inmaters. In the upper-right corner are what appears to be two doors, but they don't do anything when you use the “use” option on them. On the left side of the room is a larger version of the doors used to block off access to the Cellblocks. On the upper-left corner is a switch that opens the gate. The gate leads to a door that automatically opens when you approach it, but there is only an empty room beyond the door. Obviously, there's supposed to be something else beyond it, but it wasn't designed when the pre-alpha was made.

Sewers
The Sewers can be accessed by jumping into the Cellblock 1 teleport in the Teleport Room. Destroying the hole in the cell you teleport into will open a path, but like the SLAMMCO destroyable wall, the chunks from the wall can kill you if you touch them.

Travelling through the passage created by blowing the hole open leads to the Sewers. Above the end of the hole's path is what appears to be what is designed to be a secret area, as it is off the beaten path and there are no indications to its existence. The secret can be accessed by jumping on the rocks to the left of where the path ends and following them to the top of the hole's exit, then going through the

The actual Sewer is pretty straightforward. Just past the hole's exit is a Sludgeminion that is out of sight because it is tucked in a corner. Past him is a wall with a crack in it. Shooting it a few times will cause it to explode into rock chunks, revealing a new path. Beyond the crack is the catwalk that overlooks the Sewer just past the switch that opens up Cellblock 3.

The area past the crack splits into two paths; forward and right. The right path has a Sludgeminion at the very start of it, and the forward path has a Sludgeminion in the middle of it. Both paths lead to the upper-right corner, which has a metal hallway in it. Getting to the end of the path will have a well automatically open up when you get close to it, which reveals a Plasteel Armor. When the armor is grabbed, the wall behind it will open and reveal an area near the stairs in Cellblock 2.

Similarities with the final E1M3
The main similarity the pre-alpha E1M3 has with the final one is the prison cell design. While the shape of the door has changed between the pre-alpha, the idea of a prison cell with a force field protecting it an some sort of computer readout of the prisoner above the cell door is the same between the pre-alpha and the final.

The pre-alpha also has a very rough draft of the final's torture chamber (the red drill room at the bottom of Cellblock 3) and the idea of people being sliced up into meat (Cellblock 4).

E2M3
The pre-alpha E2M3 is a very, very early version of the final E2M3c. It contains what would become the large house that takes up most of the final level and the towers from near the end of E2M3c. It also contains a dungeon section not seen in the final version's E2M3.

It appears to have a glitch regarding the skybox; when you spawn in for the first time, the skybox will be pure white, but if you die and restart the map afterwards, the skybox will be fixed.

House
The player spawns in a square room with a staircase in it. The end of staircase leads to a large room with a Centurion in front of you, a Goldensoul, Megashield and what appears to be an Antidote in the left-middle of the room, a door to the outside area to the outside area to the right of the middle and a staircase in the back.

The staircase leads to the second floor, which has a walkway that spans the entire area, a window on one of the walls in the center that leads outside, and a hallway to the left of the top of the staircase. The hallway leads to a large room that has pillars and a strange, textureless pool thing that has on the left side of the middle of the area. At the left side of the end of the room is another hallway. It leads to a very underdetailed room with a water pool in the middle of it. The player can jump in it, but there is nothing to do.

Outside
The outside area has a path that leads to the ends of the map. As soon as you come out, you will be attacked by a Griffon on the left and a Centurion on the right.

The left path leads to a dead end, but there is an opening near a bend that leads to the Dungeon area. The right path leads to a fork that leads to a dead end on the left or the towers on the right. On the left side of the pre-fork right path is a direct path to the dungeon on the left and the only body of water the player can jump in without cheats in the entire pre-alpha on the right.

The towers are a pair of twin towers with a gate that is just past them and two pillars before them. There is a small set of stairs near the towers that let the player walk around the towers, but this doesn't lead to anything.

Dungeon
There are two entrances to the Dungeon; one from the left path and one to the right path. The right path takes the player directly to the Dungeon entrance, while the left entrance has a path that leads to the Dungeon entrance. The left path itself splits into two paths that lead to the dungeon. The direct path is a boring and has nothing special, while the second one is a bit more interesting; it takes the player above the wall that is across the house and past a very primitive “ladder” (actually a series of small juts from the wall the player jumps on).

The actual Dungeon area starts off as a room with a staircase going down. After going down the stairs, the player will be in a tan-colored room with a coal-black floor. Walking in the alcove caused by the shape of the staircase will cause the stairs to go upward, revealing a switch, and the floor to open up to another floor with holes you can see through that show water. Running into the switch will cause a part of the center floor to open. Jumping inside will cause the player to hit a floor right before they hit the water, which then forms into a cage.

After a few seconds, the cage's floor will collapse and allow the player to explore the water. There is a passage that leads to a staircase and a large door made out of the coal-black texture mentioned earlier. Looking behind when the door is reached will reveal a cage door with two Skeletons in it. If the player uses the “use” option on the door, it will very slowly start to open. When the door hits certain points, the cage door on the other side will go to the left a certain distance, slowly giving the Skeletons enough room to escape and attack the player. This trap usually doesn't work because if the player stays near the door, they will be out of the Skeleton's aggro range. Once the door opens, it will reveal a path that leads to a dead end.

Of note is that the stairs that go up in the first room lead to what appears to be a primitive secret room if the player noclips back into the room the stairs used to lead to. It is a small room that has an altar with some wooden thing on top of it.

Similarities with the final E2M3
Surprisingly, the pre-alpha E2M3 contains a lot of similarities with E2M3c, the last level in the final's E2M3, both conceptually and architecturally.

The concept similarities come from the pre-alpha E2M3 and the final E2M3c sharing a similar layout; start off in a mansion, go through it and go into an outside area with a pair of towers. However, the final's has an end, while the pre-alpha's doesn't.

The more interesting of the two similarities is the architecture ones. The first of them is in the mansion. The main hall of the mansion is essentially a widened version of the staircase in the pre-alpha's house. The second floor is also very similar to the pre-alpha's; the main difference being that the window outdoor has been replaced by a room not seen in the pre-alpha. The second floor has more architexture that is from the pre-alpha; the left room in the second floor in the final's E2M3c's is a reskinned version of the first room in the pre-alpha E2M3 with items and enemies in it, but the textureless thing in the left-center of the room has been turned into a bed. The second one is is the towers near the end of E2M3c; they have the exact same design that the pre-alpha E2M3's towers do, but there is a walkway that connects the two towers, as the final's towers are to be traversed by the player, while the pre-alpha towers are just for decoration, a few ladders to let the player scale the walls and semi-hidden items near the “hidden” sides of the towers.