Starship Titanic

Starship Titanic
Also known as: Raumschiff Titanic (DE) Developer: The Digital Village Publisher: Simon & Schuster Platforms: Windows, Mac OS Classic Released in US: April 2, 1998 Released in EU: February 10, 1998 This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused code. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused objects. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused items. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article

What's going on here? I'm not writing a wiki description! I'm a parrot, not a description writer! I'm not some Ash-throated Flycatcher you can get to write some description! You want a description you go and ask a Band-Rumped Storm-Petrel! You go and ask an Atlantic Puffin. They'll knock off a description for you, an Atlantic Puffin will, for just half a sardine. I'm a parrot, you hear, a parrot! I don't do this stuff!

Alright, give us a nut and I'll do it...

To do: There is contention on the release date for the PC version. Some YouTube playthroughs show the Missive-O-Mat with a slightly different UI. Is this a version difference? The game had a presence for at least two years of E3, '97 and '98. No research has yet been conducted on this. There is apparently a French version of the game published by Océlo which one source references having "major" executable changes. This version should be researched.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Unused Audio Over 1,760 files worth of unused sounds, voice clips, and music taken directly from the game's files.

Unused Videos Unused video files, clips, or frames.

Unused Images Unused image files and node backgrounds.

Unused Strings Unused text in the game executable and game installer.

Unused Rooms

To do: These rooms are tested in the ScummVM port only (with some references to room data in the original game, such as from deflated save files). Figure out a way to warp to rooms in the original and prototype versions for more appropriate testing.

There are a number of rooms that go unused, though seemingly no assets for any of them (aside from the 'cheat room'). Most of them are lacking nodes and considered invalid to the game.

For some reason, the room listings start at 2 and end at 57. There seems to be no room 1.

Room num	Internal Room Name	Resource Key Image	Other Notes
25	Please delete at earliest opportunity	?	Has no nodes.
29	pls delete at earliest opportunity	?	Has no nodes.
40	TestRoom - Adam	Empty	Has 1 node with four directions (N, E, S, W). All nodes EXCEPT for North are valid. They are all blank or missing assets, and the SOUTH node plays the credits theme, while the EAST and WEST are quiet. All have movement click targets along the left and right side of the screen that change your cursor, but clicking them either does nothing or crashes the game. Clicking on anything other then those movement nodes sometimes fades out the music. Fentible and Krage may not be summoned here. Physically, you would have been able to turn left or right on the spot.
41	Please delete at earliest opportunity	Empty	Has no nodes. Rooms 41 and 40 are placed right between the Creators Chamber and its duplicate "On" variant (rooms 39 and 42 respectively), which may indicate relation.
50	HiddenRoom	Empty	Has no nodes. May have a related function called "findHiddenRoom", and "petMoveToHiddenRoom". Some references elsewhere in code suggest certain items get stored here so as to be hidden from the playfield.
51	Please delete yarda yarda	?	Has no nodes.
54	NoName	Empty	Has no nodes. Curiously, in the ScummVM port, this seems to be where the "locate item" function identifies items that the player currently has in their PET to be, so this room may function as a sort of inventory? As an actual room, however, it's unused. "MailMan" also references this room.
56	Cheat Room	z#805.tga and z#804.tga	Has two nodes, one for level select ("Cheat Rooms View"), one for item select ("Objects View").
57	Canal	Empty	You thought this was used, didn't you? But in fact, the end of the Grand Axial Canal First Class is internally called Arboretum despite the fact you can't go past the gate that leads to the actual arboretum. This unused 'Canal' room may therefore be referring to the Second Class canal, which is weirdly off-limits at all times regardless of your class in the final game. It appears to be the very last room in the game, so it's probable it was cut due to time constraints, given the game was behind schedule. It has no nodes, and it doesn't look like much, if any, work was done. The 397 Beta prototype does not appear to have this room, or at least the RoomXX.txt files cap at Room56.txt.

To do: Examine the rest of the room definitions in the default newgame save file for further references to missing or unused rooms.

The following rooms do not exist in the game data, but are referenced elsewhere (and are missing in general in the sequential level order):

Room num	Notes
32	Room does not exist. The Embarkation Lobby has an unused exit to this room in addition to the exits for the Service Elevator and the Top of the Well. The Embarkation Lobby exit data to this room is: "_EXIT,2,3,N,32,3,N", which appears to be the same as the exit data for moving from the Embarkation Lobby to the Top of the Well, except with room 32 in place of room 36.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Dialogue Boxes

There is no way to access these dialogue boxes in-game.

About Window

Unfinished Window

Timeout Window

Macintosh Dialogue

In the Macintosh application, there's an assertion dialogue at DLOG 130.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Version Differences

To do: Although I wrote this with certainty, it was long enough ago that I wish to re-fact-check certain statements such as how Fentible's animations play in the German or Mac versions. The French version has not yet been examined. What's going on in the German version Leovinus Speech video file? There are two overlapping dubs, I think? In-universe translation thing? I can't hear the background language properly.

German Release

This build has the version number 1.00.42d, making it one engine revision later than the final English patch, which was 1.00.42c.

• The DoorBot plays a different animation before explaining the inventory to you. Instead of awkwardly gesturing to the right twice, he now plays his rolling eyes animation before continuing. He also appears to play this animation much more frequently when idle.
• Instead of translating every instance of English text within pre-rendered scenes of the game, most instances were changed to Blerontinian, the language of the planet the Titanic was launched from. To accommodate this, a new PET menu was added which automatically translates the on-screen Blerontinian to German. This is not universal, for instance the magazine winner video on the TV displays in German from the start, as does the pedestal in the Embarkation Lobby. This change was likely made to make future alternate language releases easier.
• The text defining your current PET page has a more pronounced, wider background.
• This version seems to default to half Music volume and slightly less Parrot volume.
• Two of the still image renders used during Titania's speech have been substituted with brand new renders better matching the portion of Titania's speech that they are displayed on.

English Version	German Version

English Version	German Version

• Douglas Adams' television Easter egg at the start of the game was rerecorded with Douglas speaking in German:

English Version	German Version

• The introduction cinematic was re-rendered with the new localized game title. The pacing also seems slightly different.

English Version	German Version

Macintosh Release

To do: Check if the Macintosh version has the same Titania speech ending change that the German version does.

This build has the version number 1.00.42mc.

• There is a unique icon for the installer, seen directly above.
• As with the German version, the Doorbot has better chosen animations for the inventory tutorial sequence, and plays his eye rolling animation much more frequently when idle.
• The BellBot occasionally gets stuck mid-animation.
• There is a new Now Loading screen before a game loads.
• The game can now be played in windowed mode.
• Using function keys to switch between PET pages appears to have been removed.
• The mouse cursor moves at a smoother frame rate then in the Windows version.
• Unlike the Windows version, you can start the game without a valid audio configuration, however doing so will cause dialogue and animations to immediately end upon starting.
• Uses a slightly smoother in-game font.
• Pretty much every environment has had their sound configurations altered, with much more dramatic positional audio and reverb effects (arguably too dramatic), assuming your Mac OS extensions are functioning properly.

Easter Eggs

DoorBot "EVIL TWIN"

If you have at least one save file, launching the game will open a restore dialogue. On this dialogue, right click one of the DoorBot's eyes and his portrait will be replaced with this. The file name for this portrait is "EVILTWIN.BMP".

BarBot's Bell Ballad

Rarely, the BarBot's Bell will play its chime at different pitches with each press, until it breaks. It's unknown if there's a specific condition to get this, but the ScummVM port seems to do this much more frequently.

Hitchhiker's Text Files

Each of the three game discs has a text file at root, each containing a different word. Their file names are in bold below; they have no extensions.

The first three may be used to identify which disc is which.

STDisk1

42

STDisk2

Zaphod

STDisk3

So long and thanks for all the cash

There are more in the Assets folder of the game. They probably relate to the archives also stored in the Assets folder across each disc, (CDIDa and a.st on disc 1, CDIDb and b.st on disc 2, and CDIDc and c.st on disk 3, with CDIDz and z.st being on all discs). There is no d.st, but there are dialogue archives ending in .dlg

CDIDa

Arthur

CDIDb

Ford

CDIDc

Trillian

CDIDd

Fenchurch

CDIDz

Marvin

HTML Hidden Comments

Two HTML files are included in the game's directory with secret messages in each when you view the source for them.

merc.html

<!--

Oh, very clever. View source. See all the funny hidden stuff.
Look, nobody likes a smartass.

-->

ST on the Internet.html

<!--

Please visit the Starship Titanic Website 'cos it has lots of useful
stuff on it and is funny and is regularly updated and is generally 
very fabby.

Digital Village people who made the website get made:

Alison Humphrey produced it in her inimitable Canadian fashion, then
	buggered off back to Canada to look after the shop.
	(www.threewolves.com)
Cynthia Miall made the graphics and text with her frizzy hair, while
	wondering when the new Tarantino movie would be out.
Rob Hegeman provided groovy Californian art direction and typography
	and general Potatoshop wizardry.
Yoram "yoz" Grahame did lots of codey stuff, continually yelling good
	things about Perl and bad things about Netscape table rendering.
	He got in late and sneezed a lot. (www.yoz.com)
Claudio Calvelli ate lots of chocolate and used Linux to keep our
	funky packets of IP love flowing. Don't mention sh/dd.
	(www.assurdo.com)
Michael Bywater was a grumpy old curmudgeon who wove jolly and "zany"
	comedy out of Catholic/Jewish guilt and pagan perversion.
	He will boil and burn in hell, listen to me, I am the Pope.
Oscar Chichoni and Isabel Molina gave us lots of art deco ideas and
	didn't know what we were talking about.
Lisa Hinton wandered off to the BBC. COME BAAAACK! We miss you!
Richard Creasey, Richard Harris and Douglas Adams pointed, nodded,
	admired and scribbled on their Newtons.
	(www.sekhmet.com, www.diversity.org, dna.tdv.com (coming soon))
Robbie Stamp patted people on the back lots and pulled together
	serious cash for us. What a star.
Kathy Burslem cooked the books, understood taxes and cried "WHYYEEE?"
	(She also gave me a lovely big jar of Skippy that I had to take
	home 'cos people kept picking it up for no apparent reason)
Emma "Tank Spice" Westecott kept nagging me for massages. Oh, and she
	produced the game. (www.shenerd.com)
Tim Browse, Adam Shaikh and Rik Heywood kept nagging for games of
	Carmageddon. Oh, and they programmed the game. (www.browse.net,
	www.rik.org)
Sean Solle programmed in a dressing gown and cycling helmet. He kept us
	amused with bizarre theories and toy stories. (www.solle.net)
Jason Williams, Mike Kenny, Richard Millican and Renata Henkes kept
	walking through our office with plates stacked high with bread.
	I've no idea what they were doing.
Neil Richards wrote lots of funny stuff too, such as the rules of Nib,
	but could he pick up his MSN mail? Could he arse.
John Attard and Darren Blencowe worked their Voodoo magic and game up
	with some nice graphics for the "intranet". (www.voodoo-animation.com)
Berni Doyle, Gillian Best, Nikki Bridgman, Adrian Day, Guy Lafayette,
	Paul Sharling, Graeme Shepherd and Mark Wise did lots of graphic
	wizardry.
Dr Jack Kreindler lugged his Archie in and diagnosed us as having an
	inflamed Debabelizer.
Tessa Glover, Francine Verchin and Sheila O'Rourke tested seven shades
	of crap out of the game. (And Francine had a baby!)
Sophie Astin and Neil James kept things hunky-dory in the office and
	partied in a buck-wild style out of it.
Ian Stewart rattled off retail rocket science. I once saw him in a
	wrinkled suit. Once. (www.xola.com)
Mary Glanville swanned around to various operas and flirted with Charles
	Simonyi, and we miss her.
Robert extracted our stresses regularly with his massage table.
.... and everyone I've missed.

The software that we used to make the website:
	Intel Linux, LinuxPPC and MKLinux
	Perl
	Apache
	MySQL
	Minivend
	GoLive CyberStudio
	Macromedia Dreamweaver
	BBedit
	Allaire Homesite
	GNU Emacs & vi
	Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
	RealEncoder
	SoundEdit
	Debabelizer (sorry Jack)
	The Slightly Paranoid Mail Server

Nuff respec:
	Everyone who registered on the website
	Everyone who got the joke with the password mail (and there were SO many
		who didn't)
	Everyone who chose Frogga mundanis (17.29%)
	Everyone who buys merchandise off us (please do that)
	Ken "KevinSteveDave" Gordon and the rest @ SSI
	Debbie "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat" Barham
	Netbanx.com
	Aztec (Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated)
	Haddock(.org)
	Archway to The Angel
	Classic Theatre, Toronto
	Cycling along the canal to Camden in the summertime
	Charlie Stross And His Everything Filter
	Stuart Bruce (atomiser.demon.co.uk)
	Food For Thought, Cranks, Pret A Manger, Cafe Nerro and Costa's
	O'Reilly And Associates (viva camel! viva koala! viva panther! viva shark!)
	slashdot.org
	Lamb for "Gorecki" and 187 Lockdown for "Gunman"
	All those lovely people at 1 Infinite Loop
	All those lovely people at 1 Microsoft Way
	the security guards at Bayham Street and the banjo player from Deliverance

We hope you enjoy our website as much as we enjoyed the buy-1-get-1-free Lindt
milk chocolate offer at Tesco Metro.

YG, Covent Garden, 18/3/98

stop adding stuff! stop!

-->