Doom SNES Prototypes

[lunarmeadow]

Prototypes, the holy grail of retro gaming/ROM hacking, what else do I have to say?
Oh yeah, how within this next week, the owner of the cartridge will be releasing a version of the Doom SNES prototypes, but information surrounding the build dates and differences from the final game are unknown at this time, and once the ROM is released I will not link to the download as it may be classified as warez, but once the owner releases the ROM I will try and look through the ROM and find a string potentially saying the build date.

If it has a debug menu, the Doom SNES hacking issue is over.

Potential differences from final:
-There may not be the black border around the game.
-There may be the 27 levels from PC (as even in the final game, the level index in the ROM goes up to 27, but those might just be placeholders)
-There might be a debug menu
-I can't think of many others.

Edit: The owner of the prototype says that the owner of the other prototype (latest known one) was willing to share the ROM dump with them, but communication stopped suddenly, but this might mean we may get to see 2 prototypes.

Edit 2: I have a feeling we will get the prototype between late-tuesday and mid-thursday, and I am getting excited.

[Job]

First post in a great thread. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. This is amazing to me and worth the wait.

[lunarmeadow]

Job said:

First post in a great thread. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. This is amazing to me and worth the wait.

No problem!

[betabox]

Job said:

First post in a great thread. Thanks for keeping us in the loop. This is amazing to me and worth the wait.

Just keep in mind that the list in the OP is nothing more than suggested possibilities. You probably know this already, but don't have high expectations.

[Job]

buttspit said:

Just keep in mind that the list in the OP is nothing more than suggested possibilities. You probably know this already, but don't have high expectations.

Oh, for sure. I'm expecting the worst but hoping for the best.

[Revenant]

While I'm definitely excited about the concept of any SNES game protos being released, the unfortunate fact is that there are quite a lot of SNES prototypes that are so close to a final release that the differences are often minor, if not trivial.

I wonder if it might be something more like the two SNES Wolf3D prototypes that have surfaced over the years:

https://tcrf.net/Proto:Wolfenstein_3D_(SNES)
http://dreamandfriends.com/2014/12/31/wolfenstein-3d-crossfire/

Nonetheless I'm interested in seeing these, regardless of content.

(Also, I'm an administrator of tcrf.net and we're generally very willing to host prototype versions of console games, if you or the person supplying the dump(s) want a reliable place for it.)

[lunarmeadow]

Revenant said:

While I'm definitely excited about the concept of any SNES game protos being released, the unfortunate fact is that there are quite a lot of SNES prototypes that are so close to a final release that the differences are often minor, if not trivial.

I wonder if it might be something more like the two SNES Wolf3D prototypes that have surfaced over the years:

https://tcrf.net/Proto:Wolfenstein_3D_(SNES)
http://dreamandfriends.com/2014/12/31/wolfenstein-3d-crossfire/

Nonetheless I'm interested in seeing these, regardless of content.

(Also, I'm an administrator of tcrf.net and we're generally very willing to host prototype versions of console games, if you or the person supplying the dump(s) want a reliable place for it.)

That is also the best part, because if it varies very little from the final and there is a debug menu, hacking the final version would be the same due to similar offsets, and the data can be found by copy and pasting the data traced down with the help of the debug menu in the find thing in the final ROM, and work off that.

Speaking of tcrf.net, I was the one who made the discovery of uncompiled asm code in the SPC RAM of SNES doom.

[Nuxius]

I'm taking it that this will be released in the usual circles then? Anyway, looking forward to trying it out.

[betabox]

There's not much to it. I skimmed through many of the maps and couldn't find anything out of place. TheLoneSurvivor is looking through in more detail.

I want to guess this was a press/review sample kind of thing, though don't know if they already got to that phase mid-June, as labelled on the board. Either way, pretty much most/all of the game was already done by this point it seems.

[Mattfrie1]

I think it'd be interesting to find out if the alterations made to the Japanese version were done in the prototype phase, or if they were done after the game was released in the US and Europe. According to the release dates on GameFAQs, the Japanese version was released 6 months after the American release, so I'm strongly suspecting the changes for the Japan release were done in that 6 month period. Anyone else have any more info on this?

[betabox]

I'm thinking that all difficulties for E2 and E3 were already implemented in the US (and Europe) release, they just disabled it. There's even a game genie code to bring back the difficulties for the episodes, but it didn't work when I tried. Then again, most of the gg codes for this game didn't even work half the time I used them on the SNES. Also supported by the last 2 posts in this thread if I'm not misinterpreting them: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1414139

Maybe the map indicators for enemies were done afterwards?

[Technician]

So... Where are they? The rom has been dumped. I want to give them a whirl first hand.

[Clonehunter]

I'd be curious to read a full report.

[lunarmeadow]

I noticed only 1 difference which is if your weapon runs out of ammo, it doesn't auto switch to another weapon (might do that in the final)

[Revenant]

Any news about actually releasing the prototype dump(s)?

[betabox]

It's pretty much out there, you just have to really look around.

Also,

TheLoneSurvivor said:

I noticed only 1 difference which is if your weapon runs out of ammo, it doesn't auto switch to another weapon (might do that in the final)

That happens in the final, too.

[Revenant]

Ok, the prototype ROM is different from the final USA release by a total of 55 bytes. Here's a breakdown:

The internal name is "DOOMPRF1951406". Assuming the last six characters are a build date, this copy is from 14 June 1995, a few months before the September US release (which is a pretty standard time between when a SNES game's development ends and when the game actually hits shelves). (edit: I guess this is basically also the same date that's on the board)

The internal company code is "5D" instead of "SD". Probably a typo.

The Super FX RAM size is stated to be 32 kb instead of 64 kb. Probably also a mistake, because the Super FX part of the game doesn't actually work (at all) with only 32 kb (and depending on your emulator this might have to be changed for the ROM to actually be playable).

The remaining 32 bytes come after the end of the final game's code and data, and are basically just whatever junk was already there on the EPROM beforehand.

So yes, this is basically just a final review copy.

[betabox]

Nice work, that was mad fast. It's too bad there's nothing early or interesting as far as the game data goes. There are a few more to go, so I'll update if/when I get another lead, so to speak.