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    Early Alpha/Beta/demo versions

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    original machines material
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    • A
      Aquarillis
      last edited by

      That was some promotional material I discovered when I was a kid. I scanned that YEARS ago.

      PisarzP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • PisarzP
        Pisarz @Aquarillis
        last edited by

        @Aquarillis
        That was you!? AWESOME!
        Well, it seems that the case is solved. Now we know its origin. Yet, I know that this might be too much to ask but, do you still have it?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • A
          Aquarillis
          last edited by

          Yes I still have it; I can dig it up next time I'm in town. It's part of a pamphlet that has other games advertised in it.

          PisarzP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • PisarzP
            Pisarz @Aquarillis
            last edited by

            @Aquarillis said:

            Yes I still have it; I can dig it up next time I'm in town. It's part of a pamphlet that has other games advertised in it.

            Thank you! It would be nice to recover a piece of this game's history. We could even make a Wiki!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Mad ReaperM
              Mad Reaper
              last edited by

              i think i still have the demo on my old pc i deletet it sure but i can recover them them back ! ^^
              i allrady recoverd so much datas thats is no problem is see what i can do guys.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • L
                lew
                last edited by lew

                Hi,

                I came here looking for a game from my childhood

                I believe that:
                a) It was an early demo I was playing as a child
                b) I still have that disc at my parent's house

                I'm not really sure why the f- it was even a thing but I came into possession of it sometime around 2003 by buing a brand-new copy of a niche Polish gaming magazine, or so I thought...

                After I removed the foil I noticed some things:

                1. The thick "magazine" was two-pages long with a cardboard inside
                2. Inside of the cardboard there were 8 (!) CDs
                3. All of them were from some german gaming magazine dated back to '97-'99
                4. None of them, including those metioned on the cover were full versions

                Other than the Machines i remember playing Half Life 1 (also a demo of a beta version, I think).

                I'm worried that ~20-year old disc can be hard if not impossible to read but even if so - I'm gonna keep you updated.
                And of course I won't be able to - I can send it by post to anyone willing to perform data recovery on their own.

                EDIT: I've just found the post Pisarz was talking about:
                https://www.gry-online.pl/S043.asp?ID=11665448
                Yeah, it is the same demo, the person who wrote it also had it from this shady "gaming magazine". :'D

                BTW. I think this topic should be renamed to "Early Alpha/Beta/demo versions" ^^

                PisarzP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • PisarzP
                  Pisarz @lew
                  last edited by

                  @lew

                  BTW. I think this topic should be renamed to "Early Alpha/Beta/demo versions" ^^

                  Done!

                  We currently have no information about this material, except @Aquarillis who said that still has some promotional material that was scanned a long time ago. The rest is scattered in this forum.

                  The forum is not dead, but its activity is irregular.

                  I don`t have the knowledge to manipulate the data from your disk, but some of us might be able to (@Judas @bilal @M123 @Hayden).

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • L
                    lew
                    last edited by lew

                    A quick update.

                    The good news is I haven't forgot about this thing. ;)
                    The bad news is - I haven't found (yed) the disc I was talking about.

                    Buuut, I stumbled upon other disc from the same issue of this gaming "magaine":
                    wfw_cds.jpg
                    I think (and hope!) that the disc with the demo is still somewhere at my parent's house. I'm gonna keep looking. :)

                    According to the PCGames website Machines demo was present on the disc of the 05/1999 issue:
                    http://www.pcgamesdatabase.de/pcgames.php?mag=pcgames&vol=05/1999#pcgames

                    http://www.kultcds.com/index.php?id=pcgames&lang=en
                    PCG0599.jpg

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • L
                      lew
                      last edited by lew

                      Another update.

                      I asked Moritz, the administrator of the Kult Cover Disks and he not only answered, but to my amazment - attached not one but three (!) versions of the demo! :D

                      "I happen to have a few copies of PC Games 05/99 on my shelf. I quickly checked and found that is particular demo is also featured on PC Player 06/99 B and GameStar 06/99 Bonus CD. Its cab file is dated to 1999-02-23. A more common demo dated to 1999-01-14 can be found on the following CDs:
                      PC Fun CD 49_2
                      PC Action 04/99
                      CDA (35) 04/99
                      Gambler (28) 04/99A
                      Generation 4 CD 121
                      Generation 4 CD 139_1
                      The Games Machine #060
                      Reset #24 04/99
                      Excalibur 69
                      GameStar CZ 04/99 CD1
                      Level 03/99
                      Online Today 07/99
                      Computer Games Strategy Plus #102

                      Additionally, there's a very rare version from 1999-02-19 that can be found on PC Gamer (Italian) CD #041 B.

                      Moritz"

                      For download go to Demo versions (contains early / beta stuff) topic.

                      :D

                      M123M 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • PisarzP
                        Pisarz
                        last edited by

                        @lew This is excellent! Great news indeed! As soon as I can I'll see if it works. Thank you :)

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • M123M
                          M123 @lew
                          last edited by

                          @lew Nice, thanks lew (and Moritz!).

                          If the demo installers behave similarly to the one for the released game, they might only work reliably on Windows XP / earlier.

                          L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • L
                            lew @M123
                            last edited by

                            @M123 They are but you can always use UniExtract unpack the archives without using the installer. :)
                            https://www.legroom.net/software/uniextract (older version - 1.6.1) or https://github.com/Bioruebe/UniExtract2 (new version 2.0)

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • PisarzP
                              Pisarz
                              last edited by

                              Not lucky :(
                              My PC had to be repaired, so I probably have to start from zero installing certain things that I had installed for the final game.

                              L 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • L
                                lew @Pisarz
                                last edited by

                                @Pisarz any luck? :)

                                PisarzP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • PisarzP
                                  Pisarz @lew
                                  last edited by

                                  @lew Hi!
                                  I recently had many issues to handle (moved to another apartment, etc.). Yet, I managed to recover all the files from my PC, and the game (final product, not the demos) works OK :)

                                  I'll see what I can do. Sorry for the delay.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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