May 18, 2011 Build

This is a sub-page of Proto:Alan Wake's American Nightmare (Windows).

This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.
Specifically:

Find a way to load the models and textures in the build, as the existing tools for converting Alan Wake assrets do not work for ones extracted from Xbox360 ports. There are several placeholder models and it is likely that some placeholder textures are preasent as well.

A prototype of Alan Wake: American Nightmare for the Xbox 360, which back then was called Alan Wake's Night Springs. Watch on YouTube

The build is able to be loaded, but only contains workable main menu, a debug menu and a small debug plane that can only be loaded through the debug menu. It seems that only the character movements and the weapons are functional, although the weapons have placeholder models and Alan's model is the same one from the first game.

The game has several placeholder videos for the main menu elements, and a lot of the soundfiles already implemented into the endigne. The most interesting of which are voice lines for an earlier draft of the story mode, with a lot of cut dialogues, different takes and story differences from the final game.

A channel named Play-The-Games.com uploaded a video where they run the prototype build and go through the menu and debhg level.

Placeholder Videos#

Located in the videos folder are several placeholder .bik files of the startup logos, the title screen and the main menu background. There is also one for the "attact" video that would play if the player won't press start, although this on is just a plain "Attract" text on a black screen. The most complete videos are the startup logos, as they were simply lifted from the previous Alan Wake game.

startup_mgs.bik	startup_remedy.bik	alan_wake_logo.bik	credits_background.bik	menu_episode1_background.bik	startup_attract.bik
AlanWakesAmericanNightmareProto_startup_mgs.mp4	AlanWakesAmericanNightmareProto_startup_remedy.mp4	AlanWakesAmericanNightmareProto_alan_wake_logo.mp4	AlanWakesAmericanNightmareProto_credits_background.mp4	AlanWakesAmericanNightmareProto_menu_episode1_background.mp4	AlanWakesAmericanNightmareProto_startup_attract.mp4
A startup logo of Microsoft Studios	A startup logo of Remedy	A placeholder title screen	A credits background screen	placeholder main menu screen	A placeholder file for the attract video

Placeholder Achievement Icons#

Located directly in the build's main directory are 20 achievement icons which were lifted directly from the previous game. The retail version of Alan Wake's American Nightmare ended up having only 12 achievements, less than the number of icons preasent in this build, and all with their own unique icons. This means that those icons were used as placeholders for either a yet to be made achievement list or a different one made for the prototype.

Early Audio#

This page or section needs more audio.
There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this.
Specifically:

Add all the individual voice lines. It will take time due to there being so many of them.

A youtube video is attached as a substitute for now.

There are sound files for the entire story mode preasent in the build even though there are no existing levels. It is very likely an earlier draft, as although some of the lines made it to the final game, there are a lot of scrapped side dialogues and different takes of lines that made it to the final game.

Watch on YouTube

Some of the most notable narrative differences between the storyline presented in the earlier draft of the story and the one from the final game.

In the final game, Alan needed Emma to only hand him a page that would help him blow up an oil field by rewriting reality and causing a satilite to crash into it. For that he needed to find several parts to create the scene written on the page. In the earlier draft however, he asked Emma to build him a bomb and needed to find several parts for her to build it.
The game's story consists of three time loops in which Alan needs to go through the same three areas. But in each loop the objectives differ as both Alan and the other characters learn from the previous attempts and do things differently and more efficently. That wasn't always the case based on the early draft, as in it Alan had to do the exact same objectives on each loop. Him and the characters are aware of it, but it seems that some kind of force prevents them to straying off the path too much.
Alan's conversations with Serena are much more charged than those in the final game, as there are several dialogues of her expressing her depression and desperation from what Mr. Scratch (the antagonist of the game) caused her, as well as being more explicit in wanting Alan to hurt Mr. Scratch when he confronts him.
Mr. Scratch's lines do not differ from those in the final game, but his voice in the earlier draft is much more unhinged, with a demonic filter on top of it.

Placeholder Models#

There are placeholder models for the new weapons which were added in Alan Wake's American Nightmare. As the video by Play-The-Games.com shows, those models are duplicates of the previous games's weapons like the Revolver and the Shutgun, but with 3D text of the actual weapon's name. Natually, the weapons which were carried frim Alan Wake do not have placeholder models and reuse the models they already had. Among the malee weapon models for the Taken, there is a model named "big_chainsaw_prototype_mesh" which is likely what became the circular saw thet the giant enemies use.

One particular model that isn't preasent in the final game is called "pipebomb_mesh", and was likely meant for the bomb Alan was going to use according to the early voice lines found in the build.