General Differences

This is a sub-page of Proto:Half-Life (Windows)/Half-Life: Day One.

Early Chapter Titles#

titles.txt contains some different names for chapters that are not seen on the demo.

Day One chapter name	Final chapter name
SCREAMS AND WHISPERS	BLAST PIT
FOOTFALL	POWER UP
ABANDONED SILO	APPREHENSION
CHUTES AND LADDERS	RESIDUE PROCESSING
"YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN"	"FORGET ABOUT FREEMAN"
DOWN AND OUT	LAMBDA CORE

Reloading Bug#

The ammo count when reloading appears to be slightly bugged in Day One. When the player starts a reload, the total amount of ammo that will be added to the magazine is subtracted, but the magazine ammo count is not updated until the animation is finished, making it look like the player is mysteriously losing ammo for a second while reloading.

This strange bug is fixed in the final game.

While reloading. The ammo that's supposed to be added to the magazine has been subtracted, but the magazine ammo count has not been updated.

Looking Up#

Like the September 1997 prototype, the player cannot look up all the way, a behavior inherited from Quake. This makes Barnacles extremely difficult to kill once ensnared by one, as the player can't look up all the way to kill one before getting very close to it.

The final game lets the player look straight up.

Prototype	Final

Developer Console#

The developer console cannot be activated by default in this prototype. However, it's possible to activate the console by force. To do this in build 676, with a hex editor, change 0x1c6e5 in SW.DLL and 0x7859 in HW.DLL from 01 to 00.

There are some things to keep aware of, however:

Many commands such as sv_cheats are not registered.
You will not be able to use the console after starting a game, as the toggleconsole command is not registered.
Going back to the pause menu will crash the game.

OpenGL Issues#

The OpenGL renderer in this prototype has some small issues with modern drivers. Weapons will randomly become semi-transparent and decals will flicker. The game is still perfectly playable.

A Pistol randomly becoming semi-transparent in Day One's OpenGL renderer. — A Pistol randomly becoming semi-transparent in *Day One*'s OpenGL renderer.

Autoaim#

The prototype has autoaim enabled by default and it cannot be disabled.

Screenshot Command Bug#

The "screenshot" command saves screenshots in broken 8-bit PCX files, while the final version saves them in TGA format. "snapshot" command works the same way as in the final version.

PAK Priority#

Day One has the files in the .pak files take priority over ones in folders, making it impossible to mod Day One without a PAK files editor like PakScape.

Profiles#

This prototype uses a completely different system for save files. Day One creates a profile when the game is first started that saves are stored in. There doesn't seem to be any way to change profiles, but the presence of a profile system indicated they either disabled it or it had it at one point, but in the process of being removed when Day One was compiled.

The final game gets rid of this in favor of storing saves in a single folder accessed from the root "valve" folder.

Office Complex Crash#

If the player saves at the start of Office Complex, then loads the save at any point, the game will crash with a "Tried to create NULL entity!" error. This was fixed in the final game.

Lack of Direct3D Support#

Some of the Day One builds do not have a Direct3D renderer option available.

Lack of A3D Support#

Some of the Day One builds do not offer support for the A3D sound technology.

Automatic Reload#

Guns will only reload once the player has let go of the fire key, then pressed it again.

Built-in Particle Effects#

Day One, similar to Quake and the September 1997 prototype, uses built-in particle effects (small colored squares), instead of sprites for the blood effects.