Bio Menace

Bio Menace is a platforming game based on the Commander Keen 4-6 engine. As CIA agent and mullet connoisseur Snake Logan, your job is to exterminate the hideous mutants that have taken over Metro City and find the man responsible for the attacks.

To do: Document the prototype from July 1992. This page seems to have documented some stuff from this build, please move this off here and on to an appropriate proto article with more detail.

Debug Mode#

Bizarrely, the freeware release of this game enabled a debug mode. Pressing C, O and D simultaneously will bring up a prompt asking for a command. Enter 91827, then press J, I, M, and Space together to enable the debugging keys:

• F10 + B - Change border color
• F10 + C - Show number of active/inactive objects in the level
• F10 + D - Record a demo
• F10 + E - Skip level
• F10 + G - Activates God Mode
• F10 + I - Free items
• F10 + J - Jump cheat
• F10 + M - Display how much memory is in use
• F10 + N - Turn clipping on and off
• F10 + P - Pause
• F10 + S - Turns on and off slow motion
• F10 + T - Sprite test
• F10 + V - Add Extra VBLs
• F10 + W - Warp to level
• F10 + X - Extra Stuff
• F10 + Y - Reveal hidden areas
• F10 + Z - Lose a life

"JIM" refers to Jim Norwood, the creator of the game.

Cut Content#

• The Tile Editor (TED5) shows the Killer Pillar as green icon, indicating that it was probably intended as an organic monster instead of a robot.
• Some available background tiles exist, but are not used in the game, such as a window with "Cafe Louies" and a silhouette of a couple.
• Some available foreground tiles exist, but are not used in the game, such as triangular crystal slot.
• The second episode of the Beta version (Bio Hazard) has an apparition version of Dr. Mangle's head instead of the Enforcer as the final boss.
• In the Beta version (Bio Hazard), attacking Jim Norwood in the secret Apogee room resets the player's score to 0.
• The third episode had removed explosive barrels, which got replaced by the enemy land mines.
• In the July 1992 Beta release, the bullet icon loos different in the status box. Other unused graphics and features include a wooden door with a glass window, rougher Snake Logan sprites, a bullet clip, food and beverages with no known purpose, potion bottles (which make the player temporarily invincible if enough are collected), different gibs, and a turbo shuttle the player could ride on from a booth.
• The first level in the July 1992 Beta release is absent from the final game, acting more as a test level. Following that is a level with a screen with tiles spelling out THE END.

Errors#

• The Super Bullets are said to do x5 damage to the enemies, but they actually do x2 damage. The x5 damage ratio actually applies to the Plasma Bolts.
• The bosses Dr. Mangle and Master Cain are meant to earn the player 100,000 points. However due to an 16-bit limitation, the integer value is reduced to 34,464 points (i.e. 100000 modulo 65536).

Anti-Piracy#

The registered version of Bio-Menace uses a simple anti-piracy method that was in common use at Apogee at the time: The game checks for a FILE_ID.DIZ file (commonly used as an archive description on BBSes) that contains the following:

████▓▒░ ALERT THE SYSOP IMMEDIATELY! ░▒▓████
████████████████████████████████████████████
THIS FILE IS NOT SHAREWARE -- it is ILLEGAL
and forbidden to upload this copyrighted
software to bulletin boards. If you see this
message on a BBS, please request that the
Sysop remove this software IMMEDIATELY!!!
█▓▒░ OR CONTACT APOGEE: (214) 278-5655 ░▒▓█
IT IS ILLEGAL TO GET THIS FILE FROM A BBS!
████████████████████████████████████████████

This effectively labels pirated copies of the game on BBSes so that SysOps could quickly remove them. Upon exiting the first level, the game will run a checksum on FILE_ID.DIZ. If it doesn't match up with a hardcoded value, the game will display an error message. After it's dismissed, the game will drop back to the title screen.

Amusingly, the freeware release points out and explains this copy-protection measure in its readme file, instead of removing it, "since we're unable to recompile the game to remove the check for that"!

To do: Examine the exact details of how the checksum is, well, checked.

References#