Dementium: The Ward

Dementium: The Ward is a survival horror first-person shooter game developed by Renegade Kid for the Nintendo DS. The game was originally pitched as a Silent Hill-themed project, but rejection from Konami caused the team to take things in an original direction.

Unused Maps#

A few unused levels can be loaded if you mess around with the theWard.ini file.

5fw_023#

An empty toilet room.

7fw_008#

Watch on YouTubeAn unused corridor on the seventh eastern floor that has a door with a code lock, and there's also a small guard room with a shotgun in the gun cabinet. The code lock on the wall is inactive, the passage behind the only active door is barricaded, which means that developers were planning to make the 7th floor much more complex.

7fw_009#

Attempting to load the map will crash the game.

test#

Attempting to load the map will crash the game.

Unused Enemies#

enemy_fb (Feast Beast)#

An impressive looking monster, which was supposed to climb walls, crawl on ceilings, and eviscerate to get its meal. He was planned for The Ward from the very beginning, and even presented in the very first teaser trailer, but was cut from the final version. His model is still present in the game files, but it seems that he doesn't have any animations.

@Gregg Hargrove says on Twitter:

FeastBeast didn't make it for a few reasons but mostly because it ended up not working properly and we didn't have time to fix it.

enemy_mw (Mindless Wanderer)#

Mummy-like bandaged corpses which were replaced by Chest Maws in the middle of development, as they were deemed "Not scary enough". They were shown in many prerelease screenshots.

This enemy can be partially restored in the game by replacing some strings in the arm9.bin executable, however his AI is broken and because of that he's not able to attack you.

Watch on YouTube

Restored	Prerelease

Unused Graphics#

Title Screen#

Used	Unused	Prerelease

Options#

Used	Unused

Control Types#

Used	Unused

Early Interface Placeholder#

Used	Placeholder

Early Weapons Graphics#

Items Menu Placeholder#

Used	Placeholder

Demo Ending Screen#

Unused Font#

This font was used in an early UI that was shown in prerelease screenshots:

Unused Items#

SLIPPERS There is a pair of <slippers> on the floor; how civilized. They look comfortable. Are these my slippers?

Hidden Functions#

A lot of functions in the game are managed by .ini files, the TheWard.ini has a unused function which allows you to skip the intro.

"SkipIntro = false"

Regional Differences#

First Legal Screen#

North America	Japan	Europe

The second legal screen featuring Renegade Kid's logo is the same in all regions.

Content Warning#

North America/Europe	Japan

Title Screen#

North America/Europe	Japan

Game Over#

One of the biggest complaints regarding the original North American release of Dementium was its punishing game over mechanic, where the player had to restart the entire chapter if they died at any point or turned off the system. The European release was changed to have one or two checkpoints per chapter (usually one halfway through and another before the boss, if there was one), while the game also saved each time the player passed through a door, though this 'quicksave' is deleted if the player dies. While this makes getting through levels easier, it can introduce unwinnable situations, where the player's gone through all the supplies in a chapter and can't continue but can't restart the chapter either. (The Japanese version acts like the North American one, with no checkpoints.)

North America	Japan	Europe

Chapter One#

The note the player picks up at the very beginning of the game uses awkward English in the Japanese version, both in the description and the actual note itself that you can interact with. (The small icon is in proper English in all versions, oddly enough.)

North America/Europe	Japan

North America/Europe	Japan

References#