Genewars

Genewars answers the question of what you would get if you spliced the DNA of Command & Conquer with that of Spore.

Sub Pages#

Prototype Info Prerelease Info

Debug Mode#

To activate the in-game debug mode, enter SALMONAXE at any point during the game.

Build Date#

Present in gw.exe.

Jul 19 1996
03:32:58
Bio

Version 12383(RReed)

Sep 02 1996
16:28:45
Bio(Opti)

Sep 26 1996
09:54:56
Bio(Opti)

Nov 26 1996
14:54:45
Bio(Opti)

Hidden Bonus Game#

The game runs a totally separate executable simply called S.EXE inside a directory also named S after the player chooses to quit Genewars. This just shows the game's credits via an elaborate animated sequence with specialists getting into a rocketship and blasting off, to then shoot down ethereal UFOs. Pressing Space exits this sequence back to the DOS prompt. If the user attempts to load this file directly from DOS, a message "THIS PROGRAM MUST BE EXECUTED BY THE GENE WARS MAIN PROGRAM" appears and it quits. However, there is in fact a hidden bonus game that is unlocked after beating the game proper. Completing Genewars results in it creating a file called S.DAT in the game's root directory. If this file is found when S.EXE is run, the secret game will be unlocked, and pressing Space will now move on from the credits to the hidden game. It is also now possible to load S.EXE directly whenever the player desires without being blocked by the previous message.

Night of the Earthlings is a simplistic Galaxian clone where the player controls a rocket and must shoot down ethereal UFOs. These randomly drop ethereals that can be rescued to increase a Gradius-style powerup bar. Giant boss UFOs are also encountered that drop an ethereal once killed. The game gets progressively more difficult until the levels wrap around again.

It's possible to unlock this hidden game simply by placing any file renamed to S.DAT in the directory S.EXE is run from (note the final game places S.DAT in the game's root folder, so the executable must be called from there using s\s.exe for it to find the .dat file in the path), which will allow playing the game without completing Genewars proper.

Development Strings#

Version 1.1#

Hidden in gw.exe at 0x12B614:

 (c) 1996 Diadem Inc.

There's also this error message at 0x12C75E:

 SHIT IT TIMEDOUT

Revision Differences#

beta 4#

A leaked beta version of the game. See the prototype page for more information.

The binary file of this version is much larger than other versions (over 5MB), as it is a debug build, which:

• contains debug information (names of global and local variables, names of functions source code line numbers),
• contains debug logging (additional printf() calls with various messages which help in debug, and assert() calls),
• contains the level editor, which can be invoked by command line parameters
• In this version the Multiplayer mode is called "Custom" on the menu screen

Version 1.0#

This was the release version of the game. The CD is titled GENEWARS QA BETA 5.

• The Fusion Battery/Generator building is cut from this version of the game
• Custom game mode is now renamed to Network on the main menu. It's also now hidden unless the game detects an IPX network

Version 1.1#

This was a patch released in November 1996 by Bullfrog, via their website and games magazine cover CDs.

• The Network option is now renamed Multiplay. It's also now permanently available as it was in the Beta.
• Adds new modem and null modem multiplayer connectivity modes as well as the original IPX.
• There's a new set of controls on the multiplayer screen to finally allow the player to change the starting goop amount and tech level in a game
• The patch includes four new multiplayer (custom) maps: Zone Madness, Beach Party, Flatline, and Wonderland. Oddly these have the exact same internal release time stamps as the 1.0 maps, suggesting they were held back rather than created new.
• There are now game speed controls bound to the [ and ] keys.

Oddities#

Command Line Parameters#

When entering an unrecognized command line argument, the game still references itself Biosphere. It also prints out recognized command line arguments, many of which have no effect in the final game, but do work in debug builds (beta 4):

Biosphere Options:

 - n             Network mode enable
 - x<name>       Network session name
 - d             Debug mode enable
 - dl            Debug Lo / Hi res emulation
 - dk        Debug keyboard handler
 - s         Enable hi quality sounds
 - e             Editor enable
 - g         Screen shots mode
 - z         Tester Autosave

Most parameters are case-insensitive (except "-i"). This is visible in the array used by command line options parser:

const char cmdln_opts[] = {
    'z','x','t','s','r','p','m','i','g','e','d',
    'Z','X','T','S','R','P','M','G','E','D','?',
};

Pathfinding Modifier Key#

Pressing Z during the game modifies pathfinding for the local client, so that routing ignores buildings (see forceAllowRouteThroughStuff()). On a network game, this causes desync as the algorithm is only changed for the player pressing Z.