KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child

A video game adaptation of a Todd McFarlane comic book adaptation of a KISS album cover. Wonders never cease. All game resources are contained within the PSYCHO.REZ file in the game's folder.

To do:
A few things.

Check the Dreamcast data files.
Examine and document the CHEAT.SCR script files included with many maps.
Ditto TEXTURES/CREDITS/MEGA.PCX and TEXTURES/CREDITS/NELNO.PCX, as they're not DTX files.
Various "OLD" files and an "UNUSED" folder in the SOUNDS directory.

Unused Graphics#

Unused Logo#

INTERFACE/PSYCHO.PCX contains an early logo for the game, along with the logo of a "Bloodshot Visions". Was this the original name for developers Third Law Interactive?

Early Cursors#

MENU/POINTER1OLD.PCX and MENU/POINTER2OLD.PCX contain older, cartoonier versions of the cursor icons in the same folder.

Placeholder Title Screens#

These can be found in the MENU subfolder, and most of them appear to be the development team amusing themselves.

An "old" title screen, depicting an early version of Gene/The Demon fighting Headless.

A near-final version of the logo on a blue and green background.

The final title screen, but with the addition of the Third Law logo and a Gathering of Developers logo altered to read "Gathering of Dumbasses". Lovely.

An early internet meme image, altered to add speech bubbles with the game's name in it.

In SCREENS/PROFILE, there are image files for what appears to be a very early version of the title screen. The scratchy, rough aesthetic varies largely from that of the final version.

Loading Screen#

SCREENS/LOADINGBACKGROUNDS/R5M2.PCX contains a loading screen for the game's final map (R5M2), where you fight the Nightmare Child. For whatever reason, the 'Nightmare' loading screen used for R5M1 is used again when the player loads into R5M2, thus making this loading screen unable to be seen during gameplay.

An old loading screen from the Pain Plaza level, this screen appears in the 1999 build and in the strategy guide. The level was redesigned in the early 2000 build (I'll call it Build 4) and they changed the entire level, including the loading screen.

Unused Textures#

In SKINS/CREATURES/, there are two Headless textures that go unused. ICEHEAD.DTX contains an ice-themed texture, and MAGMAHEAD.DTX contains a red-tinted texture which appears very similar to the texture used for Headless within the Fire realm, only without the lava-coated talons of that texture.

Unused Audio#

Voice Clips#

MAPDATA/REALM2/R2M0/R2-RAVENINTRO-4.WAV contains an unused voice clip spoken by Madam Raven, supposedly meant for the Earth Realm's intro sequence. Already a savage land before the coming of the Nightmare Child, this realm now holds horrors undreamed of!

Unused Enemies#

Models found in MODELS/CREATURES/ and their associated textures in SKINS/CREATURES/

LARVA.ABC#

Based on this model's animations and the existence of a separate LARVAHEAD.ABC model, it appears that this enemy was meant to be decapitated when attacked, with a sentient head separating from the body and the ability for the body to regenerate its head after a certain period of time.

Fun fact: If you download the KPC TOOLS from DBMOD and enter the "Dev_Monster Condo" map, go to the third enemy demo, and there won't be one because it's the Larva. In the map editor, it's listed as "CLarva."

ROLY.ABC#

There is no associated texture with this model. It appears that this was meant to be a stationary enemy.

'Rotsack'#

There are two model variants of this enemy. It appears to be a mutated version of the common Headless enemy that, based on its 'Birth' animation, could've acted as a mobile enemy spawner.

ROT_CRAWL.ABC#

ROT_HANG.ABC#

Fun fact: If you download the KPC TOOLS from DBMOD and enter the "Dev_Monster Condo" map, go to the fourth enemy demo, and there won't be one because it's the Rotsack. In the map editor, it's listed as "CRotsack."

Unused Items#

Models are found in MODELS/PICKUPS/BEASTKING/ and associated textures in SKINS/PICKUPS/BEASTKING/

CHIKARA.ABC#

A reference to the Japanese kanji for 'power', which KISS have used as a sort of secondary logo that has been seen on album covers, on stage, merchandise, etc.

POWERSHARD.DTX#

There's no associated model for this item, only a texture.

PURIFIER.ABC#

QBOX.ABC#

UNUSED/REDISEGNED LEVELS#

Please elaborate.
Having more detail is always a good thing.
Specifically: What is trying to be talked about here?

BUILDS#

Builds are used to describe which version of the game it belongs to. I'll mention: Build 1: A build with a darker setting than the others. Build 2: A build with the setting that was left over from the other versions. Build 3 (Mid-development): A build with the strategy guide. Build 4 (PC and Dreamcast Demo): It doesn't have many changes from the final version, but two levels (Morbid Manor and Nether Station) are different (in textures) from the final build. Build 5 (Final): The one we're all familiar with. I'm placing and naming them this way to make it easier to navigate to them.

Rarest level redisegned#

A water level set in the water campaign (Paul Stanley) that isn't seen in the game, although I have a possible explanation for this. This level would be Bad Streets because previously, in build 1, this level was different and somewhat set in an urban neighborhood. How did I come to this conclusion? Because of the dark, urban textures both levels have in this build.

Demon In Bad Streets#

An image from Beta 2 showing the demon (Gene Simmos) with Stumps' corpses and a living one. Also featured is the door that opened into the passage that leads to the finale.