CU Amiga demo text string analysis

This is an analysis of the text strings which changed between the K240 demo and the full version.

See also the full demo strings list.

1. Changed text strings
2. String change analysis
3. Other text strings

Changed text strings

The following is a complete table of text strings which changed between the K240 demo and final release, or which were not added until the final release.

String change analysis

38, 40, 60

The power building descriptions refer to the Power Amplifier as the Power Doubler, possibly an old name. The blueprint itself is already named Power Amplifier in the demo.

69

In the demo, there is a message when a button is extracted and one when an extracted button is removed. A “boop” sound plays in both cases. In the final version, removing a button has no message and plays a click sound. The empty string entry was re-used for the text “SELECT ‘ALIEN’ AND CHOOSE A SCENARIO”.

215

String changed for demo features.

216

A blank entry appears for the fleet sentry mode. The demo uses the previous string.

223, 250, 251

String names for “TURRET”, “TURRET1”, and “TURRET2”, appearing in the alien stats. The gap between 223 and 250 suggests the addition of two alternate turrets was a later addition, and that they were never given specific names. The string “TURRET” was placed back in with string 357 in an additional batch of alien building names. The original turret strings appear to have been deleted, leaving gaps for starting blueprint string and alternate game over text, which was probably added quite late.

272

Text used when a colony has been destroyed by a Mega missile - “BY A DEEP SPACE MISSILE” in the demo, but “BLOWN TO PIECES!” This makes it ambigious how the colony was destroyed. This might be because one of the Swixaran large ships has a self-destruct hardpoint that works as a Mega missile.

291, 292, 310

Inbound ship, missile, and fleet warning. In the demo, this caused a text popup. In the full game, these are replaced with voice clips which don’t interrupt the game. The ship and missile text strings are simply removed in the final version, and the fleet warning is replaced with the standard win text.

307, 349

The abbreviation for “credits” changed from “CR” to “CD”.

314, 315

Game over strings for the demo only. Left empty in the full version.

318

Comet warning text. The final game does not warn you about comets. Final version adds some additional win screen text into the unused slot.

355

“Rapidly declining population” used to suggest “This may be due to high radiation!” The final game doesn’t do this. This may be because other things can cause rapidly declining population, such as certain alien weapons.

356

The original disk request used the byte \x01 to represent the disk number. The final game uses that character for the symbol Ç in French translation. The character is changed to “x”, since it’s replaced with the disk number anyway.

366

A warning that the save game disk is not Amiga formatted disk. The demo has internal strings referring to save games on df0:, so it was already intended at this point to save game to a standard-formatted Amiga floppy disk. The demo refers to a format the disk, which did not appear in the final game, perhaps to avoid players accidentally formatting over their game disk. The drawback is that you need a pre-formatted disk prepared to save on.

391

Error message shown when you try to build on an asteroid you don’t own. “No colony on this asteroid” became “no active CPU on this asteroid”. This may be because the most common case is trying to build after you’ve colonized an asteroid but the C.P.U. hasn’t finished building yet.

412

One of several notices that a feature is unavailable in the demo. This is the blueprint “[PURCHASED]” text, but it’s been repurposed to notify the player tha the feature has been disabled.

451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456 458, 479, 480, 481, 482

More notices of features disable in the demo. These are the most recent text strings in the numbered index of the demo. A few others appear subsequently in memory, but are not in the demo’s string index. Replaced in the final version with new alien building names and intel screen text.

457

In the demo, this says “UNKNOWN!”, perhaps originally used as dummy text for the Intel screen. Replaced with “TURRET”, which covers all alien turrets.

483 - 502

First text not to have any numeric equivalent in the demo. Text strings from this point on reflect features added to the game after the demo was build circa Jan 1994. These in particular are Intel screen spy satellite report strings.

503 - 520

Rigellian building names.

521 - 535

Swixaran building names.

536, 537

Swixaran self-destruct ship hardpoint warnings.

538, 539

Swixaran ghost fleet notifications.

540

Swixaran asteroid cloak string.

541 - 547

Last minute intelligence text. Presumably added to account for things not mentioned in the game manual.

548 - 553

Manual protection code text.

554

“Fleet is not orbitting the current asteroid!” A rarely used text, presumably for when ordering a fleet to guard an asteroid they aren’t at.

561

Abbreviation for credits changed from “CR” to “CD”.

564, 565

Enabling and disabling speech. The string in this approximate location in the demo says “TETRACORP SYSTEMS STATUS…”

568

Another notice of features unavailable in the demo, used for the save game text in the full game.

569 - 584

Load, save, and exit game text strings in the full game. Two demo strings 574-575 say “USED.” and “FREE.”, referring to memory or disk usage.

593

The text string for the bottom of the Tetracorp page, with the text for “LOAD SAVE ALIEN FX”, etc. The difference is that the demo says “QUIT GAME END”, whereas the full version adds a speech toggle button, saying SPEECH DOS END. This is the last text string in the demo.

594, 595, 596

More Intel report strings which only appear in the final strings. This certainly confirms that Intel features were added very late in development.

597, 598, 599, 600, 601

New game strings in the full game only, used when starting a new game or abandoning an old game in progress to select a new alien.

602

Full version only. Notification that you haven’t got enough memory to enable speech.

603, 604, 605

Full version only. Manual protection and save game file naming.

Other text strings

Other text strings not in the text list include:

• Copyright changed from 1993 to 1994. The game was originally intended to be completed in 1993. It may suggest that the demo build was made as early as 1993, but since the console invocation is practically never seen and has no effect on gameplay, it would be easy to miss.
• ENTER HELP CODE suggests that cheat codes existed at the time of the demo, but had been disabled. The original feature may have been to press a key (perhaps the Amiga’s Help key) to trigger cheat code entry.
• ENTER SHIP 1-7 shows that at one point, there were only seven ships. This is probably prior to the implementation of the Orbital Space Dock (although the OSD does appear in the demo).
• ENTER SFX A-Z does not necessarily mean there are 26 sound samples; in fact, the satellite silo launch audio is missing from the demo.
• ENTER SPEECH A-U only appears in the full version. There was evidently no voice test in the demo.