Duffy's Collection Part 2
The prototypes come from a beta tester who worked for Acclaim. His uncle has recently passed away and the nephew has undertaken to sell the files. The two projects "Duffy's Dreamcast Collection" and "Duffy's Collection Part 2" are in a way tributes to the work of his uncle Duffy.
Beta testers seen by Sega of America in 1994
Bugs are obstacles in development that show up in a variety of areas such as gameplay, SEGA standards, on-screen text, and sound. These bugs are categorized into Class A , Class B , and Class C , depending on their severity :
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For example, the most wanted and the most dreadful is the Crash Bug. It is classified as A.
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A lesser bug affecting gameplay, such as a weapon that cannot be used, is a class B bug.
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A graphical issue, such as a visual glitch in the background that does not affect the result of the game, would be classified as a class C bug.
A beta tester can also give feedback on new ideas or things that need improvement. They can then contact the Game Lead or their assistant, who will assign a classification (order of priority) according to the interest of the suggestion..
Testing plays a role that is essential in the design of a game and must be carried out as seriously as possible.
The hardware that the beta tester needed to have :
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A tape recorder and VHS cassettes, to record test sessions.
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Something to take notes in and be ready to document a bug as soon as it appears
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The known state of the build and the action plan (what should be tested). The game manager or their assistant provided both.
Sega's recommendations to its beta testers.
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Getting to know the game. If the game assigned to them was new, they had to play it for an hour until they were sufficiently familiar with it (understand how it works).
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Find new bugs; and for that, be imaginative. Nothing was deemed too weird to try in testing. You had to be logical, methodical and analytical.
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Reproduce bugs : A SEGA beta tester had to attempt to replicate all newly discovered bugs at least five times using video recordings in order to deduce the probable causes of the bug. They had to figure out the shortest and easiest way to reproduce it.
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They had to immediately report all new class A bugs (and important class B bugs) to the project manager or their assistant.
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If a game crashed, you had to press the RESET button or turn the device off and on again to see if it was possible to continue playing.
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Cheat Functions : They were never to use cheat codes unless specifically instructed to. If a bug occurred via a cheat, the beta tester had to reproduce it with the cheat mode disabled to prove that the bug was not related to this mode. If a bug could not be reproduced without the cheat function, it should not be put in the report.
In fact, this ultimately little-known profession is much more complex than these few examples, but you now have a glimpse of the daily life of these shadow craftsmen who have refined our favorite games.
The 27 Acclaim prototypes of the part 2 in download :
Part 2 of this release is reserved for non-Dreamcast game prototypes. You will find 27 prototypes for Playstation 1, PS2, PC, Xbox and Gamecube.
Very few of these prototypes correspond to final versions or to other prototype versions already known. I didn't distinguish the localization of the betas (PAL, JP, US) or very rarely. The date of the builds has been found by extracting the files with the most recent modification.
The most interesting prototypes have a page dedicated to them, others can be downloaded directly. You will find a detailed analysis for each one. Some are early in the game's development, others have developer-specific options and some builds have debug menus. There are even Unreleaseds !
Many things must have escaped me, if you find new ones, do not hesitate to contact me, I will update the articles with your findings.
The download links of the different prototypes will be transferred to "archive.org" later this year. They are currently hosted on the site's server.
Global Analysis : :
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The PC build files have nothing special to report. Forsaken seems to have two .exe's of the game on the CD, maybe a Debug version and a non-Debug version.
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For the PSX, the Re-Volt PSRVP019 prototype has many .exe's in the root in addition to the basic .exe on the CD. These may be PS1 executables for other versions of the game. The build of Re-Volt SonyDemo2 has the same characteristics except that the .exe this time are in the "CD" sub-folder. Shadow Man had a PADDING file named "PAD.BIN" and it contains only 0's. Finally, South Park Rally PSPR026 has a "CDIMAGE.elf" executable as well.
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On PS2, the beta version of Aggressive Inline "Inline Demo" has a folder /INLINE/ASSETS/EDITOR which seems to be a folder with a lot of files related to the level editor. There is no executable to run it (maybe in the build?). The other build, "Inline Demo No MOVIES" does not contain this folder. All versions of QBC2002 have the build symbol file in their builds, this is not surprising since the same file is also present in the commercial version. Versions V56 and V58 do not have their build files; maybe the developers made a change in the build file names between V58 and V71 so that somewhere in between the symbol file is not deleted anymore when making the ISO of a build and it ends up staying in the final ISO as well, corresponding to the commercial disks.
: part of the Duffy's Collection Part 2 project (new releases)
: part of the Duffy's Dreamcast Collection project (old releases)
: old releases made alone
Good game and have fun !
Unreleased Acclaim
Gamecube Prototypes from Acclaim
Playstation 2 Prototypes from Acclaim
Playstation 1 Prototypes from Acclaim
PC Prototypes from Acclaim
Scanning of the discs and sleeves of the prototypes in direct download : Pack Scan Acclaim Part 2
I hope you enjoyed this little trip behind the scenes at Acclaim !
Thanks to :
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Jérôme Firon for the correction of the articles (the French part)..
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March_42 for his help on the non-Dreamcast part (dump, scan and global analysis).
Acclaim prototype of the project "Duff'y Dreamcast Collection" : Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX - Dead or Alive 2 - Ducati World Racing Challenge - ECW Hardcore Revolution - F355 Challenge - Fur Figthers - NFL Quarterback Club 2000 - Re-Volt - South Park: Chef's Luv Shack - South Park Rally - Spirit of Speed 1937 - Vanishing Point
More than 200 prototypes, documents, press kits have been dumped or scanned. You will find them in free download in the section "Releases de prototypes et documents"