Demo Trivia

[PHattiE]

Just a little trivia for those interested:

During the early days of hero6, it was important to get an actual executable out to show that we were serious about the project.  The first demo listed under the downloads section is that executable.  We had another demo proceeding it, but it was made up of artwork from QG4, and not released publicly.  

The demo was sent to the Coles in 1999, but Corey was unable to run the demo on his machine.  

Today, I was able to get the demo to run on my laptop, but with no sound and poor animation.  

Contrary to what the description says in the downloads section, the demo was hardcoded in C++ and not AGS.  It has a secret message imbedded into it that was intended for members of hero6 at the time.  You can see it by including a special switch at run time (open a command prompt and type "hero6 -hero6").

[Swift]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing, PHattiE. I've corrected the description.

[PHattiE]

Thanks Swift.

Since the original demo's code was completely scratched, I think Demo #2 was made to show off our official engine (MAD) and also to improve upon its dialogue capabilities.  After demo #2, we continued doing artwork & music until MAD could handle more than just dialogue screens.  I beleive the AGDs (from the now break off project "AGDI") got impatient with MAD, and did the AGS demos.  I could be wrong about the AGDs creating them, since I was out of the project by that time... but I am certain they created a members-only demo in ags that included most of the team's artwork at the time.



 

[Corsair5]

That's interesting. I was unaware the AGDs were originally part of H6. There's a lot of splinter projects...fascinating.  

[Swift]

The AGDs did create the Waterfall demo using AGS.

[PHattiE]

Yeh, I figured as much.  I remember AGD2 (went under the alias 'Bonito'), but wasn't around when AGD1 (Katrina) joined.  They were both highly motivated and were producing a lot of work.  I had some beef with them because I suspected that they were collaging hero6 scenes together using screenshots of sierra games.  But I now think it was a shame that they left because they really kept the team motivated by their constant contributions.

Given AGD1's personality, I am not surprised in the least that they broke off and started their own thing.  But I think if I hadn't of turned them off by my accusations, hero6 would be done by now--although I imagine the quality of hero6 would be something lesser than what their kq1 remake currently looks like.  Our art team has since gone back and touched up most/all of their backgrounds.

AGDs abilities have grown exponentially though.  From what I can see from their current work, it looks like they are finally using some raw talent.  If anything, they are certainly ambitious.... and I personally beleive that they will be successful in their future projects, if not only due to AGD1's pretty impressive recent portfolio.

[will7298]

the hero6.exe in demo 1 seems to be undeleteable, it's kind of annoying  o_O