Daikatana Pre-Alpha Project

Pre-Alpha

March 21, 1997

This is the earliest version of Daikatana that exists - it’s only two months in development 
and has only 2 levels started.  I began writing the design document (GDD) for Daikatana 
in February 1997 while my first few programmers were learning the Quake tech: Kee 
Kimbrell, Shawn Green and Jonathan Wright.  Matt Hooper (dabug) and John Anderson 
(Dr. Sleep) were making levels.

The runnable levels in this pre-alpha version are E1M3 and E2M3.  Here are the 
instructions for running these levels:

1.	Run glkatana.exe
2.	The console will come up.  Type: map e1m3<enter>
3.	You are in the game - have fun!
4.	When you’re tired of e1m3, type ~
5.	Type: map e2m3<enter>
6.	When you’re tired of e2m3, press F10 to quit

Here are the keyboard commands (the romero.cfg will be the default)

Left	Turn left
Right	Turn right
Up	Move forward
Down	Move backward
SPACE	Jump
ALT	Use (door, switch,etc)
CTRL	Fire
ESC	Menu (barely works)
~	Console (for next level)
C	Down (in noclip mode)
D	Up (in noclip mode)
1-4	Select weapon

This version uses the original Quake engine but in 640x480 mode.   You can change the 
resolution with command-line parameters - here’s an example: glkatana.exe -fullscreen 
-width 1024 -bpp 32.  Experiment!

Searching the directory structure, you’ll be able to see by the config files who was 
working on the team back then: myself, Noel Stephens (programming), Shawn Green 
(programming), Matt Hooper (map design) and Bill Nadalini (testing).

The real treasure trove of this version lies in the graphic files you’ll find in the data\skins 
directory and data\sprites directory.  These are pure shit and the reason why I went 
through so many artists at the beginning of this project.  All the skin files are 640x480 
and the art is just atrocious and embarrassing.  A 640x480 texture for AN ARROW???  
Yes, the legends are true.  Just look at these awful graphics.  The furry boots, the rat, the 
Buboid, etc.  All just awful work.  None of these skins made it into the final.

THE LEVELS

To bring up the console, press tilde (~).  You can type noclip to toggle walking through 
walls and god to toggle god mode.  Type notarget to see monsters in their pre-awakened 
state (like the Griffon on e2m3!)  You’ll find lots of crazy stuff with these keys.  Press ~ 
again to put away the console.

In E1M3 (dabug), you can go into the first room and see several items to pick up and 
press a switch (ALT) to let you into the next area.  You’ll see a Prisoner, Slaughterskeet 
and an Inmater soon.  Your weapon is a prototype of the Ion Blaster (nothing comes out 
but it hits targets).  You’ll recognize some of the prison cells from the final e1m3 level.  
Using noclip, you’ll see the prototype Thunderskeet in a couple places as well as an 
early Sludgeminion in the sewer.

In E2M3 (Dr. Sleep), you’ll see some artifacts, the Centurion and the Griffon.  You 
shoot the prototype Disc of Daedalus.  You’ll recognize parts of this level from the final 
game but boy did it change!

Daikatana experts: You’ll immediately go to the config files and modify them yourself 
and see lots of interesting commands in there that you can play around with.  If you want 
to start the program in windowed mode, create a shortcut and add -window after 
glkatana.exe.  You can enable the crosshair with crosshair 1 among other things.

Here’s some information from one of Daikatana’s foremost experts, DI-Meister:

You can also record and play in-game demos. Note: this command must be written into 
the console BEFORE loading a map.

Example:
record demo_01
map e1m3

To stop the demo, you type:
stopdemo

To play the demo, you type:
playdemo demo_01.dem

Another useful command is the disconnect command.  This quits the current map 
immediately. Note: the say command (default key: T) doesn’t work in this version.

MAKING SCREENSHOTS

You can make screenshots with following console command:
bind "your key" "screenshot"

Replace "your key" with a key of your choice. The screenshots will be available in 
data\config folder and are .tga files.

And So...

Calling this version a pre-alpha is correct but alpha was still years away - it should really 
be called "Start Of Development Version".  At the same time we were creating this 
version, the PR/Hype machine was just building up while we were still trying to learn the 
tech and make a game.  Ion Storm was growing quickly - little did we know what kind of 
ride was ahead of us.

The beginning of the change-over to the Quake II engine was still a whole year away.  
But we were planning on shipping Daikatana for Christmas 1997.  What a crazy idea that 
was.  A new company, a new team that hasn’t worked on a game before...what was I 
thinking?  DUMB.

This is definitely a treasure trove for Daikatana fanatics.  If you have questions, post 
them in the Daikatana forum on http://rome.ro.  Enjoy!

John Romero
November 25, 2004

