Different Versions of Kobayashi Alternative??

[Mark 2000]

I had this game as a kid and was going to have a go at beating it again. With no disk left I downloaded it off an abandonware site.

The version I got doesn't seem to be the one I played. I recall the game opening with an attack that strands you in the Orna system. You beam down and have a component of the ship repaired.

The game version I have starts with nothing and no clue as to where to begin. Walkthroughs I've perused seem to agree with that as Archir is the first planet you visit and Orna is the one planet with nothing to do at.

I also noticed that my original version played the fanfare on the PC speaker at the main titles. This version doesn't.

Can anyone confirm there are two versions of the game? Anyone have a copy of the one I'm talking about? Thanks!

 

[Mark 2000]

Since 80 people have read through this post I just wanted to report that there are indeed at least two very different versions of the game. The one I had was a single executable with copy protection requiring the original disk (cracked). It also had no sound.

The version I was more familiar with (and finally obtained) is an executable with about ten resource files. It has many sound effects like the transporter and communication whistles. The crew also seems more talkative. It also does, in fact, start with a battle that the first doesn't.

I didn't play much of the first version, but I did notice it allowed certain commands the second didn't like "report to [room]". The second version requires you to say "go to [room]" instead.

I might write to Daine Duane sometime to ask her about the versions and why the seemingly less refined one seems to be more well known.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Interesting. I used to play this on my 8088, though I had no idea what to do until I looked up a walkthrough decades later. The version I'm familiar with started with nothing and no clues where to start like you describe. Could be an early version that was somehow leaked. Back in the day, people would often copy games for their friends onto floppies, so it's very likely why it might be more well-known.

I remember trying to follow a walkthrough once, but ended up in a dead-end, so now I'm wondering if it was simply an earlier unfinished version, or a version they threw out there to throw off those that copied it.

 

[137th Gebirg]

IIRC, in the old 8-bit days, game makers built a game and modified it to support other systems that didn't have as much memory. A game with an intro screen, for example, or some opening digitized music would be available on a 48KB system, but a cut-down version with just the game and no intro screen or music would be available for 16KB systems. Zaxxon, Whomper Stomper, Ghostbusters and Bruce Lee come to mind with multiple variants, along with Lucasfilm's Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus (formerly Ballblaster and Behind Jaggi Lines, respectively). Kobayashi Alternative may have experienced similar re-engineering for the same purpose.

I miss those old 8-bit days. There's just something so pure and cool about those old games that today's productions just don't have. Guess I'm showing my age...I'll shut up now...

 

[Owain Taggart]

It was a rather simplistic game in terms of presentation, though, so any differences would have been very minor. No digitized music there: simple speaker beeps. Besides, we're talking about two different PC versions, am I right Mark?

Leaks were actually very common back then. The lack of of an actual game opening suggests to me an early version that had the engine, locations and characters in place, but not the scripting, not to mention the lack of sound effects.

There were 3 games using the same engine. The first one was Promethean Prophecy, which maybe even was a different engine come to think about it. It was vastly different than the Kobayashi Alternative, where they did create a completely different layout, look and interface to the game. The 3rd game, Star Trek: First Contact, not related to the movie in any way, uses the same layout as KA.