Behind the scenes of Half-Life Dreamcast's conception: an early prototype and exclusive testimonials
This article reveals the hidden treasures of Half-Life Dreamcast, guiding you through the intricacies of an early prototype of the game - the oldest known to date - and features exclusive testimonials from Robert Morgan (programmer at Captivation Digital Laboratories) and Jeff Pobst (producer at Sierra Entertainment), who worked on its development.
To learn more about Half-Life Dreamcast, read the musings of the first person to study its source code and that of a journalist who covered the game. You can also download two other, more accomplished, builds by visiting the page dedicated to this cult Valve title: [Half-Life, the FPS that didn't get a chance to live on Dreamcast!]
The cancellation of Half-Life Dreamcast
Jeff Pobst (quote in italics in the first two chapters of this article), producer of Half-Life Dreamcast for Sierra Entertainment, recalls its development and the many discussions surrounding its realization. To our great delight, he has brought out the notes he took over 20 years ago to give us a behind-the-scenes look at the game!
The exact nature of Half-Life Dreamcast's cancellation remains a mystery. Public anticipation was at an all-time high and the specialized press was excited to review it in depth. Its development was completed, the design of its cover and insert finalized, and its promotional campaign already underway. Prima Publishing,U.S., an American book publisher, even printed an official guide for the genre defining FPS. All the ingredients were in place to make it a critical and commercial success, at least until that fateful day on January 25, 2001, when SEGA announced its intention to reorganize the company into a multi-platform publisher.
Half-Life Dreamcast was abandoned just a few weeks before its release, and the title even went GOLD (the game's development was deemed sufficiently complete to warrant release, and it was ready for pressing). All these elements combined to make Valve/Sierra/Gearbox/Captivation's production one of the most infamous games never to have seen the light of day on the White Lady, tied with Propeller Arena and its cancellation due to the repercussions of the World Trade Center terrorist attack. With HL, SEGA had a System Seller developed by a third-party publisher!
Jeff Pobst (producer of the game for Sierra): « Many were printed I think. I think everyone got a sample. I don't remember how large the first insert run was, but it wasn't a fraction as expensive as manufacturing discs, and was done ahead of time. »
Official copy at Gearbox
The game was not distributed because SEGA had announced that it would be discontinuing production of the Dreamcast shortly before the launch date of Half-Life DC. This shock announcement, a real seismic event in the videogame industry, shook the Japanese manufacturer's house of cards, built up over decades. It collapsed in the space of just a few days. The Saturn period had already weakened SEGA. As a result, retailers drastically reduced the number of shelves devoted to the Dreamcast in their stores. With no visibility of the blue hedgehog brand in supermarkets, traffic for people wishing to buy the game(s) dwindled. And yes, before the advent of online ordering and digital distribution, it was in-store sales that determined the success or failure of a video game! If digital distribution had been widespread at the time, as Steam is today, the decision to cancel or not would have been carefully considered...
The printed Half-Life Dreamcast manual
« Then Sierra and Valve ran the numbers on the cost of manufacturing the discs and paying SEGA the royalties on each disc (which has to be done prior to them going to stores and being sold), and it became clear pretty quickly that forecasts were going to diminish because of the shelf space shrinking, and then the costs of making the discs likely wouldn't pencil out anymore. So the companies agreed to cancel the projects just before final manufacturing. »
In 2010, the Los Angeles Times took a closer look at the price of a video game. For a title costing $60, the publisher and developer received $27, the retailer $15, $7 for unsold copies, $7 for royalties (which went to the console constructor) and $4 for manufacturing and distribution costs.
« It was different for the Dreamcast - I don't remember the particulars, but I know that the cost of disc and royalty was a bit different (my recollection - more expensive) than for other consoles. I don't remember how much..»
As a general rule, royalties are fixed for everyone. Negotiations remain possible, however, for any developer or publisher with leverage. Hello Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive Software and their Behemoth GTA!
Manufacturing, distribution and royalty costs for Half-Life Dreamcast, a finished product ready for delivery, suddenly proved higher than initial expectations. Feedback from the field indicated that retailers were restricting the number of planned orders to a fraction of what they would have purchased before the announcement of the Dreamcast's discontinuation.
« Valve and Sierra didn't spend money on manufacturing and distributing. It was sad, but it was solely because of the SEGA discontinuing Dreamcast announcement. »
Manuals have been signed by the development team as a souvenir
The cancellation of Half-Life Dreamcast left many SEGA fans and supporters of the franchise completely perplexed. It was a crushing blow. Everyone rejoiced at every official news of its development progress, and longed to be able to play it soon!
Sierra Entertainment's perspective on Half-Life Dreamcast development
Each addition to the Half-Life franchise stemmed from ideas or partnerships suggested by Valve Corporation. Sierra's team secretly met with Gabe Newell, Valve's co-founder and president, and other studio heads to discuss proposals for the cult-classic license. Gabe's interest in collaborating with SEGA led Sierra to arrange a meeting between Valve and the Japanese console manufacturer.
SEGA, thrilled at the prospect of bringing Half-Life to their spiral-badged console, recommended Captivation Digital Laboratories (CDL) to take charge of the port, a U.S.-based game development company specializing in technology that had already proven its worth to the blue hedgehog company.
The entrance hall of Valve's building today
« One of the reasons they had suggested Captivation was that SEGA had told us that Captivation was a studio they'd call in when another team was in trouble to help fix that other's team's problems. So we understood that we were working with the team that fixed other team's problems from the beginning. »
For the anecdote; Captivation had produced the Dreamcast KRAD Technical Demo (its making-of is to be discovered on this page) in partnership with SEGA of America. It showed, among other things, a duck splashing around in a pond, proving that Sony hadn't invented anything with its duck demo for the PlayStation 3. Presented backstage at E3 1998 in Atlanta, the promising Technical Demo had been programmed on the ancestor of the Katana Development Kit (SET 5), a PC graphics card with integrated Power VR called “SET 2”. Robert Morgan's company had also programmed the Ginsu launcher, a development library for the DC, used notably on Dream On demo discs and on Mega Drive Dreamcast emulators such as the American Sega Smash Pack and its Unreleased European variant.
« Captivation was chosen in part because the studio had experience with SEGA and with WindowsCE and that's how SEGA introduced Captivation to Sierra and Valve. »
Several months before the start of the project, and before talks had even begun for the game, Brian Kraak, a programmer from PyroTechnix whose interview can be read on the Half-Life Dreamcast home page, had obtained the source code for HL PC. Through his own personal intrigue he carried out various tests before PyroTechnix, a division of Sierra, closed down. Those tests can now be thought of, and seen as, unofficial Research and Development (R&D) for the eventual Dreamcast title, rather than a real port of the title to SEGA's machine...
« HL Dreamcast wasn't a project yet. That was also almost 10 months before we hired Captivation.»
Other companies than Captivation were tipped to bring Half-Life to Dreamcast, including Runecraft (Take the Bullet Dreamcast) and Tremor Entertainment. According to the word of a former SEGA of America employee close to Tremor at the time, the development studio (who were behind the Dreamcast port of Kiss: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child and SEGA Swirl) was listing plans to SEGA at the time. After apparently obtaining Sierra's permission to exploit the license, HL DC was one of those plans. The snag was that no one at Tremor had discussed it beforehand with Valve, through whom all Half-Life decisions were made. When Tremor's development team finally discussed the matter with them, they categorically refused to work with them.
« I remember Tremor - I don't remember this story, but I can imagine it being partially true. As for "permission from Sierra" - I'm going to guess that wasn't formal but likely someone they talked to who didn't have the authority because anyone at Sierra directly involved in Half-Life development would have first taken the idea to Valve.»
In the course of discussions between the main partners concerned with the Half-Life Dreamcast project and prior to its launch, it was agreed that the game would incorporate never-before-seen content and even enhanced resources, since SEGA's latest console had higher minimum system requirements than the PC. Both Valve and SEGA were confident that Half-Life would run on Dreamcast.
The cute duck from KRAD
French promotional flyer of HL DC
« The Blue Shift pack it as "necessary" to make the Dreamcast version relevant as the PC game had been out for a while. Dreamcast players not only needed access to a game, but a reason to believe it was better than before, a psychological need we felt. »
At Gearbox these days
They also had lots of ideas about how to exploit the Dreamcast's specific features, including its memory card screen. From the beginning, they knew that porting Half-Life to Dreamcast was going to be a major challenge. Before considering extras such as a mini-game for the VMU, they first wanted Half-Life to perform well on Dreamcast, and above all to be fun to play. Towards the end of its development, adding unique functionalities to the console's memory card would have then required additional resources.
« With the way the schedule worked out in the end, getting the game to work and be performant on the platform itself was pushing the limit of the budget that was allocated to the project. »
Captivation focused on optimizing Half-Life for the Dreamcast but needed support. Gearbox, previously commissioned by Sierra for Half-Life: Opposing Force, was tasked with creating exclusive Dreamcast content, including the Blue Shift adventure, and updating the game's graphics.
The team led by Randy Pitchford worked on an in-house PC version of the Blue Shift expansion. At the same time, Captivation Digital Laboratories was adapting it for the Dreamcast. For the existing PC campaign, CDL directly converted the Valve code base. Sierra oversaw the whole process.
When developing a console video game - depending on certain factors specific to each studio and publisher (whether the engine is multiplatform, the number of Dev Kits available and their restrictions on use, etc.) - it is common for developers to build a non-commercial PC version of the game to facilitate development. This means that anyone can work on it, for example, to test resources and levels, without necessarily needing access to a more expensive Dev Kit version. However, this does not imply that the game is ever intended to be released on PC...
Valve wasn't really very closely involved in the project, and kept a low profile. The Bellevue, Washington-based studio and publisher wanted to just observe how things were going. The management committee's subsequent ambition was to exploit the Dreamcast themselves, as they liked the console's design and SEGA's strategy.
Alongside this, Sierra had been talking to Sony about the PlayStation 2 and together they had drawn up a list of games to examine. Sony was open to a number of titles, but the one it explicitly requested was Half-Life. Valve hesitated, preferring to concentrate on the Dreamcast version.
« Once SEGA changed plans, the PS2 project picked up, and again, the relationship with Gearbox and Valve led to Gearbox taking on the PS2 version. »
Transferring such a game to home consoles, whether Dreamcast or PlayStation 2, was complicated, even if the CPU (main processor) and GPU (graphics processor) of both machines were better than their PC equivalents. The main programming challenges that the development teams had to overcome in order to deliver a smooth gameplay experience were, in particular, low memory and *streaming from a disc for which Half-Life had not originally been intended.
The emblematic Sierra building
« The tools on both consoles weren't to the same level for programmers as on the PC, so determining where the problems were at and what should be fixed was as hard or harder than fixing the problems themselves - this was the case for both consoles»
*Streaming means loading data from the disc only as needed. When a level's memory exceeds a console's RAM it means not everything can be loaded at once, and so developers prioritize elements near the player, ignoring those unlikely to be seen or used. Models, textures, animations, and sounds are retrieved in real-time from storage (e.g., a GD-ROM), which is far slower than RAM.
Valve thought it could take advantage of the Dreamcast's partial compatibility with the Windows CE operating system. At the time, this was considered the best solution for porting a PC game to a console. Microsoft also enjoyed good relations with Sierra, Valve and SEGA. The Redmond firm provided additional WinCE technical support for the project, which made people feel more comfortable about getting stuck into Half-Life Dreamcast.
« Making a Dreamcast game in WinCE was not easy. As far as "hardest part" - a lot of it was how differently architected things were. I remember for example, that the team stole some dedicated sound memory on the Dreamcast and used it for graphics memory to help performance. I may not be getting that detail exactly correct, but that was the kind of crazy things that were being done to try to make the game work on Dreamcast. »
The stated aim was to bring Half-Life to consoles in addition to the PC. In the early 2000s, the console market was still growing and dominating the PC segment. Back then, fewer people had both a PC and a console. They usually chose one or the other. Today, virtually every household has at least one computer. At the end of the 90s, very few families had one.
The 4 studios involved in Half-Life Dreamcast
Development of Half-Life Dreamcast began on December 1, 1999. Against all expectations, the game was announced on February 14, 2000 at the French Milia trade show. It even won a Milia d'Or, an award given to the best games at the Cannes event.
Vestiges of Online options (Dreamcast prototype)
Half-Life Dreamcast was designed as a single-player-only title, excluding the popular multiplayer mode to simplify development. This decision disappointed journalists but was made due to optimization challenges. Performance concerns and remnants of the PC multiplayer mode, locked out on the Dreamcast, are evident in the prototype analyzed here.
« It had to do in part with the matchmaking tech (the process of connecting players for online game sessions) available and what would be needed to be done on the server-side more than on the client side. »
A separate multiplayer variant of Half-Life Dreamcast was actually planned as a future addition to Valve's franchise, potentially as a new game or an extension like Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 had been to PSO 1. While the single-player campaign was in development, the team received approval to work on this multiplayer version. The prototype, eagerly anticipated by fans for network play on the Dreamcast, reached an early but playable stage.
« I remember playing multiplayer Half-Life games on the Dreamcast during testing. I don't remember any particulars other than "it worked". I had played the early multiplayer build, but that was different than the original HLDC build. It may well have been that I was playing in an equivalent of LAN mode which was a precursor to making sure it could matchmake on the Dreamcast network. »
Between September 3 and 5, 2000, at the ECTS (European Computer Trade Show) of the same year, Half-Life Dreamcast was presented in playable form for the first time. The specialized press praised the game and the quality of its Dreamcast port. HL DC showed refined models, compared with its PC equivalents, made possible by the power of SEGA's 128-bit processor. In a bonus, the Dreamcast version carried an unknown adventure entitled Half-Life: Blue Shift. The intention was twofold: to offer console gamers a rich and exciting gaming experience, and to improve its graphics.
Exhibition of the game at ECTS 2000
It didn't take long for Valve's flagship title to hit the headlines. Video game magazines were battling it out to get it on the cover of one of their issues, and to have the exclusive first in-depth look at the game in development. A freelance journalist, Dan Amrich, in close contact with Sierra at the time, shares his journalistic experience with Half-Life Dreamcast here.
Sierra had hoped to release Half-Life Dreamcast during the 2000 holiday season. There's no secret about it: the Christmas period is what drives the industry in general. The publisher/developer had never committed to a specific launching window, nor had any promises been made. Contrary to popular belief, the game had not been delayed. Quite simply, no one knew or could predict how long it would take to complete. Finally, after a long wait, Sierra scheduled the product for launch in June 2001.
In the meantime, SEGA unexpectedly announced that it was abandoning hardware to focus on software and become a full-fledged publisher. Sierra and Valve, in view of “changing market conditions”, decided to cancel Half-Life Dreamcast even though its development had been completed. The work done on Dreamcast was not lost, however, as the assets were recycled for the PC expansion pack Half-Life: Blue Shift, released in June 2001, and for a PlayStation 2 version in November 2001.
« The PC Blue Shift pack definitely wasn't planned ahead of time, it was a pivot once we realized the Dreamcast wasn't going to come out. It also wouldn't surprise me if had Dreamcast released as planned, that later, post-launch, a discussion would come up to consider releasing Blue Shift on PC, but we hadn't ever spent time talking about it or planning it until the moment that the Dreamcast cancellation happened. »
Programming for PlayStation 2 was no mean feat for Gearbox's gaming staff. The technology and tools provided by Sony were not as straightforward as on the PC. These difficulties of programmation, frequently pointed out by developers having coded on PS2, continued until the next console generation, the PS3.
Dreamcast controller settings
« Gearbox had some great folks who were working on the tech and utilizing some of the design and art work that had been done prior including controller adjustments that were done for the Dreamcast, but then making them PS2 specific. »
In 2003, the Warez Group Xanadu made available to spiral console aficionados a Half-Life Dreamcast prototype dating back to April 23, 2001, a happy ending for gamers who could finally try out this long-awaited game. The origin of this leak remains obscure: a confidential red physical disc or the contents of a Katana Development Kit? Whatever the case, the build files will have to be modified to fit on a CD-R of lesser capacity than a GD-Rom, the drawback of an ISO in CDI. Data extraction had not been perfectly executed. Preservation enthusiasts would have to wait 15 years for another prototype (downloadable from this page) to resurface. For the first time, the game was perfectly digitized in GDI, the Dreamcast's proprietary format.
The history of Captivation Digital Laboratories and its involvement in Half-Life Dreamcast
Captivation Digital Laboratories, Inc. (CDL) was a video game development studio based in El Granada, a quiet coastal town near San Francisco, far from the hustle and bustle of a major metropolis. What better place to work in complete serenity...
Robert Morgan (programmer): « Our clients were always happy to visit us! »
HL DC Official Guide
Made up of 5 or 6 veterans of the industry's heyday, the Californian software company specializing in video games and high-end computing was founded by Robert Morgan (quoted in italics in this chapter) in 1996.
« I wanted to work with friends and have a lifestyle with less pressure. It was a slow point in their history (between Saturn and Dreamcast) and I took the opportunity to strike out on my own. Certainly succeeded with the friends part -- not sure I found less pressure though :) »
As he had previously held the position of Director of Technology at SEGA of America, had left on good terms, as Captivation was located close to SEGA's U.S. headquarters, and as CDL's employees were all experienced, the Japanese console manufacturer regularly turned to them for specific assignments. Over time, the company with the blue hedgehog became one of the main clients of this new development studio. SEGA had every confidence in Robert and his team!
« They gave us fair amount of work and helped keep us in existence. They were close by in Redwood City, and still nearby when they moved to San Francisco. In the days before high quality internet we now have, that was useful. »
One interesting anecdote; when SEGA aspired to develop Sega Smash Pack for Game Boy Advance, the source code of Sonic Spinball Mega Drive / Genesis, in order to emulate it on Nintendo's handheld, was considered lost. After several weeks of fruitless searching, it was fortuitously located by the game's producer Scott Hawkins. Sega Technical Institute's former Director of Technology, Robert Morgan himself, had found a storage box containing a mysterious magneto-optical disc containing the “precious” code while cleaning out his garage. The story had a happy ending, unlike the Golden Axe MD source code, which was never recovered. The archiving of video game companies at the end of the 90s and beginning of the second millennium...
« That was a "Wow!". He contacted me asking if I had it, and I typically don't keep things from companies that weren't mine so I said "no". Then, not long after, I was cleaning in the garage and there was a disc that had handwritten sharpie "Sonic Spinball Source" and maybe a date. It was weird format disc -- 100MB R/W optical or something. So I told Scott and said, I dunno if that's what's on it, or if the disc is still good. If you can find a drive, .... I think he drove over that afternoon. That was wacky. »
Captivation closed its doors in the summer of 2001, after 5 years of loyal service, due to a personal tragedy suffered by Robert Morgan. Half-Life Dreamcast, the studio's finest achievement, had been completed as the last effort for the El Granada-based firm. With this game, CPL bowed out with a majestic last stand, even if it was ultimately cancelled.
Example of a magneto-optical disc
« Pretty sad. I know it isn't perfect, but I think we did a pretty good job on it, and i would have like to see it in the market for real. »
This small Californian company, forgotten by the general public, is not credited on any officially released video game. Yet behind the scenes, the folks at Captivation have put their heart and soul into such productions as:
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A fun Quake mod for HEAT.net (an online gaming system produced by SegaSoft, the PC division of SEGA) called “Quake: Da Bomb”. This addon was developed by playing, listening and interacting with the community.
« I stepped out of my programmer shoes and worked as a level designer on that one. That game was a lot of fun to make since we got to play and interact with the community a ton. »
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An attraction for DisneyQuest (an arcade concept opened by the Walt Disney Company) called “Sids Create-a-toy”, based on the world of Toy Story. In front of a screen, joystick in hand, players build a toy from various parts they receive.
Sids Create-a-toy
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Several technical demos, for different providers, to showcase the capabilities of certain graphics chips. KRAD Dreamcast, the most “popular” of these, gave an overview of the technology on board the console, whose video circuit was built around a PowerVR 3D processor. The article [The KRAD Dreamcast technical demo as told by a developer: when a duck paddled in next-generation water] devoted to this technical demo explains the behind-the-scenes development process, with a testimonial from Robert Morgan.
Dreamcast demo disc launcher (Ginsu)
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Lose Your Marbles, a puzzle game released in 1997 and included in a Microsoft plus pack.
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The Ginsu development library for the Dreamcast, used in Dreamcast demo discs offered with official international magazines covering news from SEGA's latest console, in Mega Drive/Genesis emulators and in web browsers. It enables several programs to be launched from a single interface, whether or not they use different operating system options such as Windows CE. Similar work had been carried out for SegaSoft on the PC (a software company created in 1995 as a joint venture between SEGA of America and SEGA's parent company)
Lose you Marble
« I mostly remember the people -- in fact I'm having a little trouble remembering the projects! We were all young, and managed to build a good environment where we could be friends and learn a great deal. »
The human adventure shared together and the technical challenges encountered during the conception of Half-Life Dreamcast, in partnership with Valve, Sierra and Gearbox, gave life to Captivation Digital Laboratories' most ambitious project.
An agent was prospecting on behalf of CDL to negotiate contracts. In the course of a conversation, he suggested that they consider doing game ports to broaden their scope and enrich their customer portfolio. The development of Half-Life Dreamcast, a tour de force, could begin!
Nathaniel tribute in a prototype
« One day he told me "I think you're going to need to do ports". I said, "ok, but I want to do great ports" -- this led to me giving a list of a couple target titles. Our agent went out and landed the number one item on that list. Half-Life. »
Impatient gamers were looking forward to trying out Half-Life on Dreamcast. Behind the scenes, the mood was upbeat. Everyone involved in the title's production was excited at the prospect of offering a unique gaming experience on a home console.
After a long iterative process, the Captivation team set about perfecting an intuitive joystick control system. The basic game was designed and intended to be played with a keyboard and mouse. But the biggest challenge facing the developers, as explained in the previous chapter, was the lack of memory. To remedy this, they had to be cunning!
« We used Windows CE (I forget the exact reason why) and they had a heavy amount of memory dedicated to audio -- like 8MB or something. We didn't need that much audio space, so I found a way to load textures as "sounds" and pull the memory address out. »
They had begun work on the game's artistic enhancements. With the studio's staff reduced, Gearbox mobilized its troops to take charge and produce them more quickly.
Nathaniel, Captivation's mascot, sometimes visited them. Robert would bring her with him, when she needed to be pampered, to the company's premises. The provisional credits of the early Half-Life Dreamcast build detailed below pay tribute to him. What an honor for a stuffed animal!
« Nathaniel is a plush bunny (filled with *"hops"!) -- it was a Christmas gift given to me. »
Nathaniel himself
*The “hops” undoubtedly refers to the “Bunny Hop” technique used by Half-Life players. This move, which first appeared in Quake, requires players to constantly jump in order to move faster.
The story of Half-Life's development on the Dreamcast is a testament to the know-how of the people, from a wide variety of professions, who worked behind the scenes to make the project possible. If there's one thing to remember, it's the technical feat of getting it to run on SEGA's latest console. A successful gamble!
Half-Life Dreamcast and its prototype of September 10, 2000
This Half-Life Dreamcast beta is impressive for the content of its analysis. It shows the evolution of the title from the “middle” of its development to its completion. Usually, a prototype only shows one facet of a video game's conception, such as its programming or the progression of its menu aesthetics, to name but a few.
Nevertheless, this HL DC build reveals many of the steps, rarely seen in a single prototype, at a key moment in the creative and technical process of bringing the game to console. With concrete, visible examples, it helps us to understand the steps taken by developers from various professions within the industry to reach the goal of bringing the project to fruition.
The analysis of the prototype is categorized according to certain fields of video game activity and their corresponding professions. A short introduction symbolizes the specific professional activity. As this is a complex world for the uninitiated, and even for those working within it, some of the particularities of the build are undoubtedly, or sometimes deliberately for the sake of coherence, poorly listed. Chaptering:
Mika helped to analyze the prototype
General information: Exploration of files - programming (optimization, debug menu, etc.) - the way the game is built - scattered information
Game Art/Level Art: Examination of models
Game Design: Game mechanics - controller configuration - player interface
UI: Design of the menus
Level Design: The architecture of the levels
The overriding question that video game designers ask themselves during production is whether the player will have a good feeling when playing the game. This is what we call “Game Feel”. Art direction, game design, programming, level design, UI/UX, flow (sequencing and comprehension of the scenario), interaction with the game - in short, everything that makes a video game successful and beautiful makes up Game Feel. It's as much physical as it is psychological. In conclusion, it's a general feeling. Through trial and error, experimentation and testing, the developers of Half-Life Dreamcast tried to answer this question!
Please note:
Comparisons have been made using the May 23, 2001 CDI version as an example. For the “Game Art/Level Art: Models” section, on the left are the models or photos in play from the 2001 prototype, on the right those from the build dedicated to this article. In the other chapters, the reverse...
To facilitate comparison of the in-game aspects of Blue Shift, the two Dreamcast builds have been modified for PC use. Beware, this does not reflect the true rendering of the game on SEGA's latest console.
The Flycast and Demul emulators don't recognize keys on the emulated keyboard, which is annoying when it comes to writing command lines and accessing HL levels at any time. For the purposes of this analysis, the prototypes had to be altered in order to use them properly.
General information
If you simply want to play Half-Life Dreamcast, opt for the May 15, 2001 build (in GDI) or the May 23, 2001 CDI version. As for this early version of the game, which is not representative of the final product, its interest is limited to understanding its development and, who knows, gaining access to previously unpublished content and solving some of the mysteries surrounding this Dreamcast exclusive!
Jeff Pobst: « I'm sure the Sept build was just an interim build shown to press and not representative of what would ship - it was what ever portion was working and performant at that time - but more performance optimizations were done as development approached May. »
This Half-Life Dreamcast prototype, whose cancellation remained enigmatic until now, dates back to September 11, 2000 (v. 1417), i.e. 7 months before the build of April 20, 2001 (v. 1638) or 8 months before the version considered GOLD of the game (May 23, 2001, (v. 1672)). According to the QA Project Lead on Half-Life Dreamcast, the most recent build examined for Valve/Sierra/Gearbox/Captivation's title dates back to May 30, 2001. If this information proves reliable, more than 20 years have passed since the project was abandoned, so memories are fading, and this latest revision of HL DC has not, to date, been unearthed. No experimentation was carried out on Half-Life Dreamcast's multiplayer during its beta test phase. In conclusion, this prototype is 6 days older than the one used to exhibit the game at ECTS 2000.
Trailer of the prototype
Robert Morgan: « I don't recall why we deprioritized the multiplayer mode. I do know I setup a fake phone system in the office to help us develop it. I know I wasn't a huge fan of the built in modem. So yeah, it works (or worked) -- probably pretty rough though. »
The “version” command line contradicts the prototype date retrieved by trusting the last modification of its files after extraction of its contents. The build timestamp is finally September 10, 2000 at 22:23:37.
After analyzing the structure of the prototype's files, it turns out that there are too many of them, and that they've been separated. By deduction, in video game development, this working method is often synonymous with pre-production versions, which seems to be the case for this Half-Life Dreamcast. The “DLLS” subfolder, in the “BARNEY” directory, contains an intriguing file called “HL.DLL”, possibly associated with a PC build (to be confirmed, no real research has been undertaken). Other files, grouped together in a single file in future versions of the game (a container), correspond to multiplayer data. Unfortunately, nothing can be exploited to help us one day live the dream of facing up to 7 billion players online.
Some files related to the Online PC
A demo, unique to this HL DC, was recorded and filmed on the “dm_office” multiplayer map, which unfortunately did not load. This deathmatch arena probably only ran on a Katana Development Kit with twice as much RAM (random access memory) as an ordinary console. The text strings indicate that a person named “Skinny” is joining the server, presumably the host of the game.
References to beer not yet deleted
Conversation shortcut not yet locked
The “status” command line
The main menu
The Debug Menu
The Whiteboxing process
System information during loadings
Glitch graphics
Default texture(s)
Mentions of Barney's beer are amputated, censored, from the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 versions of the game. References to alcohol had not yet been removed in this build. For the anecdote, cervoise in Fur Fighters Dreamcast had been replaced by fruit juice!
This prototype borrows command lines and keyboard shortcuts from the PC multiplayer mode. The game's creators locked them out later, when Half-Life Dreamcast was finalized. They can be used to connect to a server (connection failure), to talk to all players in the same game, or to whisper to teammates during “Team VS Team” scuffles. Other command lines react differently, notably the “status” input.
Both the Main Menu and the Pause Menu allow you to view or manipulate the internal state of the game via a Debug Menu. To take advantage of “Cheats” such as “god (invincibility)”, “noclip (Free Camera)” and “impulse 101 (all weapons)”, you need to activate them here with the “Allow Cheat Code” option and then a second time in-game by entering the corresponding command line, otherwise nothing will happen. The Debug Menu's most attractive options, such as selecting the desired level, are unfortunately empty.
At this stage of development, the game suffers from serious instabilities and slowdowns on certain levels and map sections, which will be rectified when it goes GOLD, an impressive optimization job carried out by Captivation Digital Laboratories. The prototype frequently freezes, particularly in Blue Shift (BS), when too many phenomena are displayed on screen (too many explosion effects, an excessive number of nearby enemies, etc.). Running several Cheats at the same time, or certain special monster animations, can also cause the game to crash, and there is sometimes a delay when typing a command line.
Robert Morgan: « Performance: It was a cutting-edge PC game that we wanted to run on a console. On top of that, in the art refresh things were larger and more detailed. I hand coded a lot of rendering to get it to work well enough. »
Half-Life Dreamcast's levels are built in several instanced sections. Each time the player changes sector, the title loads the new environment to be inspected. In Blue Shift's campaign, the prototype submits fewer “Loadings” between the different areas of certain levels than usual. Some areas, later separated into several parts, are grouped into a single one in this major build. These portions, too large to be played on Dreamcast, regularly cause the problems outlined in the previous paragraph.
Parts of the levels in the “Hazard Course” tutorial applied temporary textures with black and purple checkered flag patterns. The developers proceeded with “White Boxing”, which consists of placing the game's skeleton as quickly as possible, like a painter drawing a sketch before painting a masterpiece. These non-definitive locations are unstable and can cause the game to freeze.
This console version of Valve's hit, whether progressing through the story of BS or Half-Life PC (HL1), with the inconveniences mentioned so far or explained below, is not playable from start to finish in either of its two distinct adventures.
A cult beer ad made a lasting impression on TV viewers in the late 90s. Since its first broadcast on December 20, 1999, it has become a social phenomenon and pop culture icon. It didn't take long for this viral advertising campaign to make its way around the world, and to be taken up by friends for fun. Like SEGA in France and its famous motto “SEGA c'est plus fort que toi (restore 35 mm reels, rushes and ads here)”, BudWeiser invented the inescapable slogan “Wassup” to promote its beer brand. Apparently, HL Dreamcast's developers really appreciated this advert, since they used it in a placeholder, a smile-inducing joke among themselves, for the final sequence of Blue Shift (ba_outro). Less funny and rather unfortunate, the end scene of HL1 is not finished, the game crashes...
The developers' jokes
The atmosphere during the development of Half-Life Dreamcast was warm and friendly. The in-game “Wassup” reference isn't the project's only inside joke. The beta's provisional credits are another, as suggested by the phrases appearing on screen: “Chief Executive Bunny”, “Blood, Sweat, Tears” and the funniest “No headcrabs were injured in the making of this game” to name but a few.
September 2000 prototype
"Gold” version of May 2001
« During Half-Life, we had a "mascot" plush bunny in the office. Named Nathaniel, obviously. I do still have the bunny, and I know where that one is! »
During loading times, which are slightly longer than usual, the prototype prints system indications on the screen. These help to understand what the game is doing to load a level.
Rendering, with this early build, is buggy from time to time. Graphical and sound glitches are common, with the appearance of greenish liquid invoking one of them. A recurrent issue in video games in prototype format, its parameterization is carried out late in the development process of a videogame production, with the brightness of the Dreamcast version of Half-Life on September 10 differing from that of May 23, 2001.
When the game fails to load a texture(s), it deploys the one(s) logically housed in the console's RAM, in this case the same as for “Loadings”.
The name of the level or its sector usually appears at the bottom of the screen when it finishes loading. With this HL DC, it often happens that nothing is displayed, or only incompletely.
Gone are the days of passive cinematics. Now they're interactive and take place through the eyes of Gordon Freeman, a new feature introduced by the Half-Life franchise. The player begins a new game of HL1 or BS, a contemplative but playable appetizer, on a monorail that takes him to a top-secret research complex. In reality, the tram's slowness serves as a pretext to set the scene for the player's journey, and to explain the ins and outs of the story, but not only that. These scripted sequences also serve to credit the people who worked on the project, in the manner of a film's opening credits. In this build, the credits for the opening of Half-Life PC are missing, while those for BS are the ones that normally scroll in HL1.
Looking at this Half-Life Dreamcast prototype from September 2000, it's clear that a year-end release, as initially hoped for by Sierra, was unfeasible.
Game Art/Level Art: The models
The Game Artist, a multi-faceted profession encompassing several sub-fields of activity depending on the project and the size of the development studio, focuses on the visual elements of a video game. They manage the graphic appearance of characters, objects and landscapes. They work on textures, 2D/3D computer graphics, animation, character design, modeling, etc., making sure everything is homogeneous.
It all begins with sketches that exemplify the atmosphere and aesthetics of a video game composition: its characters, its world, its levels and so on. Once defined and validated by the studio, the drawings are put into volume to materialize on screen in the form of a 3D or 2D model covered with textures.
A 3D model is a set of points placed in 3D space and connected to form polygons. This assembly of polygons creates a 3D structure. By applying textures, it is given color and transformed into a relief. If needed, it can then be animated, especially for video game characters. Here are the characteristics of the 3D models in this early Half-Life Dreamcast prototype:
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The texture of Rosenberg's face is distinct from that of the final version. It more closely resembles the heads of the first scientists when the game was first unveiled.
The Rosenberg model
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This prototype benefits from the model and textures of scientist Walter, previously seen only in promotional screenshots of the game. In addition, below, he looks younger with black hair.
Walter in the prototype (his model and textures) with the promotional photo of the game
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A surprising find, this early build of Half Life Dreamcast contains the unused model of the flashlight in first-person view, like a weapon, visible in a Blue Shift trailer when the game's codename was Guard Duty (trailer timecode). By modifying the prototype files, it can be manipulated (a mod).
The flashlight model and its in-game equivalent after ISO modification
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The scientists' old models are present in this version in the Half-Life registry and not in the Blue Shift directory.
Models of scientists
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Other models of the prototype in high definition found in the Half-Life directory.
No need to say anything more about it
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The main difference between the G-Man models lies in the textures. They are of lower resolution in the final Half-Life Dreamcast version, but surprisingly better refined on this prototype. When the game went GOLD, the developers replaced the textures on his face and hair. His new facial texture comes from the original HL PC model (far right), giving him a more faithful appearance.
Comparison of textures and the model of the mysterious G-Man
Significant model changes from prototype to final version mean that the build in question stands out from the others in terms of understanding game development.
Game Design
A video game has its own unique universe, its own characteristic rules, its own mechanics and other ingredients that make up the game. This non-exhaustive composition is the object of undeniable imagination and creation on the part of the Game Designer. His main task is to create and establish the rules of the project in progress, the plot and the way it will be played. Gameplay is at the heart of his concerns.
Poorly configured controls can disappoint players. The default setting of a controller's buttons (key mapping), associated with an in-game action, requires time to find a convincing and thoughtful one. To achieve the desired result, developers proceed by iteration. Handling must be instinctive, simple and fast.
Research into the look and layout of the player interface, known in the industry as the HUD (Heads-Up Display), and its identification belongs, not for everyone, to Game Design, since it's also a physical experience of the game linked to the correct distribution of controls on the joystick or keyboard. Opinions differ on this subject, with some industry professionals classifying the HUD as either UI (User Interface) or UX (User Interface Experience). All the visual elements providing information on the in-game situation at the edge of the screen (score, character health, etc.) need to be legible and easily assimilated.
Robert Morgan: « Controller scheme: This is the first time this type of game appeared on console, so we spent a lot of time making a controller scheme that worked. I think we succeeded! »
Clearly, this Half-Life Dreamcast version is surprising. It reveals the evolution of the game's game design. Notable points to mention:
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The movement icon normally placed under the flashlight indicator in the player interface (HUD) is not present. In general, it indicates whether the character is walking, crouching or jumping. This pictogram is a specific addition to the Dreamcast port, an idea later recycled in the PlayStation 2 version of the game.
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In Blue Shift, the HUD is orange as in HL1, rather than the usual blue.
In addition to the HUD, there's another subtlety concerning the “BASEMENT” panel
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To allow the character to crouch, press and hold the “Down” button on the D-Pad. On later versions of the game, the hero will drop down and stay in this position by pressing the “Down” button on the directional cross. Repeat the operation, and he'll be back on his feet.
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The weapon selector appears in the top left-hand corner of the screen when the “Right” button on the D-Pad is pressed. This provisional button configuration will later be replaced by the “Left” button on the D-Pad, without forgetting to hold down the joystick's “Left Trigger”. The prototype does not yet allow scrolling through the various equipment categories on the left, so players can only navigate within them by going to the right...
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At this stage of development, no controller buttons were assigned to the flashlight. However, it can be accessed via a key on a keyboard connected to the console's “B” port. Subsequently, the “Left” button on the D-Pad will be dedicated to this function. Note that its lighting effect is absent from the build.
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The action key for opening doors or pressing buttons turns out to be the “Left Trigger” and not the “Right” direction of the “D-Pad”. When pressed without a switch to engage, a sound effect is heard without anything concrete happening.
Evolution of the Snark weapon model
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Blue Shift levels do not include Crossbows, Tau Cannons, Gluon Guns or Tripmines as collectables. However, this devastating arsenal can only be obtained through “Cheats”. Please note that weapons not “designed” for BS are invisible but operational in this prototype. The player won't see them when holding them at arm's length, but will be able to use them.
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The Snark weapon causes an engine error. Between September 2000 and May 2001, the developers removed 26 skeleton points from its model, no doubt to resolve the causes of the game's crash.
Engine error (Snark weapon)
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The SKILL.CFG file (enemy health and weapon damage values) equals that of the PC version, making the game more difficult than the most recent Dreamcast versions.
It's interesting to note the evolution of the HUD, but above all, with the controller in hand, the tests carried out by Captivation to find an adequate control scheme for the Dreamcast port of Half-Life, something not evident for this famous computer-based First Person Shooter.
UI: The Menus
The UI bridges the gap between human and machine. It enables the player to interact and stay informed through buttons, icons, menus—our focus for this chapter—and much more. The UI Designer crafts these interfaces by creating their visuals, ensuring quality, fluidity, aesthetics, and ergonomic navigation between content.
Navigating a video game's menus should feel simple and intuitive. They are the gateway to the experience ahead. The graphic environments set the tone, mood, and style of the game, while their presentation reflects thoughtful research designed to draw players in and get them playing right away.
The prototype version number
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The prototype is booted directly from the main menu. In truth, you need to pay close attention, as a window with the build version number (v. 1417) is displayed briefly beforehand. The pretty ‘Splash Screen’ (common term for an often static intro screen) with the Half-Life crest and the logos of Valve, Gearbox, Sierra and Captivation is absent. Also missing is the title screen asking you to Press Start to access the main menu; the starting point of the immersion.
When a menu is empty
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On 10 September 2000, the programmers had not yet integrated the save system into the game. When a player died during a session, the game didn’t offer the option to restart from the last save or select one from a dedicated menu. Instead, Barney or Gordon would reappear in the level, as if they had simply lost a life.
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The order of options and game modes in some menus differs from more recent versions of Half-Life Dreamcast. The navigation is free of sound effects. Some menus or sub-menus are stripped of content with the informational message ‘Nothing here yet’. Even though the ‘B-BACK’ indicator, which would logically appear at the bottom left of the menus, is absent, pressing the ‘B’ button still allows you to go back.
No Barney or Gordon here either
Where’s the image of the Dreamcast controller?
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When choosing between playing the ‘HAZARD COURSE’ tutorial and the ‘HALF-LIFE’ or ‘BLUE SHIFT’ campaigns, the name of the adventure, never before seen on the Dreamcast, is not highlighted in blue. This colour inconsistency with the final version is repeated in the next menu, that for choosing the difficulty of the title. In two places, the portraits of Freeman and Calhoun do not materialise to the right of the three game modes.
Espacement
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The image of a Dreamcast controller should brighten up the controls configuration menu for Half-Life DC. But where is it? Pressing the ‘PRESET A’, ‘PRESET B’ and ‘PRESET C’ options doesn't seem to affect the internal state of the game, even though a new window with system information pops up for a second.
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The ‘Cheats’, amusingly named entries meant for a custom menu, did not yet exist at this stage of development. However, they were on the way, as a sub-category of ‘ACCESS CODES’, typically labeled ‘SELECT CODES’ under ‘OPTION,’ hinted at their imminent inclusion.
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A placeholder - a temporary replacement used during the prototyping phase - of the main menu stands in for the pause menu. Pressing the ‘B’ button on the controller allows the player to return to the game.
The work on the aesthetics of the menus, with a few exceptions, had been completed. The prototype's main weakness is its embryonic content. The developers had undoubtedly gone for the simplest solution, building a provisional version of Half-Life Dreamcast ready to be tested without worrying about the rest.
Level Design
The Level Designer is an essential function of Game Design. Rather than conceiving the rules of the game and everything surrounding them like the Game Designer (explained above), the Level Designer will conceptualise and develop all the facets of a level within a video game. Among other things, they will place and arrange enemies in the right places in a level, as well as collectables.
His aim is to apply the gameplay mechanics and rules of the game to a map in a plausible and fun way. They will ensure that the player's path to completing the levels is pleasant and logical, paying particular attention to movement within them. Test after test, they determine the points to be improved to perfect the experience of the game on which they are working until it reaches its final appearance.
The essential and main interest of this Half-Life Dreamcast prototype lies in the Level Design and its evolution up to the Gold version of Valve's game.
The Half-Life PC campaign
Gordon Freeman, the archetypal anti-hero, conducts experiments in a laboratory of abnormal materials located in the “Black Mesa” research center, a gigantic top-secret scientific complex housed in a disused military base buried underground. During one of his experimentations with a mysterious crystal sample, he unwittingly opens an interdimensional rift to the parallel world of “Xen”, inhabited by hostile alien monstrosities.
Aliens immediately invade the site, sowing chaos and desolation in a ruined Black Mesa. Corpses litter the scene, blood splatters the walls. The few survivors, hunted by horrible creatures, try as best they can to find shelter. Gordon, who had fainted after suddenly crossing several dimensions, regains consciousness. Stunned, he can only observe the catastrophe. From now on, his only goal is to reach the surface and escape this hell.
Gordon soon realizes that the U.S. government is trying to hush up the affair. The country's leaders send in an elite commando unit with orders to shoot any soul that moves, whether friendly or hostile. Absolutely no one must know what really happened there!
As the story unfolds, the hero faces increasingly complex challenges. He travels to the planet Xen to defeat Nihilanth, the ruler of the realm, and stop the alien invasion. After succeeding, he is approached by G-Man, a mysterious figure impressed by his fighting skills. G-Man offers him a job with his employers - an offer Gordon has no option but to accept.
Half-Life's distinctive storytelling, which stood in stark contrast to the limited FPS scenarios of the late 1990s, greatly influenced the genre and helped Valve’s game earn its place among the greats.
HL1 levels in the September 2000 build are more or less identical to those of the game released on PC in 1998. In the May 2001 version, the developers spent time making optimization and balancing changes to the maps, reducing their difficulty in some cases. It was also at this time that they made visual improvements and other modifications specific to the Dreamcast.
Rooms brightness and the resulting play of light - for example, the subdued red flicker of luminosity that warns of the area's state of emergency - are not always reproduced on screen. The effects of luminescence or incandescence are there, but the game struggles to display them, the prototype rendering being faulty.
Several models adopt proto-HD Pack shapes observable, until now, only in early HL Dreamcast screenshots. These models differ in fact from their counterparts in the Blue Shift campaign, which are generally close to their final versions.
Elements of the scenery are stripped of their typical textures. Nothing extravagant or dramatic, however. Two samples of this unpleasantness:
Forget About Freeman (C3a1B)
Office Complex (C1a2C)
As the HL1 Dreamcast campaign is, in terms of content, very similar to the game released on PC in 1998, there are few differences, as this is a port adapted for SEGA's latest console.
The Blue Shift exclusive campaign
Barney Calhoun, an ordinary man, works as a guard at the ultra-secure Black Mesa complex. In particular, he is responsible for the equipment and materials handled by researchers in the “Abnormal Materials” sector, where Gordon Freeman works.
At the moment Gordon's unorthodox research triggers the tragedy, Barney is taking an elevator accompanied by two scientists. A series of explosions destroys the elevator's brakes and it begins to free-fall. Just as they hit the ground, the two scientists die on impact while Barney is only knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, the Blue Shift hero realizes that he must reach the surface if he is to escape with his life.
La séquence d'introduction de Blue Shift
On his way, Barney frees Dr. Rosenberg, who will help him in his quest for survival. Rosenberg tells Barney that the only way out of this cursed place is to pass through a teleporter he and his team have invented. It's supposed to transport them to an emergency exit...
The idea of experiencing the same catastrophe that befell Gordon Freeman in a new light, through the eyes of another survivor, is ingenious. The two adventures take place at the same time, with “The Black Mesa Drama” as the only point connecting them. Calhoun and Freeman each go their own way to get out of trouble, without ever crossing paths.
Music does not necessarily play. In-game ambient sound effects are less frequent than usual.
The prototype contains the “BA_TELEPORT” map, unique to the build, a preliminary version of the “BA_TELEPORT1/2” level, which provides a direct teleporter to Xen or Outro levels.
The electric batteries scattered around use temporary textures. These define the object's contours, helping it be oriented in space and given perspective. Each side of the object has a texture with labels like “Left”, “Right”, “Front”, “Top”, or “Back”. The large red square and thin, unlabeled gray stripes evoke raised patterns on a stack’s surface. The different-colored rectangles at their ends represent the attachment points for the textures. Like a jigsaw puzzle, the “Green Right” side will connect with the “Green Front” edge, and so on.
A texture puzzle that forms a fuel cell stack
The scientists of BA_TELEPORT1 in awe of the multicolored stack
Some monsters are not yet “marked” to disappear after death. Their corpse remains on the ground instead of disappearing.
The tramway ride in “Living Quarters Outbound (BA_TRAM1)” takes longer than in the final version. Its timing is slightly slower on certain stretches of the rails. Similarly, the elevator crash sequence in “BA_TRAM3” is extremely slow, causing a discrepancy with the timing of events.
Female Black Ops Assassins meander through the levels of the “Power Struggle” chapter. Their model textures are corrupted, giving them a flawed appearance. Likewise, a Gargantua lurks there, although the player will never face him. In more recent versions of Half-Life Dreamcast, murderesses are nowhere to be seen, and Xen's alien species doesn't exist.
The side of a crate in the “Power Struggle” level reveals an intriguing switch, sometimes purple with no texture and the Half-Life logo. This switch was hypothetically used in internal testing to debug the sequence with the Gargantua. When pressed, it activates a trigger that causes the Garg to flee into the tunnel. However, when the Grunt next to the caisson is killed, his death also activates the Gargantua's escape device. This cog is now useless, as the developers had not yet removed it.
Pressing the purple button in BA_POWER2 is tempting.
As it stands, the “A Leap Of Faith (BA_TELEPORT2)” playground is unfinished. It can be explored with fewer non-player characters. The mechanics for progressing through the map's scenario are not integrated into the build, e.g. after charging and sending the energy cell, returning to the teleportation map reveals it to be empty of NPCs and the teleportation room door locked. One room in the zone has not yet been built.
Whassup G-Man !
The ending of “Chapter 8: Deliverance (BA_OUTRO)” is very rough. Rosenberg uses the Einstein model as a placeholder and has no scripted lines of dialogue. The segment on “Xen” contains ammunition on floating islands, as in the Opposing Force expansion. The scene where the military drags Gordon uses a generic dead character in HEV gear to play him. A new teleportation section, yet another placeholder, exists in this version, an obvious joke on the part of the developers: The player teleports into a dark space, nothingness, lit by two spotlights. Suddenly, in the distance, a bright light reveals a doorframe from which G-Man emerges. He strides towards the spectator, shouting a resounding “Wazzup!” inspired by the Budweiser advert that was all the rage at the time.
Comparative photos show that enemies are sometimes more numerous in some levels than in the final version. They can also be placed in other strategic locations. The player can also fight a different type of monster from the one chosen later by the developers. Further proof of the experimentation that went into Half-Life Dreamcast...
The evolution of the game design of the Blue Shift campaign, with its new DC content, from the prototype to the final version of Half-Life Dreamcast, impresses by the many changes and tests carried out by the developers to make the levels enjoyable to play.
BA_SECURITY2: Ceiling-mounted machine-gun turrets secure the base's corridors. Be careful not to accidentally injure any of the personnel working there, or they'll activate their self-defense system and fire at Barney and anyone else beside him, just like in the Hazard Course obstacle course. Unfortunately, the mission failed. In the final version, they'll be dismantled, and poor treatment of Black Mesah's residents will simply result in Game Over. Breaking the vending machine's coin slot causes a damaging explosion for both the player and the nearby scientist. Bad idea: it will also trigger the deadly corridor protection device...
BA_SECURITY2: The only book in Barney's locker is The 37th Mandala by Marc Laidlaw (an Easter Egg). It's the same texture as one of the books in Gordon's locker (HL1), probably a placeholder. Normally, a Chumtoad is hidden in a cardboard box in Barney Calhoun's locker. Shooting it 68 times with the 9 mm pistol (using all the ammunition the player can get his hands on at this stage) will crack it, revealing a Chumtoad. The game does not yet contain this secret at this stage of development.
BA_SECURITY2: A last-minute adjustment. Normally, the corridor leads directly into the communal changing room, which is laid out as an open space. In the prototype, a door leads into the shower room, a closed area. A miscalculation on the part of the contractor: he thought he'd have to contend with a load-bearing wall at the far right of the corridor. His mistake corrected, the partition demolished, this new configuration will affect the position of the hand towel and therefore the location of the guard drying his palms.
BA_MAINT: The red toolbox doesn't respect the game's scale, unless Half-Life's world was populated by giants at the start of the second millennium. An artifact of a lost civilization? Stop it with the ancient astronaut theory and get serious! In those days, a wiring path blocked direct access from the stairs to the video surveillance station. The player had no choice but to walk a few extra meters, a small detour, to get there.
BA_MAINT: The electrician had forgotten to connect the ceiling light that was supposed to illuminate the trameway to the mains.
BA_MAINT: A question of layout: the drinks vending machines have been switched. Just goes to show how meticulous interior designers can be...
The first Barney, crushed under a barrel - a sad ending that could have featured in Final Destination - is not present. At this stage of Half-Life Dreamcast development, this valiant NPC was still alive! The reaper won't be sparing him in the final version. His death will not be in vain, as his corpse will provide players with new armor...
BA_CANAL1: Without the crowbar, an emblematic weapon in the Half-Life saga, the party isn't quite as wild. The Level Designer added it to the floor to complete the macabre staging displayed on screen. Why did he remove it from the comparative photo on the right? Perhaps the accessory designer only had one available to place in the most appropriate spot.
BA_CANAL1: A return from the ventilation host obscured the scientist's visibility of the rest of the room. Frightened, he begged the Gearbox employees to wait for help in a place where he could get a 180-degree view of the room. The devs agreed, on condition that he use a flashlight for illumination. So, in order to save energy, they dimmed the light provided by the red street lamps. By the way, who owned the prototype's helmet and second flashlight?
BA_CANAL1: A hazard pictogram is a conventional drawing designed to indicate a hazardous substance or material deposit. What toxic materials were stored in the storeroom behind the door before it was sanitized in the final version? Hmmm, why remove the yellow danger sign? The developers aren't telling us everything!
BA_CANAL2: One of the standpipes had been left abandoned. As it was rusting, no one was taking care of it anymore and it was in danger of collapsing, the decision was taken to destroy it to avoid future accidents on future versions of HL DC (right, the photo of the actual rendering on console or Dreamcast emulator).
BA_CANAL2: Poor guy, at least in the final version he had a weapon to try and defend himself and not just ammunition!
BA_CANAL3: The explanation of the effect produced after activation of the valve differs from one version to another, even if the purpose - what is going to happen - remains the same.
BA_CANAL3: Considered too simple, the difficulty of this passage has been increased. To complicate Barney's task, an organic vine, to be avoided while jumping, now completes the obstacle. With the chances of injury becoming higher than before, first-aid kits were placed further back.
BA_CANAL3: Players often feel frustrated when they pick up a weapon without ammunition in a video game. The developers took this comment from beta-testers into consideration, and a box of cartridges will later be found close to the shotgun.
BA_CANAL3: A question of coherence, barrels of toxic products floating in polluted water made more sense than crates. The organic vines seem to be a late addition.
BA_CANAL3: The armor comes at just the right moment. Could the blood on the floor be from the people who came this far on the prototype and died for lack of protection?
BA_CANAL3: Finally, the electricians embedded the electrical network in the wall. Short-circuits threatened to set fire to the military-industrial complex if left exposed. No door yet leads to the generator control room. The architects revised their original plan to install one.
BA_CANAL3: A huge disused wastewater pipe runs right through the room. As the installation was no longer of any interest, it was destroyed, clearing the way for a light fixture - an excellent solution for increasing the brightness of the surrounding area. Why a first-aid kit in the beta?
BA_CANAL3: Steel crossbeams reduce the weight of the supporting metallic structure in the middle of the bridge. As the mass to be supported was lower than expected, Black Mesah's engineers decided to remove the side beams. In addition, a zombie stands in the player's way. Confronting it on a narrow deck proved dangerous, so the Level Designers placed a medical kit against a wall once the enemy had been defeated.
BA_YARD1: Climbing a ladder in total darkness, as in the final version, prepares the player for the worst. Anxious, unable to see, he doesn't know what to expect once he reaches the surface.
BA_YARD3: The photo of the two young boys corresponds to an Easter Egg already featured in Half-Life: Opposing Force. The baby portrait, another nod to the child of another Gearbox employee at the time, will be the final texture of the game.
BA_YARD4: Eli Roth, the director of Hostel, recorded a sordid scene for one of his films in these two rooms. The sequence was considered too gory by the producers - too much blood, too many corpses - so he opted for a less bloody approach, with a minimum number of scientists killed, for the cinema release of Half-Life Dreamcast. During reshoots, he took the opportunity to move a cardboard box blocking the film crew's path.
BA_YARD4: Barney was unaware of the clear and explicit ban on smoking on the prototype. To make him aware of the danger, the Level Designers added jerry cans of petrol under the PVC “No smoking” sign. Since then, he's been a non-smoker!
BA_YARD4: Not one, but two ugly villains! Better not open the shipping container! If you insist... Joking aside, leave it closed as a precaution.
BA_YARD4: What surprises in the prototype containers, this time not one but two living NPCs! What happened during HL DC's development to cause one of the scientists to suddenly die?
BA_YARD5: Another variant from the Level Designers, who preferred a different rendering and type of sea chest. They also abandoned the initial idea of a slanted “USMC ORDINANCE” marking on the machine-gun cover. Tastes and colors...
BA_YARD5: A welcome change of texture. In the GOLD version, the wooden cable reel has a look more representative of the industrial sector. It's easier to see what it's all about.
BA_YARD5: This time, the producers of Eli Roth's film felt that the scene shot on the prototype wasn't bloody enough. Clearly, they didn't know what they wanted!
BA_YARD5: The coupling of the wagon carrying the tank is not easily identifiable on the prototype. Subsequently, the developers invalidated the marking of the large crates with the consignee's “Black Mesah” seal and logo, and the indications of their provenance and contents. In addition, they adjusted the number and arrangement of the boxes protected by a green tarpaulin. Look closely at the right of the photo...
BA_YARD5: As development of Half-Life Dreamcast progressed, the two metal drums with the yellow warning pictograms were removed. The intention to place them there was ultimately not retained. In the chemical industry, workers are forbidden to place certain toxic substances side by side, even with packaging that is supposed to protect them. By way of comparison, in food sales and logistics, it is forbidden to store drinks next to washing powder. The latter can contaminate them. What if the developers - the only people who know what's in the wooden crates, for the sake of authenticity - had had this thought about scrap metal barrels and their contents?
BA_YARD5: Originally, to exit the area with the tank and reach the next one, the player would escape directly through a tunnel whose entrance door was permanently open. Later, to get to the next area, he'll have to make a slight detour by entering a building and taking a corridor from the left of the tank carriage. The hallway leads to the other side of the tunnel, access to which is now closed.
BA_YARD4: In September 2000, a forklift driver knocked over a pallet of Soda while carrying it into the warehouse. Cans spilled everywhere. Following the accident, it took him seven months, until April 2001, to clean up the storage shed. Why didn't he enlist the help of Ryo Hazuki, a handling specialist since Shenmue, to handle the palletized goods?
BA_YARD5: Plywood panels were not considered noble enough for the Black Mesah administrators. On short notice, the carpenters ordered a rush shipment of Gabon Ebony. Delivery arrived just in time for the inauguration of the secret base on May 23, 2001.
BA_XEN2: The secret of the Chumtoad lair exists in a rudimentary form. The middle Chumtoad utters the line “Can you help me get out of here?” before teleporting away. The script is copied from that of the scientists in the Captive Freight chapter, certainly a placeholder.
BA_XEN2: This build reveals a drab cavern. The addition of gigantic stalactites to the ceiling will enhance the cave's appearance. The danger of cave-ins is now heightened.
BA_XEN2: Giant tentacles, the “Xen Tree”, are often absent from the prototype's Xen planet. Octophobes who fear octopuses will be delighted to play it!
BA_XEN2: A lack of inspiration, the comparative photo speaks for itself. Nothing more to say, except that Xen is a hostile planet and it's best not to stay there too long...
BA_XEN5: Exhausted, Barney would arrive here sweating. To regain his strength, rest and wash, a small water well was built at the bottom of this cavity. The developers were concerned about his well-being...
The sequence with the security guard and the scientist trying to charge the energy cell behind the fence is different. Instead of the guard being knocked unconscious by the Vortigaunt while the scientist flees, the security guard manages to kill the Vortigaunt and chases after the scientist, shouting “Hey! Heeey!”.
The mortally wounded guard at the loading station door can't be killed any sooner. He has to finish his monologue and die on his own before being allowed to continue.
BA_POWER1: Apart from the change in position of the buttons on the freight elevators at the end of the corridor and in the room on the right, the lack of floor markings to delineate the area on the right, the missing sign on the left wall and the lighting not installed on the upper platform opposite the view taker, the most important difference to note is the crime scene that took place here. More blood, more corpses with other character models on the prototype!
BA_POWER1: The locked elevator door is opened by the soldiers in an unusual way. In the final game, they use a blowtorch to cut it down. In this rough version of Half-Life Dreamcast, it's blown by a rocket turret piloted by a soldier who will fire projectiles at the player once the door is destroyed.
BA_POWER 1: Coolant uses the original green texture of toxic waste.
BA_POWER 1: The soldiers rappelling down on the prototype were a nice scenographic proposal. Perhaps it posed some difficult-to-resolve performance problems?
BA_POWER1: The models diverge from one version to the next. The entirety of this level, in this early format, is surprising.
BA_POWER1: Door opening seems to have been originally planned with fingerprint recognition. The disadvantage of the biometric system is the astronomical cost of installation. On the prototype, a representative of the XXX brand came to install one free of charge, hoping to win a new customer and, above all, a lucrative contract. Less costly but less secure, Black Mesah's management opted in the end for the traditional button system.
BA_POWER1: Gearbox's staff were perfectionists, and wanted to avoid players having the strange sensation of passing the same place over and over again, and the corridors all looking the same. Creating a slight incline changes the perspective and approach to this passageway, not to mention the addition of purely decorative elements such as the control panel, the pipe and the floor lamp.
BA_POWER1: In the final version, the cleaner has not yet proceeded to wash the area's break facilities.
BA_POWER 1: A room too empty? A door that didn't fit? Too many boxes? Don't worry, the interior decorator will rectify the layout of the zone before the “release” of the game...
BA_POWER2: With the prototype, Barney had acquired the bad habit of relaxing, and napping, on this bench. No choice but to remove it to keep him awake and motivated!
BA_POWER2: The locations in the following four comparative photos are all at the map's starting point, just a few meters apart. The evolution of level design from the beginning of this level with its rudimentary appearance to its definitive look is the most impressive seen to date. In the GOLD version of the game, a corridor should link the player's point of appearance in the level to the vast toxic waste room. The walkway connecting the two sides of the hall will be partially deleted from the final version. Barney is now forced to jump from barrel to barrel, floating on the greenish liquid, in order to move forward. He'll be surprised by the architectural changes made from one build to the next once he's over the hurdle.
BA_POWER 2: The final version features a messy room, with no predefined storage logic, a place where people drop/throw useless things without paying attention. In colloquial terms, a “catch-all”. On the prototype, the items adjacent to the scenery are perfectly aligned, their storage too well-organized. Also noteworthy is the explosion of a light fixture on the upper left of the screen. This faulty lighting, which is constantly blowing the fuses in the military complex, will be dismantled in future builds of the game!
BA_POWER2: The famous Assassins and their corrupted textures are here! Did the developers hire a morphoanalyst (an expert in the analysis of blood traces) since the guard's corpse will be displaced in the middle of the blood trail for the sake of realism? What's behind this entrance, which is normally condemned in the final version?
BA_POWER2: The healing generator in the prototype is the one used in the HL1 campaign (placeholder). For the final version, Gearbox has created a new one, as it is supposed to be located in the old parts of the base, which explains the presence of outdated equipment. The misspelling “AD” instead of “AID” is not a misspelling. The text is blurred due to the low resolution and texture filtering of the model. And the elevator call buttons...
BA_POWER1: The corridor on the right to the “REACTOR”, renamed “GENERATOR” during the continued development of Half-Life Dreamcast, is not marked by a gray floor. Against the wall on the left, ammunition boxes now embellish a room catalogued as impersonal on the prototype. On top of them, a healing kit will restore Barney's health bar in the final version - he's not immortal, poor fellow. Finally, it's up to you to find the last subtlety close to the soldier at the attention.
BA_POWER2: The safety of production workers comes first! To prevent workplace accidents, safety barricades have been installed on the glassless window overlooking the machinery area of this section of the level. The yellow dashboard with the “Valve” will be simplified before the first running of the cooling pump on May 23, 2001.
BA_POWER2: The two galvanized steel balcony railings are wider than usual. The metal shafts are unevenly arranged compared to the Half-Life we know. On the prototype, a grid, at the same elevation as the floor slab, covers the vertical shaft in the center of the room. To draw players' attention to this excavation, the developers subsequently lowered this plot by a few centimetres, marking its edges with the red/black colors of traffic ribbons.
BA_POWER1: The good thing about playing the prototype is that the automatic machine gun that's supposed to be there won't kill the player. Admittedly, the button to activate the elevating platform was also misplaced. Black Mesah's administrators finally opted for a digital system for locking and unlocking the door, instead of a simple red/green button to open it. The other differences are incidental.
BA_TELEPORT1: On the ground floor of the final version, a succession of grids now mark out the “processional” path leading to the elevator. Perhaps with the aim of indirectly guiding the player to approach it, so that he or she pays unconscious close attention...
BA_TELEPORT1: Indeed, the button was poorly positioned on the prototype, not immediately visible when entering the elevator cab.
BA_TELEPORT1: After the wall-mounted “first aid” explained above, it's now the turn of the suit loader to show itself in a new way. The prototype model comes from HL1, although it's not used except once in a multiplayer map.
BA_TELEPORT2: Decidedly a recurring particularity on the build. The location of the control panel for calling the freight elevator was inappropriate. The green sign reads “REACTOR”, not “GENERATOR”.
No doubt, as one goes through the levels again and again, other differences will be discovered. It's up to you to find them and enrich the “Level Design” chapter of this article. Pay meticulous heed to the smallest detail/pixel!
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You can download this build of Half-Life Dreamcast below
Marphy Black contributed to the analysis of this Half-Life Dreamcast prototype. His expertise in this cult license was invaluable. His mods were indispensable for penetrating the bowels of the game under development.
Comparative video of Marpy Black
If you'd like to download other Half-Life prototypes - three in all - and read several interviews about the game from Valve/Sierra/Gearbox/Captivation, go to the home page dedicated to this Unreleased: Half-Life, the FPS that didn't have the chance to live on Dreamcast!
I'd like to thank Jeff Pobst and Robert Morgan, with whom I spoke, for their availability and kindness, and for taking the time to answer my questions. Their testimonials allow us to go back in time to the development of Half-Life Dreamcast, to understand the difficulties encountered in bringing such a game to the PC, and to learn about the reasons behind its cancellation.
The Mods created/used to facilitate prototype analysis (Sept 10, 2000)
A mod is a modification of a video game that alters several aspects of it, such as its appearance, behavior and functionality. To properly examine Half-Dreamcast's September 10, 2000 prototype, the following mods were required:
Half-Life Dreamcast in CDI (May 23, 2001 prototype), The DEmul Build: The “Tilde” key on the keyboard, the default one for opening command lines, has been changed to “m”. The DEmul emulator didn't recognize it. With this ISO, to close the command line window, type “toggleconsole”.
Half-Life Dreamcast in GDI (Sept 10, 2000 prototype), The DEmul Build Bis: As before, the default “Tilde” key on the keyboard to open command lines was changed to “m”. The DEmul emulator didn't recognize it. To close the command line window with this modified GDI, type “toggleconsole”.
Half-Life Dreamcast "The flashlight Build" (Sept 10, 2000 prototype): He model of one of the game's original weapons has been replaced by the unused flashlight model. Please note that the GDI has not been correctly reassembled.
Half-Life Dreamcast "The Stream PC Build" (Sept 10, 2000 prototype): Marphy Black transformed the Dreamcast prototype into a PC version in order to examine it and take the comparative photos in the “Level Design” chapter. Please note that the rendering and optimization of the game are not faithful to those on Dreamcast.
Another way to build your own PC version of the Dreamcast prototype:
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You'll need a WON version of Half-Life PC ( which you'll have to find) patched to version 1.1.0.6, as well as the Dreamcast prototype downloaded above.
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Copy the BARNEY directory of the Dreamcast prototype (extract it using the GD-ROM Explorer tool) into your Half-Life PC installation so that it's next to the Valve directory.
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Mount the PC game's CUE file in a virtual drive like Daemon Tool.
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Start Half-Life PC with the “Console” option, either via the command window or by making a shortcut to hl.exe. The easiest way is to download the two files HL_DEBUG” and “HL_DEBUG_NO_SOUND” from the folder "Hack Half-Life PC Console Windows (download here)" and place them in the game's main folder. Launch the game from 1 of the two “DEBUG” files. The “Console” option (the window for typing command lines) will appear in the main menu above “New game”.
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In the main menu, select “Custom game”, then activate “Blue Shift” in the menu. Don't forget to configure your game to suit your needs.
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Start a normal game with “New game” or by entering the zone of your choice from “Console”.
With these Mods, you're ready to venture into the depths of a preliminary version of Black Mesah. You now have all the tools you need to start your hands-on experience in the prototype!
Special thanks to:
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all those who took part in the participative financing campaign to acquire this prototype of Half-Life Dreamcast
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La Rétrogamerie (owner of the website https://retrogamerie.fr/) for proof-reading the French text
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Neil Riddaway for the English correction of the article.
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Marphy Black for investigating the Half-Life Dreamcast prototype and helping to analyze it
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LemonHaze and Megavolt85 for digging through the game files
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PC Wizard and Shuouma for an in-depth look at the build's online functions
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Didier Chanfray (Art Director at No Cliché) for his explanation about Game Feel
Sources:
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Photo of the Ginsu library at the start of a demo (prototype) of Rayman 2 DC: Atelier de MO5.COM : Backup de kits de développement Katana
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Photo of the official Half-Life Dreamcast manual: Games That Weren't
Similar prototypes (Unreleased): Agartha (DC) - Emulateur officiel Megadrive (DC) - Castlevania Resurrection (DC) - Half Life (DC) - Dalforce XOP (DC) - Flinstone (DC) - 4 x 4 Evolution PAL (DC) - Ring : L'Anneau des Nibelungen (DC) - Ecco 2 (DC) - Kyskrew (DC) - Propeller Arena (DC) - Geist Force (DC) - Scud Race Tech Demo Dreamcast - Shenmue 2 US (DC) - The Red Star (XBOX) - Heaven's Drive ( version japonaise de Burnout 1) pour PS2 - Jekyll and Hyde (DC) - The Grinch Jap (DC) - Worms Pinball (DC) - Quake 3 Arena version japonaise (DC) - Vectorman PS2 - Fear Effect Inferno PS2
Feel free to have a look at the "other Unreleased games" I found" For the more curious among you, I created a "List of all the unreleased games of the Dreamcast".
