Demos

A Demo is a freely distributed piece of an upcoming or recently released video game, typically released by the game's publisher for the consumers get a feel of how the game is before getting the full version.

Various demos of Re-Volt were released over time. All versions with variable release dates, publishers, engine type and features.

Typical limitations

Car selection screen of v0.01acclaim demo.

There're some typical limitations that can be seen in the various demo versions of the game, which are as follows:

• Just few stock tracks are available to play, which can only be played in normal mode (mirrored or reversed are not allowed). Most demos have only Toys in the Hood 1 as a trial track, but it varies according to the version of demo. Except in Rolling, demos also have frontend installed, and some have the reversed mode of the trial track. Modifications in the game files are necessary to play in them (see Turn Stock into Custom).

• Just few stock cars can be chosen in the car selection screen, which varies depending on the demo version. Stocks available are usually RC Bandit and Sprinter XL, plus an exclusive sponsored car which depends on the demo publisher. More cars are included, which are all the rookies, the three first clockworks and in some of them mystery. None of these are selectable unless if using the Box-swap trick.

• Only three playmodes are available: Single Race, Time Trial and Multi-Player. The last one is not available in mobile demos.

• Cheats don't work in the demos, except for gimmecredits and bargarama.

• Options menu have limited configurations which varies according to the demo version. Common limitations are the lack of credits and gallery.

• Demos doesn't have the track editor, and only Acclaim, Gamespot and IGN demos contains the Progress Table.

• Additional content (custom cars and tracks) is not recognized by Demo engines, except the newest demos which are the ones of Acclaim, Gamespot and IGN-PC.

• The quantity of cars and laps is limited to 8.

Features

Demos have features that are not present in any of the full releases.

• Ghost Car is shown when racing in Time Trial mode.

Ghost car (RC Bandit) (Left hand side) and Gamespot car

• Soundtracks are included for the available levels in the form of mp3 files. They also feature an exclusive track called nhood1.mp3.

• Everytime the race stopwatch reaches to 20 minutes, it resets to 0, giving the opportunity for the player to win the race even being in the last place (see Stopwatch Reset).

• The Edit Mode panel turns avaliable by adding "-editorsplease" command in game's shortcut properties.

v0.01 demo running with the -editorsplease flag.

• Older demos use a carinfo.txt (a different system of parameters) to group the parameters of cars. It's also used on Dreamcast and Mobile versions of Re-Volt.

• Older demos also feature the Target Camera, displayed every time a firework is shot.

• Older demos have random starting positon of cars (in full version player's car is set in last place).

• Promotional pictures of the full version are shown when the game is closed.

1/3

Known Releases

The most relevant differences between demos seems to be the sponsored car, name and exclusive features that differs from each other.

• CGW

Computer Gaming World version contains a repaint of Humma named CGW, which is one of the various others demo cars avaliable in Developer Version. Version name is v0.01cgw. It is known that this version was distributed in Brazil by the Brazilian subsidiary of PC Gamer (PC Gamer Brasil). The demo was included on its 29th magazine in a CD of demos labeled "22" which comes as a "free gift" together with the full version of Constructor. This demo was also present in the Disc 1 of the PC Accelerator #12 August 1999 magazine.

• PC Gamer

PC Gamer version contains a repaint of Humma named PC Gamer, which is one of the various others demo cars avaliable in Developer Version. Version name is v0.01pcgamer. The engine is the same used in the CGW demo.

• PC Team

PC Team has released a demo version named v0.01, which unlike the other versions, doesn't contain a sponsored car. This demo was released between CGW/PC Gamer and Rolling release dates.

• Rolling

Rolling Demo is the demo which was probably used at the E3 show in the time Re-Volt was to be released. Version name is v0.01. User is unable to pick a car or track, since the demo automatically starts an endless demonstration race in Museum 2 when it's executed (similar to -gogodemo). Just like PC Team, it doesn't contain a sponsored car.

• Acclaim

Acclaim version contains an altered version of Humma named Acclaim, version name is v0.01acclaim.

• Gamespot

Gamespot version contains a car named Gamespot which is a repaint of Aquasonic. Version name is v0.01gamespot. It's the easiest version to find, since it's avaliable in various websites. Its engine is the same of v0.01acclaim.

• IGN

Imagine Games Network version contains a car named IGN PC which is a repaint of Humma. Version name is v0.01ign.pc. This demo version was available at IGN's website until 2011. After that, its download link becomes unavaliable. Its engine is the same of v0.01acclaim.

Demos of other platforms

• Free

Free version is the iPod Touch and iPad demo. Interestingly, it uses Volken Turbo as one of the available cars instead of Sprinter XL which is in all of the above demos, and has no sponsored car and no version name.

• Android Demo

The free version of Re-Volt Classic Premium contains two tracks, (Toys in the Hood 1 and Supermarket 2), and four cars (RC Bandit, Dust Mite, Phat Slug and Col. Moss). It's available at Google Play Store. Doesn't contains a sponsored car nor version name.

• Console Demos

Two console demos are known to be released: SEGA's Dreamcast Demo and Playstation Promo version. For now there is no enough information for these demo versions.

Lost demos

There are other demos known to be released, but doesn't have a copy holded by any of the Re-Volt community members.

• PC Accelerator

PC Accelerator version contains a repainted Aquasonic named PC XL8 R. Version name is v0.01pcxl. It's probably the same engine of CGW, but with PC XL8 R replacing the carbox of Aquasonic.

• Nvidia / Creative Labs' Video Cards demo

This demo version is included with a nVidia certified HI-IQ demos CD and was included with Creative Labs' Riva TNT2 & GeForce DDR/SDR video cards. It contains Toys in the Hood 1 and Museum 2 as trial tracks. The sponsored cars included are Riva TNT2 and Acclaim. It was distributed with a full version of Forsaken. In an additional note, demos from this CD would only be installed if a nVidia video card was detected in the computer. It's known to be released in United States region. Version name is supposed to be v0.01nvidia.

• Game Center

Game Center version contains a repainted Aquasonic named Game Center. Version name is v0.01gamecenter.

• Creative Labs

Version name is v0.01creativelabs.

• E3

Version name is v0.01e3.

• MacDonalds (ziffdavies)

Version name is v0.01ziffdavies.

Engines chronology and differences

The official version came after the demos, and by analyzing them, a small part of the history of the game development can be discovered. The demos shows how much the game's engine was changed over time until it reaches its final result. Below is the possible cronology of the Re-Volt demos until the official release, and what differs from each other.

First type: CGW and PC Gamer

This is the oldest demo type, and is the one that most differentiates from the July 1999 full release, both in the engine and in the files.

General information

This demo was created in the time Probe was temporarily renamed to Iguana London, months before the game release. Rare logos such as Killer the Iguana (intro3.bmp, showed in the introduction) and LOGO.bmp (an old Re-Volt logo) can be found between the files from the folder gfx.

This Re-Volt logo can be found inside the GFX folder of various demos.

The usual loading screens are not present in this version, but the game's logo with the word loading written below is showed in their place. And also, the loading bar has different coloring.

Old loading screen.

Menus can slide in diagonal directions, and stop at unusual places on the screen (Race Results and Game Mode for instance). Also, a different font style is used for the texts.

A single Carinfo.txt is used instead of the usual parameters documents. In both v0.01cgw and v0.01pcgamer, PC XL8 R is in the place of Aquasonic, and Humma was changed by CGW/PC Gamer (depending on the version). Panga, Clockwork and Mystery are not listed, and all the cars' handling seems to differ from the final version.

Main menu

There are major differences in Frontend, being the menu transition the most visible one. Cameras of Options, Select Car and Select Track menus are positioned at different angles, and the menu icons are not showed. Other one is the placing of instances. Some are missing, and others have different appearence or location. Two clear examples are the toy airplane and the women posters beside the car boxes stack.

• Frontend instances.
• Ditto.

1/2

Several menu itens are missing, mainly from the game settings of options menu. Menus like the Car Physics Selector (mode) and the Progress Table are not available. There's a intriguing playmode called Training in the Game Mode menu, but not much is known about it.

• Options menu.
• Game modes.
• Car preview.

1/3

Using the flag -editorsplease, original names of the edit modes can be seen in the Game Mode menu: Visicocks, Force fields and Gay Matttt Sux Menz Cox. All of them are functional.

This engine type shows a functional handling meter at the car selection screen. It also has a sponsored car (CGW in v0.01cgw and PC Gamer in v0.01pcgamer) that replaced Humma in the car boxes stack. The others selectable cars are Sprinter XL and RC Bandit.

Some preview pictures of tracks are not available at the track selection screen (because they were probably still being built) showing only the game's logo, and some of the available ones uses different screenshots from the final version. The tracks' order is different too. The most intriguing is the presence of Botanical Garden 2 which do not exist in any full release of the game. The summary shows just few info about the race, and Toys in the Hood 1 (normal mode) is the only track available, despite the level folder contains Frontend and an incomplete version of the reversed mode of Toys in the Hood 1.

• Supermarket 1.
• Supermarket 2.
• Ghost Town 1.

1/3

The sounds boxslide.wav and tvstatic.wav are unused.

During the race

The first notable difference is the lack of the race start camera (which floats from the front to the player's cars placed in the last position). Moreover, the player's car is placed in random positions in this version, and also the Race Start's Boost is unavailable.

RC Bandit in 3th place: an unusual position for the player's car.

There's a bug in PC Gamer and CGW demos that sometimes makes RC Bandit textures fully white. What causes that is unknown, and when another car is swapped by it using the Box-swap trick, it shows the same bug.

The second car's camera angle (F1 pressed two times) is less leaned and is placed behind the car instead of the top. The F4 camera (opponent view) does not use cameras of the level, but the individual camera of the cars themselves.

Second camera angle, with rear view and opponent view activated.

The respawn fade of cars is slower, and cars are automatically flipped when they roll over (there's no need to use the flip button).

Surface properties still doesn't exist in the game. For instance, grass particles are not thrown backwards when cars drive on grass surfaces (the same applies for soil). Tires use a global sounds for evey surfaces, identical to skid_rought.wav.

Some weapons of pickups acts differently, which are as follows:

• Bomb fuse throws a bigger amount of sparks.
• Electro Pulse doesn't have a limit for the paralysis. That's to say, the car will stay turned off until the one who activated the pickup move away.
• Shockwave flies through a small lenght when it's fired.
• There's no star.
• Turbo Battery lasts half of time.

At least, directional arrows in the top of the screen are bigger than the final version. The Target Camera is another feature available.

Toys in the Hood 1

There are some notable differences in this level. AI Nodes is one of them. It enables the cars to take shortcuts or to use curb ramps more frequently, but cars can get lost beside the pipe's emtrance if Oil Slick is dropped on there. There are some other differences related to the edit modes, like the lack of ramps (ramp3.prm) and pickups placed on sidewalks and houses' ground.

• CPU cars making a shortcut in a curb.
• No ramps.
• Skate texture.

1/3

There are two differences in the track related to textures: The first is that it uses clouds (an alternative bitmap, with no sun) instead of the usual skybox, and the second is an abstract drawing of a woman in the bottom of the skates spread in the track.

The reversed version of the track is very incomplete, with weird starpos and AI Nodes.

Second type: PC Team (v0.01)

(Under construction)

Third type: Rolling Demo

(Under construction)

Fourth type: Acclaim, Gamespot and IGN

(Under construction)

External Links

• Re-Volt Demos Somewhere? RVL's topic of discuttion

See Also

• The Game
• Box-swap trick
• Demo Cars
• DEV
• Dev0
• Training
• Stopwatch Reset