DescentBB

I don't have a scanner but is anyone interested in me transcribing anything from it? There are some interesting bits, like some of the level names are different (apparently they had different names before the game was released).

I had one for D1/D2 and I think D3. Sadly lost it all in my divorce as she threw them away before I could get to them.

Darth Wang wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 1:48 pmI don't have a scanner but is anyone interested in me transcribing anything from it?

Does the guide have an ISBN number? I'm curious to see if there are some of these around, maybe the Library of Congress?

I've got the Red Faction, Freespace, and Descent II strategy guides. A little worn around the edges but still intact.

vision wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:58 pm

Darth Wang wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 1:48 pmI don't have a scanner but is anyone interested in me transcribing anything from it?

Does the guide have an ISBN number? I'm curious to see if there are some of these around, maybe the Library of Congress?

0-7615-0041-3

Darth Wang wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:35 am0-7615-0041-3

Nice, thanks.

As I mentioned some of the levels have different names in the guide:

Level 4 is called "Venus Atmosphere Lab" instead of "Venus Atmospheric Lab" (very minor difference)
Level 7 is called "Mercury Military Lab" instead of "Mercury Core"
Level 9 is called "Mars Colony" instead of "Mars Military Dig"
Level 10 is called "Mars Orbital Station" instead of "Mars Military Base"
Level 11 spells it "Io Sulphur Mine" whereas I think in the game it spells it "Sulfur"
Level 14 is called "Ganymede Military Base" instead of "Europa CO2 Mine". Interesting how they relocated it to a completely different moon, as I always wondered why there were no mines on Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system
Level 15 is called "Europa Diamond Mine" instead of "Titan Mine". Now they moved it has moved to a moon of a completely different planet.
Level 17 is called "Tethys Military Base" instead of "Tethys H2O Mine"
Level 20 is called "Oberon Iron Mine" instead of "Oberon Platinum Mine"
Level 21 is called "Oberon Colony" instead of "Oberon Iron Mine" interesting how they gave the name to another level

Some of these are kinda interesting. I'm pretty sure several were renamed multiple times throughout the dev process. For example, in the shareware, Mercury Core was called Mercury Military HQ. Oberon Iron and Platinum Mines have their names switched in the briefing as well IIRC.

Also, every screenshot shows that invulnerability is on, meaning the makers of the guide used cheats.

Great way to inspire confidence in how much your guide will help a player win who actually plays the game.

I remember there being next-to-no info about the secret levels, and half the walkthroughs being barebbones "go left, now go up" and they tried to justify it with some pretty language about allowing players to challenge themselves, but it's like, you ran out of time to write this didn't you?

They said that the maps were the most important thing... and to be fair, the 2D maps are nice. But all they have regarding the secret levels is a few wireframe map screenshots of them. Not even their names.