Ashes to Ashes

Ashes to Ashes
Also known as: Ashes to Ashes: Feeding the Fires of War!, Ashes to Ashes: The Fires of War Developer: Deep River Publishing Publishers: Corel (US), ARI Data CD GmbH (DE) Platform: Windows Released in US: 1996 Released in DE: 1998 This game has unused animations. This game has unused areas. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences.

This page or file is awaiting consideration for deletion. Please make sure it is not linked anywhere before deleting it! Reason for deletion request: Author request, forgot about the sandbox

To do: Add discoveries, categorize discoveries appropriately, and add images for each discovery

Ashes to Ashes: Feeding the Fires of War! is a first-person shooter made to try and capitalize on the popularity of Doom and Quake.

Raw discoveries pasted below.

Unused Sprites

• GOOB01-GOOB05.PCX (GOOB animation, is loaded in final level but goes unused)
• AMMO.PCX (Unused, identical to AMMO4.PCX)
• SHEILD.PCX (Unused, identical to SHLD4.PCX)
• AMMO1.PCX (Unused tiny ammo pack)
• SHLD1.PCX (Unused tiny shield pack)
• ANDY.PCX (Loaded in final level, image of artist, animator, & level designer Andrew Hunter)
• ANDY01-ANDY05.PCX (Similar to ANDY.PCX, but just his head (rotation style))
• BILL1.PCX (Loaded in final level, image of 3D engine programmer Bill Gray)
• KEN.PCX (Loaded in final level, image of programmer Kenneth Lemieux)
• KEN01-KEN05.PCX (Same idea as ANDY01-ANDY05, but Ken!)
• DOG.PCX (Loaded in final level. Image of a dog! Maybe an office pet?)
• BUNNY01-BUNNY05.PCX (Loaded in final level. Clip art bunny drinking coffee animation.)
• DRLOGO.PCX (Loaded in final level. Deep River Publishing's logo as a static sprite.)

Unused Textures

1BIG.PCX, 1MID.PCX, 1SMALL.PCX (placeholder tile textures)

Unused Levels

• L.TXT (Early version of LEV0001.TXT)
• L1.TXT (Same as above. more complete)
• L1SAVE.TXT (Same as above, more complete)
• L6.TXT (Early version of one of the Arctic Zone maps, refers to the world as Arctic Exile)
• L44.TXT (Early version of LEV0044.TXT, contains earlier version of gib sprite setup found in Demo levels)
• LEVJIB.TXT

• TMAP0000.PCX (no matching H,A,O, or PMAP; appears to be the tilemap of TMAP0007 through TMAP0012 without perimeter tiles)

Debug Menu

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Confirm presence of debug menu, find how to access if possible

Debug menu mentioned in game code, further testing required.

Development Leftovers

Unused files that aren't sprites or level texts.

Map Backups

• AMAP0001.BAK (identical to final AMAP0001.PCX)
• HMAP0031.BAK (brighter than the final and more similar to other HMAP files)
• HMAP0049.BAK (brighter peaks in the south section, likely changed to make it easier to scale)
• HMAP0050.BAK (similar to HMAP0049.BAK in relation to final .PCX, has extraneous data that was removed in final.
• LEV0007.BAK (nearly identical to final LEV0007.TXT, missing final world name, "JIBS" data, and pointers to some sprite objects and actors)
• LEV0010.BAK (same differences as LEV0007.BAK, but for LEV0010.TXT)
• LEV0044.BAK (has one extra actor type that was removed in the final)
• OMAP0001.BAK (contains data not present in final OMAP)

Non-Game Files

• FFCREATE.EXE (program used to create the .CRS, includes every file in the directory including itself)
• MAKECRS.BAT (batch file for running FFCREATE.EXE with a specified output)
• MAKECRS-.PIF and MAKECRS1.PIF (Program information files created by Windows for MAKECRS.BAT)
• OUT (output of a file comparison between LEV0045.TXT and LEV0044.TXT)

Regional Differences

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Need to check for changes in the German release

Shareware Demo Differences

3 levels, all labeled "Arctic Zone Arena 1". Vastly different from final Arctic Zone levels. Each level has unique maps.

• -LEV0001.TXT
• -LEV0002.TXT
• -LEV0003.TXT (Has an empty Powersuit that crashes the game)

TITLE.PCX title splash has "DEMO VERSION" pasted in the top left corner.

END360/END640.PCX has different text, mostly information on the final game, a 1-800 number for ordering, and the suggested retail price of $35.00.

The only death splash in the demo is DEAD360/DEAD640.PCX, which while present in the final game goes unused as it was replaced with DEAD1360/DEAD1640.PCX. Color differences and different font settings for the "Press Spacebar to Continue" text.

Truncated version of CREDITS.TXT. Does not contain the "I'd like to thank the Academy" joke that's in the final.

MAPPING.TXT that specifies different actor mapping values for the demo.

Powersuit crash in Demo ver. Will require further testing to confirm. Empty Powersuit actor data and necessary files for controlling the Powersuit as the player are present, but the EXE still hangs.

Non-game files included in ASHESDMO.CRS:

• FFCREATE.EXE (same as in final ASHES.CRS)
• ASHESDMO.CRS (0 byte file, likely caused by FFCREATE)
• OUT (different than what's in the final ASHES.CRS, contains a directory listing of I:\ASHES\ALPHA\CRS, the directory used for the creation of the final .CRS)
• MAKECRS.BAT (similar to the batch file in the final .CRS, but specifies the file I:\ASHES\ALPHA\DEMOCRS\ASHESDMO.CRS
• BIOD0002.GIF (GIF version of BIOD0002.PCX, otherwise identical)

Inverted height in minimap:

The minimap in the demo is inverted compared to the final.