Proto:Arcturus: The Curse and Loss of Divinity

This page details one or more prototype versions of Arcturus: The Curse and Loss of Divinity.

The English-language demo of Arcturus was created for E3 2001 and was also officially distributed to 2001-era demo sites. It's still available from sites like Softpedia.

While there isn't much information about this demo available, it appears it was prepared to try to shop the game around to foreign publishers at E3. Ultimately, nobody picked it up; while it was eventually localized in Chinese and Japanese, there was never an official English release.

Build Information

The file timestamps indicate that this demo was built on April 19, 2001, about a month before E3. The title screen refers to this build as "Ver 1.13", which is the final patch for the original Korean version, indicating that it was the basis for this demo.

Unused Video

Two videos are present in the demo, though one of them (dat35.avi) appears to be unused. It's an encrypted Intel Indeo 5 video and has the exact same SHA256 as the same file in the Korean version.

Unlike the full game, there are no references to this file anywhere in the demo, suggesting that it's not used anywhere.

Elluard's Scenario is Partially Functional

There are two prologue chapters. One where you play as Sizz Flair and the other where you play as Elluard von Heinberg. In the demo, you only get to play the former's route as the latter is locked. Tweaking some gamefiles shows that Elluard's route is playable, though very buggy and will crash if you interact with item chests or go inside a Dome building containing a script. The burning mansion sequence is impossible to complete as the enemies and the event following the rescue of the maiden instantly closes your game, so you'll need to force the event to trigger elsewhere to progress with the route.

What's interesting about this cinched scenario is that English text does exist albeit in a very small dose. As the English transcript contains a minor error in its coding, you are forcibly stuck half way through the event. Here is the text itself. Please note that the typos you're about to see is the raw text from the demo itself.

하인하인하인베르그::Talk

if 서장수상과의대화=0
	say "[Elluard]" elluard01.bmp
	say "M'Lord........" elluard01.bmp
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "Here you are, Elluard..." 알브레히트.bmp
	say "So, have you made a decision?" 알브레히트.bmp
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "Yes, Sir!"
	say "I have decided to take on your mission."
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "Excellent! ...... Thank you, my child."
	say "I appreciate your help."
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "Any time, sir."
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "Alright, then let me explain the details of this operation."
	wait
	say "Elluard, your mission is to Find Dalants, and Keep what you find with you."
	wait
	say "This includes your having to interfere with other people who want Dalants."
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "Got it, In a word, I must try every means available to get Dalants."
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "In a word, yes."
	wait
	say "I'll pay the cost of this mission."
	say "You can buy Dalants... if possible. Don't worry about money."
	wait
	say "If you need anything, tell my advisor <%Gail Marowitz%>."
	say "Gail Marowitz is the only one I can trust except you."
	getdiaryscrap 가일_마로비츠 2
	wait
	say "He is in the next room. You'd better meet him later."
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "Hmm.. Excuse me, but. . ."
**	say"I don't have any Information about Dalants, so I don't have any idea about what to do."
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "Of course you don't, so I've sent a spy to give you a start."
	wait
	say "Well, what I've heard is that you can get some useful information in The Kingdom of South Varensia"
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "In The Kindom?"
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "That's right, Elluard. go to The Kingdom first."
	say "Go gather information directly . . . . Hold on!"
	wait
	say "There are may be some information about Dalants in the dome library as well."
	wait	
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "Yes, sir!"
	say "I'll return with news of a successful mission."
	wait
	close
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "Elluard... I believe you will do well."
	say "Take care."
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "Yes, sir!"
	wait
	close

• This is where the softlock occurs. As it doesn't have a space between the say command and the message, you are forced to close the game as it gets stuck with no way out of there. It can be fixed. Doing so grants you access to the rest of the event, though it won't do much, as Dome field towards Elhive and Lachrymosa fields is as far as you can go before the game crashes you again.

More Translated Dome Events

  return
	elseif 서장수상과의대화=1
	say "[Heinberg]"
	say "What's on your mind? Elluard?"
	say "Need you anything else?  Tell me then. I can provide what you want."
	wait
	close
	say "[Elluard]"
	say "No, sir!"
	say "Don't worry about me."
	wait
	close
	return

Elhive_Field01 Save Points

Inserting the rest of the elhive_field maps into /data reveals that there is English text for Elhive save points. The reasoning behind this is unknown, as you never go to Elhive fields in a normal playthrough in this version.