This page details one or more prototype versions of K240.
A demo of K240 was released with the March 1994 issue of CU Amiga magazine, predating the final release by about four months.
The same build was distributed with the May 1994 issue of Australian magazine Amiga Down Under. A demo was offered to readers of the May 1994 issue of French magazine Amiga Dream, though it's not currently known if it's the same build.
Graphical Differences
Four building sprites would be changed in the final game: Construction Yard, Environment Control, Protected Environment Control, and Seismic Penetrator.
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It's worth noting that the demo's Seismic Penetrator sprite looks more like its blueprint than the final sprite.
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Speaking of blueprints, the background image to the Sci-Tek page has its palette dimmed in the final.
Gameplay Differences
- Only one of the six aliens is present in the demo. Code specific to the other aliens is absent from several places in the executable, either not yet implemented at this stage of development, or intentionally removed from the demo build. Alien ship and building sprites are naturally missing due to limited disk space.
- The voice system is not implemented.
- The Intel system is not implemented. The Satellite Silo and satellite launch graphic exist (and the launch graphic is almost imperceptibly different by two pixels), but the launch sound, missile/fleet launch alert icons, and most Intel-related code are missing. The Intel screen background image is missing. You don't require spy satellites to view alien asteroids.
- The cheat codes have been removed from the build, but strings proving their existence remain.
- The demo is not localized. The game strings are internal to the executable instead of held in an external compressed file, and are only in English. The characters Ç, Ü, Ä, and Ö are missing from the pixel font.
- Load game, save game, and manual protection codes are not implemented.
- Neither the player nor the alien can create new colonies. The starting asteroid have differently layouts. You begin with a colony already partly established and several missiles in stock. You can't load ore onto a Transporter since there would be no point.
- You can't build missiles, satellites, ships, or Orbital Space Docks. The code for this is missing entirely. You can't buy blueprints or demolish buildings.
- The CPU's output doesn't deplete over time. Anti-Missile Pods are significantly more effective, although they can't be built in the demo.
- The alien Vortex Mine has a 20% chance to fire instead of 10% as in the final game. This doesn't matter since the only alien in the demo doesn't build Vortex Mine.
- Explosive missiles hit only one square instead of four. Mega and Stasis missiles are not implemented, although their sprites are still present in the files and they are referenced in the code.
- The player can't gain income from any source. You can't sell ore (and the empire cannot fix ore prices or offer a bribe to improve ore shipments). You don't gain bounties for destroying alien colonies, destroying asteroids, etc. You don't gain income based on number of colonists (undocumented).
- The chance of a comet, reinforcements, and a survey discovering more ore are reduced. The Gravitational Vortex event cannot occur, probably because you cannot buy the blueprints for the tech to counter it in the demo.
- The game notifies you when an individual enemy ship is spotted.
- The default alien has different stats which make it more challenging than the final game, where it is the introductory enemy. It builds every 40 days instead of every 60, scouts every 20 days instead of every 70, and has a turret cooldown of 6 instead of 8.
- There is no version string. You cannot press V to see the version string.
- There are a few bugs. You can fire alien missiles, and by closing and opening the missile window, you can increment above the maximum. There are a few graphical glitches.
