US Earthworm Jim Prototypes, Betas, Pre-Released Material WTB!

Pm me!

 

Sorry guys, I've been MIA for a while but have found some neat things as of late. I know that Earthworm Jim 3D was generally accepted as a bad game to the series, but the old betas and prototypes showed much promise. Apparently in 2017, footage of a playable Fear level had been shown with the older models and sounds.

Honestly, it looked much better and I can't help but feel disappointed that Jim 3D could have been something better. Things that changed were Jim's gun sound, different camera angles, the locations are significantly different and look like there were multiple sections for the level (All theory of course, very possible that Death Wormed Up was shown near the end of the video). The only known prototype I know is owned by NesWorld, but would anyone have any leads?

This is the footage from Interplay's 1999 Promotional Presentation Disc 1
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Got nothing to offer... But thought I'd mention some content differences that doesn't seem mentioned ever about PC D.O.S. "Earthworm Jim 2". You might find it interesting.

P.C. D.O.S. is the only version with full size and full 8-bit color sprites. You'll notice this difference especially against the PSX and Saturn 32-bit variants since those suffer conversion issues from what may be Sega Genesis sources; these oddly have the best background visuals which make the conversion issues obvious, and PSX version is one of the few PSX games with transparency issues. PC D.O.S. also is missing Lorenzo's Soil which coincides with original not having Lorenzo's Soil which was added for 16-bit consoles after completion. Special effects are missing on backgrounds so appear mostly flat (also true with Earthworm Jim 1 for Windows 95). PC D.O.S. is probably using an alternate and earlier source which no other version seems to use and it's definitely not a Sega Genesis conversion, and possibly unedited (like a beta). Sprites also appear bigger since VESA screen space is little smaller (320x200) vs standard qvga (320x240), and overall screen updates faster and smoother @ 70hz vsynced. Forgot which version this is specifically but I have it and I'm pretty sure it's not the "Can O' Worms" package since this one has no glitches (it seems to have highest gameplay difficulty). Snes one is probably second best IMO as far as quality but it's still about the same due to real-time synthesis soundtrack, high quality backgrounds and no conversion issues (even if it's a Sega Genesis conversion).

Will come back and edit post when I find which one specifically this is for PC D.O.S..

 

Interesting to note man! Yeah the PC D.O.S. by Rainbow Arts has always been my least favorite port of EWJ (besides the psx/saturn versions). So many things just feel off in general. Jim feels heavier and clunkier when making jumps. Plus there are some weird animation repeats for some reason (maybe they felt they needed to add some repeating frames to make the animation.... "better"?) IMO I feel the D.O.S. version falls flat. Even if it is more technically sound,I feel some of the visuals kind of miss the dark gritty atmosphere Jim 1 had. I don't really mind the sprite touch ups, but I wish they would have left the animation timing alone.

Jim 2 is sort of better, but I still wish the animation was left as is. Definitely notice some weird timing errors.

If you have any footage of your version, I'd love to see it!

 

Think it's Sunsoft catalogue. Unless PC was improperly setup it doesn't have issues. Only difficulty is properly calibrating some gamepads; most gameports need calibration with this one. CD audio playback doesn't work too well with most third-party non-Microsoft CD drivers. Still have to take photos of CD to confirm it's the Sunsoft catalogue and could try to capture through S-video and/or cvbs.

EDIT

It's *"Funsoft" and it's "Rainbow Arts". Haven't captured video but here's somebody elses without CD audio . You'll immediately see much better definition and detail on the flying green monster enemies in first stage and the falling grandmas. Puppy love stage has much better color and shades. Farthest I got was chasing psycrow at a later level but kept dying from electrocution at late point in level.