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Hello! It's been a bit too long since we last spoke. Let's fix that, shall we?
First thing's first, it belatedly occurred to me that I never linked to the IGN article that I mentioned in the previous post. Here it is, in all of its mentioning-Turok-2-had-eight-levels glory. Apologies for not linking it before.
SLAUGHTER BY THE RIVER OF SOULS
Last time, if anybody can remember that far back, I briefly discussed The Port of Adia, how it did not appear in the original level set up for Seeds of Evil, and how the original first level wound up being the game's second: Slaughter by the River of Souls. The level, and by extension the game, would have opened with Adon alerting Joshua Fireseed to the imminent destruction of the city (here described as a "peaceful farming village") by Dinosoid forces. By the time Joshua arrives, though, the carnage has already begun. A dying city native tells Joshua that the Energy Totem is to the north within the city's reservoir and also mentions that though a number of his people were slaughtered, a sizable amount were carried off to the lands to the east while others managed to escape altogether (this would have become important in the next level).
Pretty much every level gets an in-depth backstory in the strategy guide's rough draft. This one is no different. It details how the poisonous river had been flowing throughout the Lost Land since its creation, how the river gained the name "River of Souls" over millennia (though it's not like it's hard to guess the reason anyway), and how it was accidentally discovered that the Energy Totem, upon the Lazarus Concordance's erection of it, purified the waters near it, leading to a sprawling city built up over generations. The backstory also goes into local geography, but it's not really important.
And then the Dinosoids happened hurray
This is the picture painted by the rough draft. Grammar and spelling errors are not my own:
quote:
This was once a thriving civilization. The architecture in this once proud city is reminiscent of Roman architecture, though it is not without its own unique flair. The buildings are decorated with bright paintings depicting scenes of commerce, celebration, and worship. The Energy Totem itself is depicted many times in the form of carvings, mosaics, and tapestries. The buildings are of a light sandy/white color, with trim of blue, maroon and green. Important structures are decorated with elaborate carvings and ornamental tile. The roads are of brick, with fountains and statues decoration crossroads and the like. A system of canals runs throughout the entire city. Also lined with brick and tile, these canals are perhaps the proudest achievement of a civilization now all but extinct. Though once a place of great beauty and gentle disposition, the tranquility of this place has been shattered by war. Everywhere the player looks, the signs of carnage are evident. Buildings have been devastated by explosions and gunfire. Impact points scorch the once pristine mosaics, and fires smolder and burn throughout the streets. Bloody handprints and drag marks tell the story of a terrible massacre, and here and there a body may be seen lying where it fell. The colorful tiled floors of the Great Halls have been shattered and are smeared with the blood of the dead. This was a slaughter.
Now, unlike the first game, not to mention the final version of Seeds of Evil, each level was originally going to have its own boss fight. This is actually what the phrase "Seeds of Evil" was meant to refer to: the seven beings that the Primagen chose to be his instruments of destruction. Again, to the rough draft:
quote:
Though physically trapped within the lightship, the Primagen has scoured the Lost Land for centuries with the power of his mind, searching for those that would serve him. Through the ages, the Primagen has touched the minds of millions, tirelessly searching for those with the necessary strength of body, and weakness of mind to suit his purpose. Those that were deemed unworthy woke from uneasy sleep, with a terrible feeling of dread that they could not explain.
Though the Primagen took great steps to ensure that his mental explorations would not be noticed by venturing only into the deepest recesses of the mind, he ultimately failed. The result was an entire world plagued by nightmares of a growing evil, and memories of a mysterious and deadly presence that were as faint as the touch of a single invisible thread.
What the Primagen had failed to predict was that as a result of his mental tampering, millions were able to ‘feel’ the presence of those that had embraced his dark calling. For these multitudes, a common nightmare began to manifest itself – the result of the Primagen’s subversive invasions into the collective unconscious of the Lost Land. Ghostly images of powerful beings bathed in the dark glow of a greater, more sinister presence haunted the peoples of the Lost Land like an evil breeze bearing portents of death.
Despite the nearly imperceptible nature of these troubling experiences, there was an absolute certainty amongst the peoples of the Lost Land that these were more than mere visions, and that the fate of the world would one day lie in the balance.
In their visions, people had felt the dark embrace of the Primagen. Most had rejected its dark hypnosis. But many had not. Of those that were drawn into the deadly web, seven had especially pleased the Primagen by virtue of their single mindedness, clarity of purpose, and outright ferocity. These seven beings, though their identities were a mystery, came to be known in legend as the ‘Seeds of Evil’, A deadly brotherhood whose rise to power would herald the doom of all existence. All seeds, the legend tells, must fall from a single tree.
It's kind of cheesy, but I like it. The River of Soul's boss actually appears in the final game, just only in multiplayer.
It's Gant, the Cold One, the First Vicar of the Dinosoid troops. He would have had fancy arcane powers and teleportation abilities. This fight would finally see the light of day in the Game Boy Color version of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion, where Gant is the final boss. Between drafts of the strategy guide, however, Gant and two other bosses were removed from the line-up, one of which was the boss to the next area I'm going to discuss.
DEADSIDE
So it appears that the graveyards were a relatively late addition to the River of Souls level. Everything Deadside related was to have its own level, what would have been Level 7. Having appeard in Deadside... somehow..., Joshua would meet everybody's favorite Irish snake-man, Jaunty.
(from Acclaim's Shadow Man comics; everybody remembers Jaunty, right?)
Jaunty would have informed the Turok that every denizen of Deadside heard the Primagen's telepathic promise that he would free them if they destroyed the Energy Totem that just happened to be located there (and hadn't been cared about previously, apparently). Thus, we the players would get to traverse Deadside's rivers of ichor and skin-wrapped walkways. Once more to the rough draft:
quote:
Most people do not even know that Deadside exists. While the notion of Heaven and Hell has been a somewhat comforting dream to some, Deadside is the less comforting reality. An endless existence in a cold, frightening place. No living thing has ever entered Deadside and reemerged. Deadside does not judge, does not sort its inhabitants based on morality, or codes, or religious beliefs. Deadside is a great melting pot of the dead. Good. Evil. None of it matters Deadside. Turok must not only cross over to Deadside, he must survive so that he can face his greatest challenge – the Primagen.
There was an enemy cut from the game that, as far as I'm aware, never made it out of the planning stages. It was impermanently known as "The Fat" (whoever wrote the rough draft was not very happy with the name, claiming that "It's late. I'm tired. I'll fix it later!"). The Fat were essentially overly obese Deadmen that acted similarly to them but for three things: 1. they could not be knocked over; 2. they dealt more damage; and 3. when they died, they burst open upon hitting the ground, and from their corpses emerged a mass of worms that would then attack the player.
The boss of Deadside had not been fully thought up as of the rough draft's writing, so all we get is a name: The Scourge of Deadside. You may figure out just how frightening you want it to be on your own time.
In the end, the level was obviously cut, and it's my guess that, upon realizing that they had a fair bit of finished content with no level to put it in, they moved everything to newly-created graveyard areas within River of Souls just because they could.
So now we have this image of the original level progression:
1. River of Souls
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Deadside
8.
Wonder what would come next? (hint: it's something we've already seen in this LP) (heavy-handed hint: it's the Death Marshes)
A note: if you're one of the few people that have read the Turok junior novels that were mentioned earlier in the thread, some of this and what I'll be talking about later may sound a bit familiar, and that's because it does. The junior novels take bits of Acclaim's comics and of the original working story for Seeds of Evil and mash them together to do their own thing. So far, Hunters and the "peaceful farming village" that has part of its populace carted eastwards are some of the things recycled in this way.