E.X.P.L.O.R.: A New World Betas (c) 2000-2002 Beem Media. All rights reserved.
This is a collection of the various beta versions of E.X.P.L.O.R.: A New World.
- Beta1 - The original version of the game.
- Beta1-2011 - Toying around with fixing some of the issues with the original source code.
- Beta1-2020 - Toying around with getting the 2011 version to compile.
- Beta2 - Second beta of the game. Textured graphics, plus editors were being developed.
- Beta3 - Windows/DirectX version of the game. Least developed, except it could play music where no others could.
I was obsessed with the game Might and Magic and I finally got a copy of it on NES for a few dollars. I made quite a bit of progress in the game, but the game would randomly reset all it's progress upon booting it, so I could never get very far. Finally I became so frustrated I decided that I would program my own Might and Magic game, and that is when development of EXPLOR began.
I was actually trying to call the game EXPLORE, but in the QBasic days it was common to hard code graphics by using LINE and PAINT commands, and I found myself running out of room on the title screen. Rather than starting from scratch I decided to cut off the title right there and just say it was an acronym for something. I tacked on the name "A New World" as a tribute to Might and Magic II, which had the subtitle "Gates to Another World".
Throughout development lots of things were tributes to Might and Magic, in fact at one point I called the map the player was in Sprogal as a tribute to Sorpigal from Might and Magic.
I had a lot of big ideas for the game, and it was developed from 2000-2002, with three different "beta" versions being developed. Each one featured slightly different technology, and newer versions did not necessarily have more features than the old ones.
Eventually I started developing EXPLOR again in 2015, and that is the version available for purchase today, but that's a different story...
You'll note that I have a 2011 and 2020 version (which came after the deveopment of the final release began) that was because I would occasionally go back to my old code to see what all I could do better, and it's kind of fun to go back to my QBasic roots.