Beast

Overview

Review

Background

Screenshot

Screenshot

Versions

There are two main versions of Beast: the original Shareware version from 1984 asking for a registration fee of $20, and a Freeware version from 1986 where this notice has been removed. The Freeware version also displays the shortcut to quit the game as F7 instead of F10, although the latter continues to work.

As the game modifies its own executable to store custom level settings and high scores, none of the versions I could find online seem to be an original copy. The following list identifies the different copies by the CRC32 checksum of their executables (BEAST.COM or BEAST.EXE).

Modified CRC32 Description
1984-01-01 25B5E82B This version seems to have had its high score table cleared and modification date reset after the fact. The timestamp of midnight, January 1st 1984 is obviously fake. Also, it doesn't seem like the game originally was distributed with an empty high score table (see below).
1986-05-12 3A390E15 Contains high score entries from 1984-07-07 that seem to have originally come with the game, including the names of the programmers. However, there are also some newer high scores (hence the 1986 modification date) which seem to have pushed some of the original ones out.
1987-10-12 E1688282 Same as above but with many more later high score entries ("drew", "dak", and "peter" from October 1987). This is also an overdump, padded with 140 zero bytes at the end.
1996-12-24 0E23D2EE Corrupted file. The screen gets garbled when you try to display the high scores.
Modified CRC32 Description
1986-09-02 CC11B9AB All high score entries are by "Michmerhuizen" in 1986.
1987-07-02 D9110C19 As above, but with two additional high score entries by "nick" in July 1987.
1996-12-24 04DE1651 This seems to be the closest to an original high score table. 17 out of 20 entries are from July 7th, 1985, and nicely structured, showing developer credits. Two more entries are for one of the developers, placed out of order and under a heading "SSI High Scores". Only one high score seems to be non-original: a nameless one with a meek score of 2 points from May 1991. Otherwise, this file is almost entirely different from the others, it seems to be a different build.

I assume that these translated versions are inofficial.

Modified CRC32 Description
1992-01-18 27A3E88B German translation, also converted from a .COM file to a .EXE file.
1996-12-24 FC3428B9 Spanish translation. The Shareware notice has been adapted to ask for 10 dollars instead of 20, and actually claims the game is Public Domain, which I have my doubts about.

Files