Will be preserved for all time.
Way back in the day, it wasn’t possible to really make a side-scrolling game like, say, Super Mario Bros. 3 for a PC. Or at least not well; that is, until John Carmack made such a thing possible. Which in turn led to your Commander Keens and your Duke Nukum, and… Bio Menace.
Anyway, it’s a well known fact that the tech used to power Commander Keen was originally meant to be used on a PC port of Super Mario Bros. 3. A pitch was made to Nintendo, accompanied by the demo, and the Big N turned it down, leading to the development of Commander Keen. About half a decade ago, John Romero even showed off footage of that Mario 3 demo. And that’s probably where the story would end, but…
A disc containing this demo happened to show up among the donations to the Strong National Museum of Play. Andrew Borman, the museum’s curator, said that the demo came as part of a large submission by and unnamed developer. Said developer didn’t work on the demo, however; they stated that they somehow got hold of it “during their work”.
The individual who donated it was a game developer. But they did not work on this pitch, instead receiving [it] during their work. It wasn’t something I expected to see in this donation, but it was extremely exciting, having seen the video Romero shared back in 2015. One of my favorite things at the museum is helping to process incoming donations, especially when we can help share stories from important developers like id Software.
Andrew Borman
The demo covers all of what was seen in the footage John Romero uploaded, as well as a “fairly flat” World 1-4. Lamentably, though, there are no plans to display the demo to the public. Researchers “and other parties” are, however, allowed to submit requests to access it.
Source: PC Gamer
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