Son Shu Shi

Some trivia by Sébastien Laborie / Orion (Replicants) :

The developers version is very close visually to the commercial version. From memory, there are only three minor differences visible on the screen:
1) There are no extra credits in the developers version (no white text on a black background asking if you want to continue after losing your 3 lives).
2) The graphical effect is different when you pause the game ('p' key).
3) In the developers version, the game presentation screen (explanatory text on a light blue background with soundtrack music) is run every time the game is restarted whereas it is only run once when the floppy disk is booted in the commercial version.

Other differences are not visible on the screen:
1) The commercial version can cache files in high memory if 1MB of RAM is present, thus avoiding swapping floppies.
2) The commercial version contains the copy protection (especially the checksums) and several bug fixes.

Another fun fact: on the 1st disc of the developer version, on the last tracks, I found bits of the game source code. It is very fragmented but there is some interesting information.

For example, there is a doubt about the exact spelling of the name of the game. "Son Shu Shi" or "Son Shu Si"? The first screen with the rasters clearly shows the name "Son Shu Shi" but the next screen (with the soundtrack) shows "Son Shu Si" (see the attached image). The name "Son Shu Shi" has been confirmed by the authors and this name is also in the source code

Another interesting info: in the ST version, there are only 3 different final monsters. But in the source code, we can see that 6 were planned (as on Amiga, I think) :

_12_05_01: ;THE FINAL MONSTER TETEROCK P_12_05_02: ;THE FINAL MONSTER POULPE P_12_05_05: ;THE FINAL MONSTER GLACE FEROCE P_12_05_03: ;THE FINAL MONSTER DRAGON dc.w $000,$754,$643,$532,$772,$740,$600,$410 dc.w $222,$444,$666,$060,$040,$030,$067,$045 P_12_05_04: ;THE FINAL MONSTER CHENILLE P_12_05_06: ;THE FINAL MONSTER ALIEN[/b]

I also found the names of the 16 different weapons available in the game:

dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_0-FRTL,$0401,$0015 ;Arme 0 SPERMA dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L2_5-FRTL,$0100,$2000 ;Arme 1 TRIPLE dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_2-FRTL,$0401,$0150 ;Arme 2 QUADRO dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_3-FRTL,$0401,$0455 ;Arme 3 BOO dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_4-FRTL,$0401,$0250 ;Arme 4 FUSEE dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_5-FRTL,$0401,$0855 ;Arme 5 SPHERE dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_6-FRTL,$0401,$0075 ;Arme 6 ROT AXE dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_7-FRTL,$0401,$0099 ;Arme 7 TUNNEL dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_8-FRTL,$0401,$0735 ;Arme 8 FIREBALL dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L1_9-FRTL,$0401,$1000 ;Arme 9 AXE dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L110-FRTL,$0401,$0050 ;Arme 10 AIR dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L111-FRTL,$0401,$0131 ;Arme 11 BOMB dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L112-FRTL,$0401,$0609 ;Arme 12 LIVING dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L113-FRTL,$0401,$0200 ;Arme 13 ICE dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L114-FRTL,$0401,$0025 ;Arme 14 SHUR dc.w FRTL_sal_say_L2_0-FRTL,$0100,$1500 ;Arme 15 COMETE

Most in French