This demo was created by Headspin as a way to advertise the Plasma game engine. It was based on a game concept designed at Headspin. The tag line was something like ‘Mario64 meets Myst’. It was shown at the 3dfx Booth at E3 in Atlanta - possibly around 1998.
This demo intrigued Cyan to fly down a small group to meet with Headspin in North Carolina. And it was determined to be the engine for the unreleased Cyan game called DIRT. Eventually Cyan and Headspin were merged into one company and the entire Headpin group was moved up to Spokane.
Through the main character, Simon Venture, the player vicariously explores a set of mysterious worlds. Each of the worlds has its own theme which ties together the puzzles and characters of that world. Only a few of these worlds are accessible in the demo.
The demo is PC Windows only that is based on 3dfx video hardware which is no longer available. But you can use a Glide wrapper to get it to run. You can visit the nGlide home page at: http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide
Below is a copy of the version I used.
1) Install one of the Glide wrappers
2) Download NewNexus.zip and unzip it to your local hard drive.
3) Double click on Dirt.exe (even though this is *not* DIRT)
Glide driver setup - This is the Glide driver that is needed to run the Nexus Demo
NewNexus.zip - The Headspin Nexus Demo
Arrow keys to move around:
up arrow - move forward
down arrow - move backward
right arrow - turn right
left arrow - turn left
Shift- Hold while moving to run
Spacebar- Jump
A = "Activate" (Such as picking stuff up)
I = "Inventory" (Open/close inventory) Use up and down arrows keys to select different items
L = "Light (Turn flashlight on/off)
E = "Equip" (Equip selected inventory item)
P = "Pack" (Put item in inventory)
D = "Drop" (Drop selected inventory item)
Q/Esc = "Quit" (Quits game)
P = "Pause" (Pauses game)
Tab = Switch characters and environments (Simon Venture and Spider)
O = Switch between third and first person (first person only for viewing)
R = "Reset" (Reset game)
`(~) Key- Open/close command prompt
-save "filename" (Save current game)
-load "filename" (load a saved game)
getroomstats - displays how many objects, lights and "portals" are in the room
getnumrooms - displays the number of rooms.
listportals - gives you the IDs of the room's portals (doors, windows)
getportalprops portal_ID - lists attributes of a portal
Open init\sound_init.dat in a text editor and change:
wavoff # turns off wav files playing
midioff # turns off midi files
to:
#wavoff # turns off wav files playing
#midioff # turns off midi files
to activate sound and music. (wav is sound, midi is music)