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DiabloDay - Polish BN-Retail Chronicle

Diablo: Alpha1

This is the earliest known version of Diablo. It's exact date can only be estimated, but it can be assumed, that this version is from May 96 or earlier! There are some interesting facts about this version:
It's not known by many, that Diablo was originally planned to be a turn based game. This has been confirmed by David Brevik, Senior Designer of Diablo, in a recent interview. Someone not working at Blizzard North who played the turn based version, suggested to try a realtime version of the game which was quickly realized and turned out to be much more entertaining. The screenshots you see below are from this turn based version. The yellow square indicates where the player is moving. There are still some of these cursors/boxes left in the MPQ files of Diablo. Scroll down, to see all of them!
Other interesting notes about this version:
-the (back then) spectacular lighting feature in the dungeons hasn't been implemented yet
-there was only one graphical representation for the different character classes.
-Fighter and Archer are the known names for the "old" character classes. But there was also a spellcasting class
-the interface was completely different from all following versions
-the line of sight wasn't implemented yet as you could see enemies in adjacent rooms through walls
-you could scroll manually through the dungeon, or at least in a certain area around your character (see 4th screen for an example where the player character isn't on the center of the screen)
-the randomizer for the dungeons worked different, as you can see on screenshots 1,3 and 4 which show dungeons that cannot be generated in the retail version.

Detailed Screenshot analysis!
(click to enlarge)
Click here for a high quality reproduction of the Dungeon layout
This screenshot shows a dungeon formation that is impossible to be created in the final Version of Diablo. Here we can see the "Archer" class in action. This character later became female, got new graphics and was renamed to "Rogue".
Hard to spot: The deleted counterpart to the "burning dead" Skeleton class (Ice Stalker) can be seen as a corpse on the ground next to the archer, right between the cross and the dead "normal" skeleton.
(click to enlarge)
It seems like the status box was used for development purposes, too, as the stats of the character are displayed in it.
Here we are in the caves and the warrior ("fighter" as you can read in the status box) is fighting overlords, illusion weavers and burning dead captains. You'll also notice that he is wearing a medium class armor, indicating that the feature of different armor-levels had already been implemented at this stage of development.
Burning deads don't appear after level 5 in the retail version and illusion weavers don't appear before level8. Overlords don't appear after level 7. This is just a small hint on the changes Blizzard made to the game balance.
(click to enlarge)
Click here for a high quality reproduction of the Dungeon layout
One of my favourite shots, which is also a good example of the turn based nature of this version (character off center and the yellow cursor)
The wall in the west features two graphics that didn't make it into the final version of the game. The wall itself and a beautiful wall carpet. We also see Horrors and Overlords, which are called "Fat Demon" in this early version. We also have some information about the way the info-window worked in this version. Think of it as an ingame console, displaying the latest events with one or two text lines. Again, we have a dungeon formation that cannot be generated in the retail.
The wall in the west actually appears ONCE in the retail version of Diablo: ONLY in single player if you go down to Leoric's Tomb you can see this kind of wall, decorated with some graves, also not seen anywhere else in the whole game. The fancy decoration hanging on the wall is nowhere to be found, but still in the MPQ, working and available for custom levels.
(click to enlarge)
Click here for a high quality reproduction of the Dungeon layout
Nothing "new" here except for the Ice Stalkers alive and in action. The effect of the character not being in the middle of the screen is very obvious here. You clicked somewhere, the character walked there and then it's the monster's turn. The dungeon formation is also impossible in the retail version. Again, enemies behind walls can be seen.
(click to enlarge)
A rather unspectacular shot of the Alpha1. You can see the old lava pretty good, the burning dead don't appear in the caves in the final version and the character is slightly off-center.
(click to enlarge)
A nice shot of the catacombs. This is the only catacombs shot of the Alpha1 we know of. Theres also an Ice Stalker Archer. The character ("Fighter" class) seems to be the same as in shot 2, but with slightly lower stats.
(click to enlarge)
This is by far the most interesting screenshot I've seen for years.
It is of high quality and shows the old butcher level/room which is still (unused) in the retail version and can also be seen on the second screenshot in the Alpha2 section.
There seem to be TWO butcher corpses in the chamber. This might be a bug, as in the pr-demo there are also sometimes two butchers in the chamber.

The best part is the name of the "blue" skeletons. We didn't know their name, as they haven't been implemented for quite a long time. They're called "Ice Stalker".
Here are some sample images showing the cursors from the old, turn based Diablo version.Below you see the original cursor graphics. There are three cursors (square, cross, circle) each available in three colors and two versions: boxed for targeting enemies and without a box. Note that the boxed versions consist of two layers, so that the enemies seem to be within the box. A detailed theory on how these cursors might have been working will follow soon.