The demo for dark forces seems basic enough at first glance. Just the first level of the game (even though it sometimes came on a disc that claimed that three levels were available.) The first level for dark forces can be easily completed in a couple of minutes, even if you aren't speedrunning, and even a more casual first playthrough probably won't take more than five or ten minutes. So a demo that's just a little taste, but nothing more. Or so it would seem.
In fact the demo uses an alternative version of the first map with quite a few secrets in it. These are very easy to overlook, but if you go through them you will find tons of weapons and enemies that aren't seen in the actual game until much later, giving thorough players a better taste of what the game has in store.
Begin like you would in the normal game. Things are simple enough, but if you haven't played before the basic idea is this: Go out the door on the right until you find the red key from an imperial officer, then use that to go into the red door on the left.
As normal, go through the red door, up the elevator and hit this switch to open the wall to the right of the starting position. Pay attention to the column directly across the gap.
At the bottom of the column you will discover a switch. If you hit it the top of the column will open up and you will be able to jump across to get some goodies. This is also a secret in the full version of Dark Forces, but in the demo there is a big difference: the goodies include thermal detonators.
You can use these to destroy cracked walls, like the one shown here. This is in the outside area, at a point where in the normal game there is a cave you can go into without blowing anything up. There are some goodies in here (specificially a weapon supercharge and more thermal detonators) but it doesn't go any further than that.
If you use the elevator (after the wall you lowered with the switch) you can go to the top level. You will see a ledge with shields on it. It's hard to see in the image, but there are two more walls you can blow up here for more stuff (including an extra life and an auto gun, which you normally wouldn't get until much later).
The real secrets continue on the other side of the upstairs. Normally you'd never go here since all you'd see in the normal game is two storm troopers (whom you can shoot through the window from inside if you are going for 100% kills anyway.) So even if you've played the game, you might not know that you can jump over there. It's a little tricky jump that you need to do from the small ledge seen here.
You see will a fourth breakable wall across from the platform. Blow it up, jump in, and you'll see a door (which you can't open) and nothing else. Activate the blank wall on the far left to reveal a switch which can be used to open the door
Go through the door to see another switch. When you activate it it will lower the big wall that you saw when exiting from the inside the first time.
This will lead to a large open area behind the walls, as well as a door with the imperial symbol on it. Proceed thorugh to find an area with several enemies you wouldn't normally see (Gran, Interrogation Droids a Remote and the Gammorean Guards seen here.) There are also many goodies, including the fusion cutter, claymore mines, and mortar cannon. At this point you have every weapon in the game except for the concussion rifle and the dark trooper weapon.
Once you clear out the enemies you will find another switch in the central room. All this seems to do is open up a monster closet to release a whole bunch of stormtroopers into the open area behind the walls. My guess is that they did this so that you can have an opportunity to play with all your new toys.
And I think that's it. I can't be certain that there isn't yet another secret opened up by this switch beyond releasing more enemies. But even these additional rooms put a lot more value into a small demo. A pretty nice thing to do for kids who might never play the full game.
I don't link to pirated software from this website, and to be honest I'm not sure which releases of the demo have this secret. At the moment there are various CD images floating out there of various LucasArts demos which probably contain it, and there are various listings on Ebay that have the demo for a buck. WORD TO THE WISE: Many of the listings are for "Full Throttle (with Dark Forces Demo)". These are actually for a disk that contains a demo of Dark Forces and a demo of Full Throttle. That is, you don't get a full game and a demo, you get two demos.
July 21, 2022