Duke 3D Prototype (Spring 1995): AHB-Space on Bad Influence!

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Published on June 2, 2025 11:30:54 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhcPbQRigck

Game:

Duke Nukem 3D (1996)

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This footage comes from Season 4, Episode 8 of the British TV show "Bad Influence!", which was broadcast on CITV on November 1, 1995.

I was able to find four independent recordings of the episode scattered across the web, but this was the highest quality recording of the four. I used LosslessCut to extract the Duke Nukem 3D portion of the video without any lossy recompression.

Even though the episode aired in November 1995, the build shown in this footage is very easily dated to April/May 1995 based on comparison with dated prototype materials. Except for minor differences in enemy placement, it shows absolutely no differences from the version of this map seen in the official May 9 demo reel, and it shows a HUD that was scrapped sometime prior to May 18 (possibly even before May 9), when timestamped screenshots show a green HUD that more closely resembles the final version.

Among fans, this map has come to be known as "AHB-Space" in honor of its creator, Allen H. Blum. According to individuals with privileged access to prototype materials, the map never had a clearly documented title, but it was apparently a dramatically evolved iteration of L1.MAP (E1L1) from the December 1994 prototype (LameDuke). Although AHB-Space is a direct precursor only to Spaceport in the final game, many parts of the map were cut-and-pasted onto other maps across the Lunar Apocalypse episode, with particularly large portions of the map going into Tiberius Station and Lunar Reactor. Much more information about this map, including more screenshots and video footage, can be found in the "AHB-Space" article on the Duke Nukem Wiki.

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