Warcraft II - Tides of Darkness demo

Released on January 28, 1996.

The demo uses an early version of the title screen, which has fiery orange background colour instead of the dark blue in the final release. Traces of orange colour can be still recognized on the title screen of the retail version, around the edges of the wooden plate upon which the title is imposed.

Blizzard included hidden funny messages that become audible if the player clicks a unit enough times. In the demo version, Footman, Orc Peon and Orc Grunt units have specific messages that urge the player to buy the retail version of the game.

The demo version allows the player to reveal the entire map, receive extra resources, instantly build anything, and jump to any desired level via cheat codes. These codes, however, are different from the retail version cheat codes with similar functions. Presumably, this was done to avoid spoiling the retail cheat codes via the demo version, as the demo cheat codes are documented in the accompanying readme file.