[Jim]

With Redneck Rampage getting the GDX treatments, seems like Dark Forces is the only classic that does not have a source port. With Dark XL being dead, would your decompiling method also work on Dark Forces? I, and I think a lot of other people, can donate.

[m210®]

Dark Forces isn't on Build Engine. That's all.

[Dzierzan]

Yeah, M210 had references, either Blood Alpha code or Build engine code. With Dark Forces, there would be no references, thus making reverse engineering more time consuming and more difficult.

I am also sad that DarkXL is dead and its author didn't even bother to say a word about what's going on.

[NightFright]

The Jedi Engine used for Dark Forces was only used in one other game, Outlaws. Even though this engine offers features very similiar to Build, it has nothing to do with it at all, as previous posters already mentioned. As great as it would be to have a (fully functional) port for both of these games, it is quite unlikely to happen considering the current circumstances.

[Phredreeke]

how I wish for someone to reverse engineer it though!

[Fantinaikos]

I repeated it many times, but it's possible play a Dark Forces map for the Jedi Engine on Build Engine with the DN3D textures and enemies trough the automatic feature of WDfuse.

Unfortunately the feauture is still incomplete so it suffer of two many problems:

*The majority of sectors logics are not reinterpreted during the conversion, so then you have to use Mapster32 or your favourite map editor and replicate in Build Engine way what the buttons, the platforms, the doors, eventually triggers ecc. should do.
*It is more intended to convert the original levels than custom levels and you can encounting glitches. Fortunately this problem could be bypassed editing the convertion script involved in sprite/textures assignment, it's practically what it's allowing me to readapt and test the Dark Forces maps under Duke Forces (but I can't continue this if Duke Forces itself does not progress further, always if TD accept to add almost the sprite and textures Dark Forces has).

If only we could extrapolate that part of code and then improve it...

On the question of a possible Java porting or any other form of autonomous porting, I don't think it's strictly necessary for Dark Forces or Outlaws, they run quite well on dosbox with the right parameters.

[Phredreeke]

Outlaws is a Windows game and Dark Forces is limited to 320x200 resolution IIRC

There's no next/previous weapon key in Outlaws (can't remember Dark Forces)

and then there's the matter of classic vs OpenGL rendering...

[filipetolhuizen]

Phredreeke, on 16 July 2018 - 04:30 PM, said:

Outlaws is a Windows game and Dark Forces is limited to 320x200 resolution IIRC

There's no next/previous weapon key in Outlaws (can't remember Dark Forces)

and then there's the matter of classic vs OpenGL rendering...

DarkForces DOS version is limited to 320x200 which crippled the game's potential, but the mac version would go up to 640x400 or 640x480, which is clearly the way it was meant to be played.

[TerminX]

Dzierzan, on 15 July 2018 - 12:40 AM, said:

I am also sad that DarkXL is dead and its author didn't even bother to say a word about what's going on.

What, you don't think teasing something for a decade and then deleting half the site without a word is a good way to do things?

[Forge]

TerminX, on 18 July 2018 - 07:43 PM, said:

What, you don't think teasing something for a decade and then deleting half the site without a word is a good way to do things?

the xl engine hasn't been updated in 3 years, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it would just fade away.

[TerminX]

I feel like I'd have a hard time abandoning something I worked on for so long without a word about it...

[Dzierzan]

Yeah, sadly, I've witnessed such situations where people abandon their projects without saying any words. Although various things can happen, life issues, being dead, having depression or even totally losing motivation. Apart from being dead, leaving a word that someone had to leave the project would be more appropriate than doing nothing.

BTW did the author of XLEngine release any of his sources?

[Forge]

True. But shit happens besides 'dead', depression, or arrested that can prevent someone from working on their much invested hobby, or abandoning it without a word.
Three years is a long time to stay silent.

I thought he did have sources available, but I don't know if they're on his github repository or not. I'm not up for sifting through it
https://github.com/luciusDXL/XL-Engine

I'm not sure if this is authentic:
https://forum.openmw...opic.php?t=5073

Lunick or MrFlibble would know and might have it if there was a release

[sephirothOWA]

The last link in the first post I believe is the source code: http://xlengine.com/...334ae38d5685b54

[Forge]

sephirothOWA, on 19 July 2018 - 05:19 AM, said:

The last link in the first post I believe is the source code: http://xlengine.com/...334ae38d5685b54

I believe that's only the source for the DarkXL patch that's in that post.

[Fantinaikos]

Speaking of reverse engineering for Outlaws (and supposedly Dark Forces too), I've found this:

http://glampert.com/...asarts-outlaws/

https://github.com/g...neering-outlaws

[Forge]

Forge, on 19 July 2018 - 05:07 AM, said:

I'm not sure if this is authentic:
https://forum.openmw...opic.php?t=5073

If you follow this thread, these people were 'fixing' the source. Apparently they got it to compile (on mac, linux, & windows) and run some stuff (I don't know how well it worked)
They have their own branch, and it appears to get occasional activity :

https://github.com/M...ine/tree/master

[MusicallyInspired]

TerminX, on 18 July 2018 - 09:29 PM, said:

I feel like I'd have a hard time abandoning something I worked on for so long without a word about it...

Some people don't. There was a man named Brian Provinciano who made a program called SCI Studio which takes Sierra's EGA P&C/parser adventure interpreter "SCI" and allows you to make your own adventure games with it via art, scripting, and sound tools. He was working on the VGA P&C-only version for quite a while and promised it would happen before disappearing for years, coming back to release the unfinished source (at least he did this, though there was nobody around who knew enough to pick up the pieces), and then disappearing again. Years later still he released Retro City Rampage and is now working on Shakedown Hawaii. He refuses to interact with the adventure community in any capacity to this day and pretends SCI Studio never existed. All his old resources and projects and source code for his various SCI/AGI-related projects....gone. Luckily, fans preserved it and uploaded most of them elsewhere.

Some people just give up and disassociate themselves entirely with their projects and old communities because they just lose interest.

Luckily, another man came along and created a little program called SCI Companion which he wrote from scratch which accomplished what Brian never did.

[NightFright]

The disappearance of luciusdxl is regrettable, especially since his DF port was not TOO far from being finished, at least from what I can tell after playing the last available alpha build. Most of the maps were in fact already playable. Then he (kinda) teased a new release with glowmaps and other visual goodies which never saw the light of day. It's the worst you can do to your community. No idea how far he really got with it before he quit, died or whatever happened to him, but we can be pretty sure that it's over for good.

BTW, the XL engine forums are particularly embarrassing, it's a party for spambots and porn ads there. Maybe that was lucius' plan all along.

[MrFlibble]

This year Klasodeth (who it is my inderstanding is close to LuciusDXL) posted in the Daggerfall Unity project forums, making a release of the old XL Engine source code (it's no joke despite the even happening on 1 April). He also made some comments on Lucius' status:

Quote

Lucius has been doing well. Life has been busy for him over the last few years, though it's settled down a bit these days. He's still expressed interest in continuing work on the XL Engine, but I get the distinct impression he's recovering from the years of having incredible demands on his time. There's no telling when he'll finally decide to return to XL Engine development, but when he does he'll be focusing on the decompiler, which should help result in more accurate gameplay reproduction even for other people's existing projects. But of course, that's at some indeterminate point in the future, and I can't blame anyone for concluding that it may never happen.

On the plus side, with the code out there, DarkXL in particular has a shot at finally being completed. And of course, for everyone who believed this was bogus code release, April Fools!

AFAIK this contains the code for DarkXL that should correspond to the "almost complete" build for this game available from the XLEngine website.

filipetolhuizen, on 18 July 2018 - 04:56 PM, said:

DarkForces DOS version is limited to 320x200 which crippled the game's potential, but the mac version would go up to 640x400 or 640x480, which is clearly the way it was meant to be played.

320x200x256 was the default VGA mode for DOS games, there's no evidence the DOS version was developed with a higher resolution in mind.

Doom also uses the same resolution, but that didn't cripple its potential because the release of the source code allowed the community to create ports that have higher resolution modes. Thanks John Carmack!

[NightFright]

Well, at least then there is still a tiny glimpse of hope left that DarkXL may see the light of day after all, whenever it will be. Prepared to wait for another ten years, I guess...

[MrFlibble]

If the code is indeed in that package perhaps someone could pick it up and fork it, Klasodeth released the stuff under the MIT license.

[Forge]

MrFlibble, on 24 July 2018 - 01:29 AM, said:

This year Klasodeth (who it is my inderstanding is close to LuciusDXL) posted in the Daggerfall Unity project forums, making a release of the old XL Engine source code (it's no joke despite the even happening on 1 April). He also made some comments on Lucius' status:

AFAIK this contains the code for DarkXL that should correspond to the "almost complete" build for this game available from the XLEngine website.

mirrors the same thing I posted earlier

Forge, on 19 July 2018 - 05:07 AM, said:

I'm not sure if this is authentic:
https://forum.openmw...opic.php?t=5073

Forge, on 19 July 2018 - 06:33 AM, said:

If you follow this thread, these people were 'fixing' the source. Apparently they got it to compile (on mac, linux, & windows) and run some stuff (I don't know how well it worked)
They have their own branch, and it appears to get occasional activity :

https://github.com/M...ine/tree/master

[MrFlibble]

Forge, on 19 July 2018 - 06:33 AM, said:

If you follow this thread, these people were 'fixing' the source. Apparently they got it to compile (on mac, linux, & windows) and run some stuff (I don't know how well it worked)

I just quickly skimmed through, apparently the code drop was from a version before the latest binaries of the XLEngine, and they haven't gotten DarkXL to work beyond the main menu. Apparently the code for a more or less functional Dark Forces implementation is there, but it needs work to get it running, and the guys over at OpenMW haven't done that (yet), and maybe won't.

I understand though why Dark Forces may not be a high priority for developers, the game works near flawlessly in DOSBox, doesn't have major bugs, and a high-resolution mode is pretty much an optional thing.

I still hope that this game gets a proper engine recreation at some point.

[ReaperAA]

Apologies for the bump, but the news about Dark Forces just appeared on Doomworld.

(Didn't knew a better place to make this post)

[Hydra Spectre]

Our best hope is if Disney decides to collaborate with Night Dive or Aspyr to make modern ports of Dark Forces and Outlaws.
It seems like Aspyr is handling most of the LucasArts modern console ports and updates, though.