MMModern 0.18.0

MMModern 0.18.0

This release brings MMModern to Linux, including the Steam Deck without Proton.

• Linux: MMModern now runs natively on 64-bit x86 Linux. Download MMModern-0.18.0-x86_64.AppImage, make it executable and start it; no installation is needed. The README's new "Linux" section explains the steps.
• Setup screen: started without arguments, the Linux version opens a setup screen in the game's own window. It finds your GOG installation (Heroic, ~/GOG Games or the default Wine prefix) or lets you browse for the game folder. It also offers the original installer's sound choices, the Russian translation and Copy diagnostics, as the Windows launcher does. It works with mouse, keyboard, touch and the Steam Deck's trackpad.
• Steam Deck, native: add the AppImage to Steam as a non-Steam game and play it in Game Mode with Compatibility off, or start it in Desktop Mode. Unlike the Proton route, Sound setup and Language are available. The Proton route of 0.17.0 still works.
• Saves and settings on Linux live in ~/.local/share/MMModern (or $XDG_DATA_HOME/MMModern). Saves are written with the same bytes as on Windows, so a save can move between the two.

Windows is unchanged: the same package and launcher as before.

Saves from 0.17.0 load unchanged.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the downloads include neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install on Windows, download MMModern-0.18.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder. On Linux, download MMModern-0.18.0-x86_64.AppImage, run chmod +x on it (or tick "executable" in its Properties) and start it.

MMModern 0.17.0

MMModern 0.17.0

This release brings the game to the Steam Deck and fixes three things.

• Steam Deck: the Windows download plays on a Steam Deck through Proton, started from Game Mode. The README's new "Steam Deck (Proton)" section explains how to add mmodern.exe to Steam with your game folder, and gives a Steam Input layout for the game's keyboard and mouse controls. The launcher window doesn't run under Proton, so its Sound setup and Language choice aren't available there; the game uses the sound configuration of your installation.
• Xeen Slayer Sword: after an attack with the Xeen Slayer Sword, physical spells ignore physical resistance, as in the original game.
• Events MMModern can't finish: if MMModern ever has to refuse an Event partway, nothing the Event already did is kept; the party, items, flags, position, time and random state return to what they were before it. No Event of the original game is known to reach this.
• Smaller log: mmodern.log no longer records the whole game state after every step. Before, it grew by about 100 MB per hour of play.

Saves from 0.16.0 load unchanged.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install on Windows, download MMModern-0.17.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.16.0

MMModern 0.16.0

This release adds Russian. With the old-games.ru fan translation (Clouds of Xeen RUS and Darkside of Xeen RUS 1.2), World of Xeen plays in Russian over your English CD game.

• Choosing Russian: put five files from the translation in one folder: xeen.cc from Clouds of Xeen RUS, and dark.cc, intro.cc, xeen.dat and xeen.exe from Darkside of Xeen RUS 1.2. In the launcher, click Language, choose Russian and pick that folder. MMModern only reads those files. Other versions of the translation are refused, and the game plays in English.
• What comes from where: texts, pictures, the font and the program's own text come from the translation. Maps, rules, music and the recorded speech come from the CD. There is no Russian CD, so the speech stays English, with the Russian captions running below it.
• Keyboard: the letter keys type Cyrillic by their position on a Russian keyboard, whatever your Windows layout, and Shift gives capitals. Hotkeys, item descriptions and combat rows follow the Russian program, including its own key oddities. The controls page lists them.
• Not checked by a Russian reader yet: nobody who reads Russian has checked the text in play yet, so reports are very welcome.

English play is unchanged. Every push to the repository is now also built and tested on a clean machine on GitHub.

The save format has changed so that save names can hold Cyrillic letters. Saves from 0.15.1 and earlier show as "Unavailable" in 0.16.0 and can't be loaded; start a new game.

If you go back to an older release after running 0.16.0, it won't read the new settings.ini, and the record of which endings you have won is lost. Release and development builds share the same folder.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data, the Russian translation nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install, download MMModern-0.16.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.15.1

MMModern 0.15.1

This release fixes the problems an automated audit of Darkside found. The audit ran every Darkside Event twice, with saves, loads, trips away and keys pressed while the game waits.

• Falling no longer freezes the game when a party member is dead, stoned or eradicated. This affected Clouds too: walking off a cloud or a Skyroad edge with such a member left the game unable to take input.
• A party killed by an Event they triggered with Space now gets the death screen instead of a frozen game.
• Darkside speech plays from the right CD tracks. Ellinger now speaks, and about 30 other Darkside lines that played the wrong audio, or none, now play as in the original.
• Characters created at a Darkside Inn start at level 5, as in the original.
• The dials in Darkside towers turn as often as you like. Before, they refused after about a hundred turns in a row.
• If a picture can't be drawn because of a damaged game file, the game now shows "not supported yet" and carries on instead of freezing.

Saves from 0.15.0 still work: the save format hasn't changed.

Darkside has still had much less real play than Clouds, so expect more bugs there. Bug reports are very welcome.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install, download MMModern-0.15.1-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.15.0

MMModern 0.15.0

This release adds the Darkside of Xeen and World of Xeen endings, so Clouds, Darkside and World of Xeen can now all be won.

To win Darkside, bring the Soul Box with Corak inside to Alamar at the top of his castle. The game saves your party at Castleview and plays the original Darkside ending with your score. To win World of Xeen, bring Xeen's Scepter and the Cube of Power to the altar in the Clouds of the Ancients, with the awards the game asks for. The game saves and plays the original World ending: the unification ceremony, the CD's own animations and your score. After each win, Other Options on the title screen can replay that ending, and the mirror words that play an ending without winning work as they do in DOS.

The last three Events that said "not supported yet", one in Darkstone Tower and two in the Dungeon of Death, now run as in the original.

Darkside has had much less real play than Clouds. Each part was checked with automated tests on the original data and short play-tests from prepared saves, but it hasn't been played through from start to finish yet, so expect more bugs there. Bug reports are very welcome.

The save format has changed. Saves from 0.14.0 and earlier show as "Unavailable" in 0.15.0 and can't be loaded; start a new game.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install, download MMModern-0.15.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.14.0

MMModern 0.14.0

This release adds the World of Xeen areas that join the two sides: Darkstone Tower, Dragon Tower, the Dungeon of Death, the Southern Sphinx and the Dragon Clouds. With the right Darkside key, the four Clouds entrances now let you in, and each area uses the monsters, walls, scenery and music the CD gives it. Their exits take you back to Clouds, and Town Portal, Lloyd's Beacon, Teleport, Jump and falls work from every one of them.

Darkside is now nearly complete. Still missing are the Darkside and World endings and three Events (one in Darkstone Tower, two in the Dungeon of Death), which say "not supported yet".

The save format has changed. Saves from 0.13.0 and earlier show as "Unavailable" in 0.14.0 and can't be loaded; start a new game.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install, download MMModern-0.14.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.13.0

MMModern 0.13.0

This release opens Darkside of Xeen. The Pyramids carry your party between the two sides, and most of Darkside now plays as on the World of Xeen CD.

• Cross to Darkside. Walk into a Clouds Pyramid to reach Darkside, and back, as on the CD (without its disc-change prompt). Each side keeps its own game and quest flags, quest items are shared, and you can save and load on either side.
• Every ordinary Darkside map plays: the outdoor areas, the Skyroads, the towers, dungeons, castles and caves, with their own monsters, pictures, text and music.
• Darkside towns. Castleview, Sandcaster, Lakeside, Necropolis, Olympus and Castle Kalindra offer their original services (Bank, Smithy, Guild, Tavern and Inn, Temple and Training) with Darkside's own prices, stock, spells, pictures, voices and music.
• Entrance scenes. The Tower, Dungeon and Dwarf town scenes play their original animations and speech, and admit the party with the right key.
• Darkside Events. Every Event on those maps runs as in the original, including numbered choices, the second kind of password, enchanted rewards and pits that drop the party to the level below, with the original fall and its "Oops...".
• Event text closes when the Event ends, on both sides, as in the original. Door and sign labels still stay until you move.
• Fixes: Temple Heal clears every temporary resistance; Training shows the original refusal for a member who cannot act; an item moved onto its own owner goes to the end of the list, unequipped; an Event with a missing jump or call target ends quietly; the party's defeat no longer shows a "not supported yet" notice.

Darkside can't be finished yet: the World of Xeen areas that join both sides (Darkstone Tower, Dragon Tower, Dungeon of Death, Southern Sphinx and the Dragon Clouds), the Clouds entrances that need Darkside keys, the world flip and the Darkside and World endings still say "not supported yet".

The save format has changed. Saves from 0.12.0 and earlier show as "Unavailable" in 0.13.0 and can't be loaded; start a new game. Save slots made with 0.13.0 work on both sides.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs.

To install, download MMModern-0.13.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.12.0

MMModern 0.12.0

This release gives the picture the original 4:3 shape and adds a launcher window, where you can also choose the sound devices, MT-32 included.

• The game now fills the largest 4:3 area of the window or screen, like the monitors the original ran on, with sharp, even pixels. To get the old square-pixel picture back, set aspect=square in %LOCALAPPDATA%\MMModern\window.ini.
• MMModern.bat opens a launcher that shows the game data, the sound devices, your MT-32 ROMs and your saves. Press Enter or click Play to start. The game no longer opens a console window.
• Sound setup in the launcher lists the original installer's devices. The ones MMModern plays come first, with Sound Blaster Pro recommended for music and Sound Blaster 16 for speech; the others are grouped as having no sound in MMModern yet. Roland LAPC-1 / MT-32 plays the MT-32 music when your own ROMs are in %LOCALAPPDATA%\MMModern\roms. MMModern keeps this choice in its own settings and never changes your game folder.
• The game writes a log to %LOCALAPPDATA%\MMModern\logs\mmodern.log. To report a problem, click Copy diagnostics in the launcher, paste the report into a bug report, and attach the log and your save.
• Change game folder.bat has been removed. Use Change game folder in the launcher instead.

You need the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data; the download includes neither the game data nor MT-32 ROMs. Clouds maps are playable, but Darkside gameplay isn't supported yet. The save format hasn't changed, so 0.11.0 saves load in 0.12.0.

To install, download MMModern-0.12.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it and run MMModern.bat. The launcher finds your game installation or asks you to pick the folder.

MMModern 0.11.0

MMModern 0.11.0

This release keeps picked chests open and makes the automap mark every cell the party arrives on, as in the original.

• A chest whose lock you pick now stays open for good, as in the original: after its treasure, through moves, leaving the map, Save and Load. The lid opens with the original animation.

• With a Cartographer in the party, the automap and the Map screen now mark the cell where you arrive, as in the original: after New Game, Load, leaving the Inn, teleports and fights. Before, these cells stayed blank until you walked onto them again.

• While a scripted event waits on its message, the small map and the border now show what the event changed, as in the original.

• Events now act on the first object in a cell even when it has no picture, as in the original. In Clouds this changes one search in Volcano Cave Level 2, which now shows "Nothing here".

• Requires the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data. The download does not include game data.

• Clouds maps are playable; Darkside gameplay is not supported yet.

• The save format changed to keep opened chests open, so saves from 0.10.1 and earlier show as "Unavailable" and do not load in 0.11.0.

Download MMModern-0.11.0-windows-x64.zip, extract it, and run MMModern.bat. The launcher will locate your game installation or ask you to select it.

MMModern 0.10.1

MMModern 0.10.1

This release fixes saving after the barrier switches in the Golem Dungeon.

• Using one of the three barrier switches on the Golem Dungeon's west wall could make every later save fail with "invalid object override value". This included saves made after leaving the dungeon and when signing in at an Inn. Saving now works, and loading such a game shows the barriers as you left them. The failed saves never damaged earlier save files.

• Requires the original World of Xeen two-CD talkie game data. The download does not include game data.

• Clouds maps are playable; Darkside gameplay is not supported yet.

• Saves from 0.9.0, 0.9.5 and 0.10.0 load in 0.10.1.

Download MMModern-0.10.1-windows-x64.zip, extract it, and run MMModern.bat. The launcher will locate your game installation or ask you to select it.