Long After Dark 1.6.2

What's new in 1.6.2

A single canvas across all your monitors. Thanks to @nextux, who contributed this one.

The Monitors setting has a third choice, Single canvas across all monitors: one module, one picture, spanning every monitor you have connected instead of a copy on each. One emulated PC draws for all of them, in the shape they make together, and each monitor shows its part, so a flying toaster crosses from one screen to the next. Start from desktop begins from a picture of all your monitors together, and when the module changes, it changes across them all.

Choose it in the settings window under Monitors, and Preview shows it full screen. It needs two or more monitors, and A different module on each monitor is off while it is chosen. All monitors and Primary monitor only work as they always have.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.6.2-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.6.2-x64.zip: a7864bba33f29898645210912fa7a5d11d9061442ec94475141e3100f9d171da

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.6.2-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.6.2-linux-x64.zip: 6e73995bb8de7d3c0232f8c6255e7c041709cf00b698b9806a5484ece6ede45b

What's Changed

• Add spanned multi-monitor mode by @nextux in #4

New Contributors

• @nextux made their first contribution in #4

Full Changelog: v1.6.1...v1.6.2

Latest main build

The newest build of main: commit a54638d, built 2026-10-30 13:25 UTC by https://github.com/starrlord/longafterdark/actions/runs/41061714375. It is replaced on every push to main.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-x64.zip: 146acf058a9d4f8295d3141155ffb55a76d457a0a3418b4ef7df75a10c4e78e7

For Linux: LongAfterDark-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-linux-x64.zip: f1fcd82c5f37df1f3952e124c198e0f9a33dbd7c82023180069b4fdc36027ebf

Long After Dark 1.6.1

What's new in 1.6.1

Beavis and Butt-head Screen Wreckers: twenty-four releases, 479 modules.

Release	Year	Modules
Beavis and Butt-head Screen Wreckers	1996	9

Viacom New Media's Screen Wreckers, one of MTV's "Cheap Clicks", made by Cyclops Software as a set of its Desktop Toys: nine toys in which Beavis and Butt-head wreck your desktop. Beavis eats the sweets and caffeine that fly in while the Cornholio meter fills (Cornholio); the two tumble about in a tractor tire and drag skid marks through your windows (Tire Trouble); Beavis punches and kicks the TVs, pots and nachos hurled at him (Karate Beavis); they spray-paint graffiti over the screen (Painting Dudes), kick a trash can until its garbage piles up (Kick The Can), throw slurpies, eggs and milk at it (Chuckfest), spray it with shaken sodas (Soda Jerks), shoot the targets flying across it (Shoot 'Em) and mow it into stripes (Digger).

Its screen saver played a toy in "ghost mode", the toy playing itself over your desktop, and that is how Long After Dark plays each of them, over a picture of your desktop, at the pace they had on Windows 95. Caps Lock makes the toy yours to play, with its own controls: the mouse in most of them (a right click changes the paint, the object or the weapon; F2 switches between Beavis and Butt-head), the arrow keys and Space in Tire Trouble and Digger, and the keypad in Karate Beavis, with Num Lock on. Esc twice, Ctrl+Q or EXIT ends your game and the toy plays itself again, as does Caps Lock off. In the living wallpaper (LongAfterDark.exe /wallpaper) the toys wreck a picture of your wallpaper.

It is the set's own Windows 95 program, which Long After Dark runs unchanged: the first 32-bit program it runs whole, started as the set's screen saver started it.

Importing it. The importer takes it from your CD, a folder copied from it, or its ISO image, which it can download from the Internet Archive (46.1 MB). It reads the CD's InstallShield 3 archives and installs only the toys' program and files, and checks every one of them against the original disc.

Twenty-four covers. The importer's window shows them eight to a row.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.6.1-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.6.1-x64.zip: 68c6d5892b2a8688b9180bd639d0a55618458aefacac982852109873eb828cd8

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.6.1-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.6.1-linux-x64.zip: 0812c9e008c81fff51c2a067d755f246077123529b5b607199da72952f598922

Full Changelog: v1.6.0...v1.6.1

Long After Dark 1.6.0

What's new in 1.6.0

Three releases from 7th Level: twenty-three in all, 470 modules. Asked for in issue #3: thank you, @gschmidl.

Release	Year	Modules
Take Your Best Shot	1995	17
Monty Python's Flying Circus Desktop Pythonizer	1995	22
Monty Python's Limited Edition Desktop Extras	1995	2

Take Your Best Shot is 7th Level's "Twisted Arcade Games for Twisted Minds", made of Bill Plympton's animation: 17 scenes that were at once its screen savers and its living wallpapers. Plympton's heads bounce about the screen, drop in and bounce on the floor (Rebound) or fly as clays for a gunner (Skeet). Three are arcade games too, Head Shot, Hot Shot and Line Shot: as a screen saver each plays a demonstration of itself, and Caps Lock starts the game, played with the mouse (Shift+Esc ends it). In the other scenes Caps Lock lets your clicks reach the heads, as Best Shot's interactive screen saver did.

The Desktop Pythonizer is 7th Level's desktop program of Monty Python's Flying Circus: 22 scenes of animation in Terry Gilliam's style, from Silly Walk, Hopping Elephants and the BBC Fairy to Giant Head and Killer Cars. Caps Lock lets your clicks and keys reach any of them, as the Pythonizer's own interactive screen saver did, and that is how its three games are played: The Gopher Game and The Chicken Game with the mouse, The Pig Game with the keys (Enter or Space puts in a coin, the arrows move, Space fires). The Limited Edition Desktop Extras, a floppy that came with Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time, adds two more scenes, Foot and Penguins. They play with the Desktop Pythonizer's player, so they need the Desktop Pythonizer imported too: until it is, the settings window lists them as needing it, and Random leaves them out. Either can be imported first.

None of these is an After Dark or Intermission module: they are scenes of 7th Level's own Runtime Player, a Windows 3.1 program with libraries of its own, which Long After Dark runs unchanged, standing in for the Best Shot and Pythonizer programs that started them.

Importing them. The importer takes each from your own copy, and can download it from the Internet Archive: Take Your Best Shot's CD image (89.1 MB), the Desktop Pythonizer's CD image (181.4 MB; its raw BIN imports too: choose the .bin, not the .cue) and the Desktop Extras' floppy image (1.4 MB). Every import is checked file by file against the original disc or floppy.

Living wallpaper. LongAfterDark.exe /wallpaper plays the modules on your Windows desktop itself, behind its icons and under every window, as Take Your Best Shot's and the Pythonizer's living wallpapers did: /module and /random work as they do with /window, and LongAfterDark.exe /wallpaper /stop ends it and brings your own wallpaper back. Any module works; Best Shot's and the Pythonizer's scenes play their own living-wallpaper form. It is off unless you start it, takes no keys or mouse, pauses while the screen saver runs or the computer is locked, and doesn't keep the display on. It does keep an emulated PC running for each monitor while the desktop shows, which costs processor time and battery all day. Living wallpaper in the README says how to start it with Windows.

Twenty-three covers. The importer's window opens a little wider again, eight covers to a row.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.6.0-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.6.0-x64.zip: 5eebda4f4223daa5448f36f6b7769535dc43bedaab6d5c8c1f3f59a14bf93e2d

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.6.0-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.6.0-linux-x64.zip: dd1227a39be2df1c016333372cfb81693c72fafb17cc89341bb1501ada3f8200

Full Changelog: v1.5.2...v1.6.0

Long After Dark 1.5.2

What's new in 1.5.2

Looks: how the pictures are drawn. The screen saver can now draw the modules' pictures in more than one way. In the settings window, click Look: Sharp pixels at the end of the Stretch to fit the screen row (or press Alt+K) and pick from the menu:

• Sharp pixels, the default: the original, unaltered look, every pixel of the module's picture a crisp square block, the way Long After Dark has always drawn them.
• CRT monitor: the picture as a 1990s VGA monitor showed it, the kind of screen these modules were drawn for: a soft beam that melts dithering and softens jagged edges, faint scanlines, a fine mask and a little glow. It looks best on a 1440p or 4K monitor; on a 1080p one the scanlines are left out.
• Curved CRT monitor: the same, behind curved glass with rounded corners.
• Smooth: outlines redrawn as clean curves and diagonals instead of steps (Hyllian's Super-xBR), for flat cartoon art such as the Simpsons', the Looney Tunes', Disney's, The Far Side's and Dilbert's modules.
• Shader preset: a RetroArch shader preset (.slangp) of your own, drawn by librashader, which you download yourself: Your own shader preset says how.

Ambient glow. The menu's second group, Bars, can fill the bars beside a 4:3 module on a widescreen monitor (Intermission's, Star Wars', Star Trek's or Johnny Castaway) with a blurred, dimmed copy of its picture instead of black.

Nothing changes until you choose it: with Sharp pixels and Black bars, Long After Dark draws exactly as before. The other choices draw on your graphics card, through Direct3D 11, on every monitor, and in the /window for OBS too. Preview shows them; the settings window's small live preview shows the plain picture. If the graphics can't draw a look fast enough (Smooth on some integrated graphics, say), the screen saver goes back to sharp pixels on its own.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.5.2-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.5.2-x64.zip: 3756daeed6033444a3f98586d10aec506ee0da31e7b5ce8c48c5c6797cd35790

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.5.2-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.5.2-linux-x64.zip: 5ab7255956551d49deac4521bf46e1d648704aa5429894b00ca02fe7d778b148

Full Changelog: v1.5.1...v1.5.2

Long After Dark 1.5.1

What's new in 1.5.1

Run it in a window, for OBS. Long After Dark can now play in an ordinary window, for a "be right back" screen in your stream: OBS's Window Capture records it like any other window. From PowerShell or a shortcut:

.\LongAfterDark.exe /window /size 1920x1080 /random

• /window opens a window titled Long After Dark that stays open whatever the keyboard and mouse do, until you close it (its close button, Alt+F4, or Close window on its taskbar button). It never hides or traps the pointer, and it keeps the display awake while it is open.
• /size WxH sets the size of the picture in pixels (1280x720 when you leave it out), so the capture is exactly what you ask for. The window can be resized; 640x480 modules keep their shape with black bars, or fill it with Stretch to fit the screen.
• /module <id or name> plays one module, by its id (such as ad40.toasters) or its name as the settings window lists it; /random rotates through the modules your Random settings choose. With neither, it plays what the screen saver would. Each module's own settings apply, the Speed slider included.
• /? shows every switch.

LongAfterDark.exe. The release now also holds the screen saver under that name: the same program, which Windows passes switches to. Windows opens a .scr as a screen saver and drops everything after it, so use the .exe for these switches.

In OBS: add a Window Capture of [LongAfterDark.exe]: Long After Dark, set Window Match Priority to Match title, otherwise find window of same type, and untick Capture Cursor. The modules' sound comes from the emulator, a program the window starts; Application Audio Capture of the window should include it, or use Desktop Audio.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.5.1-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.5.1-x64.zip: 4a3bb7946d2743d8c1777ca167dcff7687d01d41e2ac8e7c58cdc06d550e933a

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.5.1-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.5.1-linux-x64.zip: ec866a6ebc96dd92031a370e8ab1a529d2cd72c9d17fd885007cb45e95cc69ee

Full Changelog: v1.5.0...v1.5.1

Long After Dark 1.5.0

What's new in 1.5.0

Four more Delrina releases: twenty in all, 429 modules. All four ran on Delrina's Intermission, as Star Wars Screen Entertainment, The Far Side and Dilbert did, and one of them is Intermission itself.

Release	Year	Modules
Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver	1993	16
Intermission 4.0	1993	54
The Flintstones Screen Saver Collection	1994	15
Opus 'n Bill: On the Road Again!	1994	16

The two Opus 'n Bill releases are animated scenes of Berkeley Breathed's Opus the penguin and Bill the Cat, and the Flintstones collection fifteen of Hanna-Barbera's Stone Age family. Intermission 4.0 is Delrina's screen saver itself, with modules of its own: graphic effects such as Fireworks, Ferns, Swarm and Tunnel, effects on your desktop's picture, a few animations, and three kinds of module Long After Dark had not run before, two FLI animations, a morph and a MultiSaver group, each played by its own Intermission player. Most of the new modules are animations played by Intermission's own animation player, which runs unchanged, and every one has a Configure... button that opens its original options.

A Speed slider for Intermission 4.0's modules. Intermission ran its modules as fast as the PC allowed, and most of Intermission 4.0's own move one small step each time they are called, so how fast they moved was how fast the PC was (the speed options a few of them have set only how big a step is). Those 36 modules, Dragon Kites, Ant Mine, Wriggly and Fireworks among them, have a Speed slider in their settings, which picks the pace of the emulated PC, module by module. Normal is our estimate of a typical PC of 1993, a 486 running Windows 3.1; Slowest, Slow, Fast and Fastest are about a quarter, half, twice and four times that pace, Fastest being the emulated PC at its full speed. Each slider starts where the module's motion is calm: most at Normal, Dragon Kites, Ping and Bricks at Slowest, Wriggly and Snow Flakes at Slow, and Space Shark, whose steps are heavy, at Fast. The setting is kept for each module, and the live preview shows a change as soon as you let go of the slider. The other 18, the animations among them, keep time by the clock, so they have none.

Importing them. The importer takes each one from your own copy, and can download it from the Internet Archive: the Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver as a 1993 bulletin-board copy of its three floppies, one ZIP per disk (select all three together), On the Road Again as a ZIP of its four floppies' files, Intermission 4.0 as a ZIP of its three floppy images, and the Flintstones from a 129.3 MB archive of a 1994 shareware collection, from which it takes only the release's three ZIPs. Two of them came in two builds, and either imports: the Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver's revised build of November 1993, with Censored Toasters in place of Death Toasters, and the Flintstones' May 1994 build, whose Prehistoric Vehicles is damaged in every copy online, so it imports without it. A ZIP or 7z whose files all sit in one folder is now read as that folder, and the notes bulletin boards left beside a release's files no longer stop an import. Every import is checked file by file against the original disks.

Nine of the new modules took the mouse under Intermission instead of ending (On the Road Again's The Butt Boys and Skating, and seven of the Flintstones'): like The Far Side's Pterodactyl, they run as ordinary screen savers, and input ends them. Intermission 4.0's Palette Animator shows only black on its own (it was made as the background of a MultiSaver group), and its Picture Show stays black until its Configure... names a folder of pictures. The Flintstones' DictaBird recorded from a microphone, which the emulated PC doesn't offer, so it shows only its own "Sound Support Not Available" line.

Intermission 5.0 is not online as a product of its own: its engine came with On the Road Again and with Dilbert, both of which Long After Dark runs.

Twenty covers. The importer's window opens a little wider again, with seven covers to a row, so all twenty releases still show at once. Its Download from the Internet Archive page no longer grows to the height of the screen: it shows nine releases at a time and scrolls the rest, so it is about as tall as the page that leads to it.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.5.0-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.5.0-x64.zip: 4ff2e77352a645e38d6b4ebe0ca6a2126fc70867bfcc9baad8af6bbcf6e4bd86

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.5.0-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.5.0-linux-x64.zip: d733d005d5a937a38f90406b6d740e8045590f836ea759b6b8baba28d866b69e

Full Changelog: v1.4.4...v1.5.0

Long After Dark 1.4.4

What's new in 1.4.4

Screen Antics: Johnny Castaway. Sierra On-Line's 1992 "storytelling screen saver", made by Dynamix, is the sixteenth release Long After Dark runs, for 328 modules in all. Johnny, a castaway on a tiny desert island with one palm tree, fishes, watches planes fly past through his telescope and much more, day after day, with his sound effects, and the program remembers how far his story has gone. It is neither an After Dark nor an Intermission module but a Windows 3.1 screen saver program, which Long After Dark now runs unchanged, the way Windows 3.1 ran it. Its scene gets a 640×480 screen of its own, scaled to fit (or stretched, with Stretch to fit the screen), and Setup... opens its own options: its sounds, its background and the start of its day. Its Password option has no effect: input ends it, as it ends every module.

Importing it. The importer copies it from its install floppy, an image of the floppy (.img or .ima), a ZIP of that image or a folder of the floppy's files, or downloads it from the Internet Archive (a 1.3 MB ZIP of the floppy image). It now also reads 7z archives wherever it reads ZIPs. Every import is checked file by file against the original disk.

Sixteen covers. The importer's window opens a little wider, with six covers to a row, so every release still shows at once.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.4.4-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.4.4-x64.zip: 777fb0f74b282d5992bf630f9db2443321521ea63efa795dd9d1c4b77a986fb8

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.4.4-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.4.4-linux-x64.zip: e4b7e3be4f6ed121e02ab6e76b8a933cf05a1bb5328b923def7b84d1e5c658fe

Full Changelog: v1.4.3...v1.4.4

Long After Dark 1.4.3

What's new in 1.4.3

Covers in rows of eight. The settings window fills each row of box covers before starting the next, up to eight to a row, instead of splitting them into shorter, even rows. Ten releases now show as a row of eight and a row of two rather than two rows of five, and all fifteen fit on two rows. The window opens a little wider to make room.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.4.3-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.4.3-x64.zip: 74d46c51e4bbbbd658e0ee1f5dd9e26a17cd72c65f081f87c4399b7d110c5994

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.4.3-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.4.3-linux-x64.zip: f90ec5da4c51a0e80be8e002b6bcb34c8ce0285b72220ebafdca908a79c8681a

Full Changelog: v1.4.2...v1.4.3

Long After Dark 1.4.2

What's new in 1.4.2

Star Trek: The Next Generation Screen Saver. Berkeley Systems' 1994 After Dark release is the fifteenth Long After Dark runs, for 327 modules in all. Its 13 modules are Data Dances, Encounters, Nanites, Officer's Review, Personnel Files, Starbase, Science Stations, Tachyon Particle Field, The Borg, Starfleet Messages, Counselor Troi, Warp Effect and Worf's Weapons, with their sounds and music. Officer's Review is a quiz: press Caps Lock to take it. Starfleet Messages can show a message of your own on the Enterprise's plaque, a Starfleet terminal or a Romulan screen: set Text to Custom and type it in with Edit Custom.... Like Star Trek: The Screen Saver, its modules get a 640×480 screen of their own, scaled to fit (or stretched, with Stretch to fit the screen).

Importing it. The importer can download it from the Internet Archive (a 5.8 MB CD image), or copy it from your own CD or an image of it. Every import is checked file by file against the original release.

Fifteen covers. The settings window now opens with three rows of five covers, so every release still shows at once.

For Windows: LongAfterDark-1.4.2-x64.zip holds the three programs. Unzip it anywhere and keep them together; README.txt inside says what to do next. The programs are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn before running them.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.4.2-x64.zip: d35cd41205aad20cedbfdd5a23097fec84ed81c48ca078b074b5ce153566fb08

For Linux: LongAfterDark-1.4.2-linux-x64.zip holds the same programs and longafterdark, the Linux player, which runs them under Wine. It needs 64-bit x86 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later) and 64-bit Wine; README.txt inside says what to do next.

SHA-256 of LongAfterDark-1.4.2-linux-x64.zip: d04103b4fdf770eca05fe8c896e8b628285436e47545807e2ddf0bec641bcc9f

Full Changelog: v1.4.1...v1.4.2