Darklands

Darklands (1992 game from Microprose) file reading utils and preserved file format docs

Based heavily upon work of Merle (wallace.net/darklands) and Joel "Quadko" McIntyre. IMC decoding done with help of arcane remarks of Olemars from bay12forums. PIC reader/writer based od darkapandaman's JCivED PIC codecs finally.

Probably not suitable for Windows because of lazy filepaths handling.

Some outputs and file format docs online

Latest News

• Given up resolving MSG dialogs logic (it seems impossible - hidden in executable completely)
• PIC reader rewritten, writing added
• FNT reader - writting added
• IMC mostly resolved
• Enemy palette done
• MSG reader done
• FNT reader done
• FNT file format blurry contures
• IMC inner format partly dissected and documented
• IMC compression resolved.
• Up-to-date file format docs using updated Merle's XML files.

TODO (Short term goals)

• replace dicts by classes & clean up the code a lot (replace reader_* with format_* gradually)
• systemize readers/scripts interface/flow
• Fixing up-to-date XSLT

Repository contents

Dirs

• DL/ - put your Darklands installed files here

• game_patches/ - essential patches to upgrade Darklands to the latest version (.7)

• file_formats/ - gathered docs on DL file formats (up-to-date/ contains updated Merle's docs)

• tmp/ - you may direct output there

Scripts

Auxilary

• aux_color_bits.py - file bits to ASCII

• aux_color_bytes.py - file bytes to ASCII

• aux_count_bytes.py - file byte histogram counter

• aux_find_bytes.py - find bytes in file, limited by max distance from first found to last

• aux_generate_simple_map.py - very simple HTML map with cities and locations

• aux_check_pics.py - some PIC files scanning

• aux_show_fonts.py - renders system fonts usable by Pygame

• aux_hexdump_dir.sh - first N chars of hexdump of all files in directory

• aux_convert_pics.sh - convert all DL/pics/.pic to tmp/pics/.pic.png

Extracting

• extract_cat.py - extracts catalogue (.CAT) files

Generators

• generate_font_png.py - blits font archive to image
• generate_map_js.py - outputs map JS data struct
• generate_map_png.py - outputs HUGE image of DL landscape with city and village names
• generate_map_web.py - outputs HUGE webpage of simplified DL map with city info

Readers

• reader_cty.py - cities
• reader_drle.py - "DarklandsRLE" decompression (used for .IMC, in imap.cat, bc) (can decompress file if run directly)
• reader_enemypal.py - Enemy palettes
• reader_enm.py - Enemy types & enemies defs
• reader_exe.py - strings extraction - WIP (aux maybe?)
• reader_fnt.py - fonts reader
• reader_imc.py - battle sprites - WIP
• reader_loc.py - map locations (cities, villages, castles...)
• reader_lst.py - item types & attrs, saints and formula names
• reader_map.py - tile map
• reader_msg.py - dialogs
• reader_pic.py - image format (can convert .PIC to .PNG if run directly)
• reader_tacanim.py - mysterious file loaded before battle

Common libs

• utils.py

Misc

• dosbox.conf - to ease running of the game

Dependencies

• Pygame lib for imagery