xmhat / diggers

A fan-remake of the classic strategy and platform game for MS-DOS and the Commodore Amiga. This version is extremely old, obsolete and for reference only. It is NOT the latest version of this game and was only designed for Win9x/XP 32-bit systems and will not run properly on Win7 and later because of Explorer highjacking 8-bit palette changes.

Diggers for Windows v0.83

A fan-remake of the classic strategy and platform game for MS-DOS and the Commodore Amiga.

This version is extremely old, obsolete and for reference only. It is NOT the latest version of this game and was only designed for Windows 9x/XP 32-bit systems and will not run properly on Windows 7 and later because of Windows Explorer highjacking 8-bit palette changes.

Visit https://github.com/XMhat/MSEngine/tree/master/diggers for the latest version of this game that works on all modern operating systems!

Originally based on Diggers v1.49 for PC-DOS (Floppy disk version). Uses music, textures and sound from Amiga CD32 version.

Requirements

• Pentium 1* class CPU (more recommended).
• 16* megabytes of memory (more recommended).
• 32 or 64-Bit Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2K, XP, Vista.
• DirectX version 3* or later.
• DirectDraw compatible 2D Graphics Accellerator.
• DirectSound compatible sound card.
• DirectInput compatible mouse and keyboard.
• DirectShow MPEG Layer3 filter for MP3 playback.

Progress

• Sound = 100% (All done)
• Music = 99% (All done, need to ditch DirectShow though)
• Levels = 100% (All converted, populated and done)
• Gameplay = 95% (Pretty much done, few bugs)
• Netplay = 1% (Only WSAStartup() added)
• Front-end = 0% (There are no front-end menus or title screens yet)
• Controls = 95% (Need keyboard controls)
• Graphics = 99% (Some DirectDraw bugs need fixing, if possible?)

Differences to original version

• Take your Digger home and you can rest it to full health. Costs money.
• High-resolution textures.
• .MP3 addons.

Limitations and bugs

• No title screens or game menu's, just pure gameplay.
• Currently in Alpha status, may never be finished and will have bugs.
• There are no keyboard shortcuts to control the Diggers yet.
• Initiation of flooding sometimes fails to spawn water.
• Jumping while jumping bugs a little bit.
• FPS issues on different systems because the game doesn't use high-resolution timers. This means a lot of work! :-(.
• If you have ffdShow installed. The system tray gets spammed with ffdShow icons because the game uses DirectShow to play the .mp3's.
• Transparency issues in Windows 7. I have no idea how to fix this. But I think it happens because the graphics driver or something doesn't support 8 bits per pixel textures anymore which this game uses.
• Sometimes when you win or lose the opposite result occurs ;-).
• You can hear teleportation sounds when the level switches.
• Fighting isn't perfect.
• AI is obscenely afraid of dying and teleports out too much.
• No 64-bit support due to no 64-bit UFMod.

Bugs fixed since last version

• Fixed errors and dialogs not showing up. Made interface to common controls library and modified manifest.
• Workaround on VirtualBox for Mac relating to vertical blank.
• Added this text file.
• Disabled keys used for debugging (cheating!) ;-).

Commands

• ESCAPE = Quit.
• F1 = Previous Level.
• F2 = Next level.
• 1-5 = Select Digger.
• Mouse = Move cursor.
• Left Mouse = Select object or deselect object.
• Right Mouse = Show menu for object.
• F5 = Config menu.
• F6 = Toggle MP3 streaming (download .mp3's from website).
• F7 = Toggle tips.
• F8 = Toggle sound effects.
• F9 = Toggle music.
• F10 = Toggle full-screen/window mode.
• F11 = Video mode/Texture scale cycler.
• F12 = Screenshot (.bmp where .exe is).

Program

You're going to have to build the program yourself, it was designed to be compiled with 32-bit v15 of the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler and linker but it WILL compile on the latest Visual C++ compiler and linker with a few warnings.

Compile: rc diggers.rc to build the resource second and then cl /Ox diggers.cpp diggers.res to build the executable.

Usage: DIGGERS.EXE [Parameters].

• /D = Enable debug mode (Map editor, you can't save maps yet).
• /d = Disable debug mode.
• /E = Enable sound effects.
• /e = Disable sound effects.
• /Ln = Start on zone number n.
  • Specify an index between 0 and 33.
• /M = Enable music.
• /m = Disable music.
• /Rn = Start with race number n.
  • 0 = F'Targ (+Stamina)
  • 1 = Habbish (+Intelligence)
  • 2 = Grablin (+Dexterity)
  • 3 = Quarrior (+Strength)
• /S = Enable streaming (Requires DirectShow MP3 filter).
• /s = Disable streaming.
• /Vn = Use alternate video mode n.
  • 0 = 320x240x256 (1X scale, original version)
  • 1 = 640x480x256 (2X scale, default)
  • 2 = 960x720x256 (3X scale)
  • 3 = 1280x960x256 (4X scale, fast 2D GPU needed)
• /X = Enable sound mixing.
• /x = Disable sound mixing.
• /? = Show this list of parameters
• /! = Display version information.

Troubleshoot

Please delete DIGGERS.DAT if you have problems running the game and then try again, this is the binary formatted configuration file.

Credits

• All code and conversion...

  • Copyright © MS-Design, 2011.

• Original version sound, music and graphics....

  • Copyright © Millenium Interactive, 1994.

• Uses UFMOD to play .XM modules.

  • Copyright © Asterix and Quantum, 2011.

• Uses ScaleX to create high resolution textures.

  • Copyright © Andrea Mazzoleni, 2011.

• Uses DirectX 3 with DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput and DirectShow.

  • Copyright © Microsoft Corporation, 2011.

Licence

See licence.md.