F29 Retaliator

TFX, Inferno, Wargasm, Typhoon, …
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mikew
Data Genius
Posts: 559
Joined: 2022-Jan-09, 20:21

F29 Retaliator

Post by mikew »

This will be brief and I'm only posting it for its historical significance as the first DiD game. Anyway, I picked this up in the Steam sale for 3.81€, but feel a bit ripped off.
The binary files are absolutely identical to those I had previously downloaded from somewhere.
The game had been cracked to remove the requirement to enter some symbols from the manual, but that was done already in 1991, and Steam have just renamed the file as x.exe.
Here's what the directories look like:
f29_files.PNG
f29_files.PNG (18.62 KiB) Viewed 1696 times
The game is published by Cosmi Valusoft. A search shows that they bought some IP from THQ back in 2012 and there's a tenuous link back to DiD via Juice and Rage, so they may actually have the proper rights.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/73513 ... t-from-thq

There are only 3 files needed to run the game, the exe and two data files with extensions .00 and .01. I assume these would have been on separate floppy disks. The data contained within them has no obvious structure.
f29_bin.PNG
f29_bin.PNG (24.38 KiB) Viewed 1696 times
I won't look at this further unless I get really bored....
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Krishty
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Joined: 2022-Jan-09, 00:59

Re: F29 Retaliator

Post by Krishty »

Weird stuff. No high entropy – a 16-bit pattern can clearly be seen. Probably ancient RLE compression …

Fantastic documentation, as always 👍
mikew
Data Genius
Posts: 559
Joined: 2022-Jan-09, 20:21

Re: F29 Retaliator

Post by mikew »

If I temporarily rename RETAL.01, I can play the game for a while, but then get prompted to insert disk 2. If I rename it back, it says 'Loading Data' and carries on normally.
No, I'm definitely not going to look into this further. :D
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