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Talk:Descent to Undermountain

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Executable Finds

here is what I found out when I browsed the dtugame.exe: 

Went from rest to attack!
 Rest to attack
 0 I'm afraid, so I must leave...
 Making pretty little rats, Done

lthough curiosity killed the cat, it still had 8 lives left to live

Sample is 8-bit 
Sample is 16-bit DTU no longer supports uncompressed sounds.  All sound files
must be compressed (using Paul's compression lib) and given
the extention .RCA (Raw Compressed Audio).

 

DIGI CACHE: --------------------------------------------


Can't create invisible flare for matcen.
 Can't create morph robot.  Aborting morph.
 Robot center #%i gets disabled due to time running out.
 Non-functional robotcen at %d
 Cannot morph until you kill one!
 Cannot morph: center %i has already put out %i robots

gonna smoke some pork...
 cow egg looking for %s & %s.
 considering (%d) %s - %d
 Looking to bake (%d) %s
 going to bake %s
 scarfing...from %s, to %s scarfed

  Bashing to -1.  Silently bashing all others... %i fixed.
  gameseq.c Player_num > -1 P.objnum > -1 ConsoleObject->type == OBJ_PLAYER Created Cooperative multiplayer object
 Player init %d is ship %d.
 --NOT ENOUGH MULTIPLAYER POSITIONS IN THIS MINE!--
 Removing player object %d

 'bet this sucker crashes.. 
Reading pig file data (%.2f MB)  There should be %d polygon models in the pig file.

-forceold We've entered PIG hell with %s
 -lowmem -nolowmem Using alternate pigfile, '%s'
 
OINK: unable to open %s.  'bet this sucker crashes..

rb Parallax Mike Matt John Yuan Adam Mark Allender Jasen Rob wb %s
'%s' %d  No Comment

Couldn't open DTU.SNG songs.c i < MAX_SONGS %hd %u RedBook Audio enabled
 RedBook Audio not enabled
 songnum < Songs_initialized  Door link!

ile '%s', PCX load error: %s (%i)
  (No big deal, just no title screen.)
 File '%s', PCX load error: %s (%i)
  (No big deal, just no title screen.)
 File '%s', PCX load error: %s (%i)
  (No big deal, just no title screen.)
 titles.c Error == NO_ERROR pound_signp != NULL num < 100 Robot_info[robot_num].model_num != -1 ( Current_color >= 0 ) && ( Current_color < MAX_BRIEFING_COLORS ) _ File '%s', PCX load error: %s
  (It's a briefing screen.  Does this cause you pain?)
 File '%s', PCX load error: %s (%i)
  (It's a briefing screen.  Does this cause you pain?)

 
Serious Easter Egg Error!!!!! 
Serious Easter Egg Spit Error!!!!!

reading Text Descriptor fetxt.jrg Text fetxt.dat 
Do we have a brain file for this level?  %s Brain file is %s rb Yes we do! No we don't! Building a brainfile.
 Flipping Trapdoors Flippin' Trap #%d seg:%d, side %d.  ok, . 
Opening ALL doors .Now Open all doors. Gorping out objects... Objects are setting up... Here we go... 
Building Robot Map (%d ) 
Building Visibility Matrix /%d & %d/ wb Saws %d I just created a brain file, DON'T SAVE this level!!!

 This special evaluation copy
of DESCENT TO UNDERMOUNTAIN has been issued to:

%s


    NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION Continue EVALUATION COPY ok, still in inferno.c 
LEAVING STREETS OF WATERDEEP 
LEAVING BLACKSTAFF'S TOWER OF DUNG 
LEAVING THE MARKET OF DOOM Invalid function mode %d warning.pc

( level_num - NUM_SHAREWARE_LEVELS >= 0 ) && ( level_num - NUM_SHAREWARE_LEVELS < NUM_REGISTERED_LEVELS ) ( level_num >= 0 ) && ( level_num < NUM_SHAREWARE_LEVELS

Things I learned from this:
-it seem the creation of this game started in 1993, lot of thing didn't work out as planned
-Multiplayer was more advanced that I though
-the word Robot and pig are used a lot, I have an hypothesis of what they mean(pig probably mean player model while robot is enemy)
-at one time existed an evaluation copy (but sadly it never leaked out of interplay)
-a shareware version was also planned(I am certain it was never released as it was a big complain from gamers that no demo was available before release).
-There is a mention of Paul's compression lib for audio files, I wish I knew what it was so I could open/rip the tune and bnk file to listen to the music/sound effect.
-The audio files used to be raw (just like the digtest) but where compressed later.
-There is a mention of redbook technology, would have been great to have music read on the game disk(and readable on a cd-player) but it wasn't implemented for some reason.(the dtu.sng file says there are audio track on the cd but I am not able to play it on any cd-player, once again redbook is mentioned but never implemented).

todo: read the tex file which can be opened with notepad directly.

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Georgesiv (talk • contribs) 14 January 2014

Source of some oddities

I noticed details like ships, mines, redbook support, the SNG file (with exactly 22 level tracks and 5 non-level tracks), etc. The discussion mentioned work starting in 1993, PIGs and robots, and a couple other odd things. This is because this game was built from the engine for the unrelated game Descent, released by Interplay in 1994. (This game is actually where the Descent in DTU's title comes from, as well as part of its marketing strategy.) You might try looking for information on its file formats. For example, BNK files were soundfont equivalents used with its licensed SOS midi library, although little seems to have survived of it. I originally came here curious about anything TCRF-related that changed from Descent during its development, but apparently this detail seems to not be very well known.

Addressing a few specific points from the discussion:

Descent had fully-functional multiplayer. It is likely DTU's team only did a minimum amount of work before writing it off.

Robots were Descent's enemies. The PIG was the main file holding Descent's graphics, models, and tables. the developers confirmed in the Discord server for Overload some time back that its name doesn't mean anything more than an inside joke; Descent also featured HOG and (in Descent 2, taking over some PIG responsibilities) HAM files, as well as being installed from a SOW.

Descent had a proper evaluation and shareware copy. I cannot say what DTU promised or completed in this regard.

BNK files were soundfont equivalents. They were meant to be used on certain audio cards. They worked with the Sound Operating System library by Human Machine Interfaces, though little seems to have survived from that.

I can answer any other questions from what I know, or I can link to the Descent discord servers where some people can help with any Descent leftovers.

DiamondWolfX (talk) 03:38, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

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