Dark Side
| Dark Side | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| First release | 1988 | |
| Also known as | N/A | |
| Developed by | Incentive Software, Major Developments | |
| Published by | Incentive Software | |
| Distributed by | Incentive Software, Epyx, Cinemaware Corporation, MicroProse Ltd., Kixx | |
| Platforms | DOS, Amiga, AtariST, Commodore64, ZX Spectrum, AmstradCPC | |
| Resolution | 320x200, 16 colors (DOS, EGA) | |
| Engine | Freescape | |
| Support | Since ScummVM 2.8.0 | |
| Available for Purchase |
No | |
Dark Side is an action/adventure game featuring scaling and rotating polygon graphics. The game is set on the alien moon Tricuspid orbiting the planet Evath. Terrorists (the Ketars, the villains of the previous game Driller) hijacked the moon's facilities and built Zephyr One, an immense beam weapon on the moon's dark side with the purpose of destroying Evath. The player is a government agent, sent secretly to the moon's surface with the mission of deactivating the weapon before it becomes fully charged. This is accomplished by destroying a power network in the form of ECD (Energy Collection Device) columns, dotted around the moon and connected with power lines all the way to the beam weapon.
Installation
For more information on how ScummVM uses game data files, see the user documentation.
Dark Side was released in a number of platforms over the years. Depending on release you have, you need to extract and/or copy different files.
ZX Spectrum releases
If the ZX Spectrum release is from a tape, it should be saved first from the original cassette into a tzx file. Make sure you save the complete disk, not just a single program from it. Once the tape is saved, install tzxtools you will need to extract three files:
- The title screen image, which should be renamed as "darkside.zx.title" and has exactly 6912 bytes.
- The game data, which should be renamed as "darkside.zx.data" and is around 34 kbytes.
- The border image, which should be renamed as "darkside.zx.border" and has exactly 6912 bytes.
For instance, for the original Incentive release (1988), you can inspect their files using the tzxls command:
$ tzxls darkside.tzx
...
5 Turbo Speed Data Block 6912 bytes of bogus header
6 Turbo Speed Data Block 34460 bytes of bogus header
7 Turbo Speed Data Block 6912 bytes of bogus header
In order to extract these files, use the tzxcat command:
tzxcat darkside.tzx -b 5 > darkside.zx.title
tzxcat darkside.tzx -b 6 > darkside.zx.data
tzxcat darkside.tzx -b 7 > darkside.zx.border
Amstrad CPC releases
All the Amstrad CPC releases should be saved first from the original cassette/disk into a Extended dsk file.
Once the data is saved, use Disk Image Manager to open the image and extract the following files:
- dark1.scr
- dark2.scr
- darkcode.bin
Make sure the files are extracted with header.
DOS releases
For the DOS release, copy the following files:
- darkside.exe
- dside?.exe
- scn1?.dat
So far, only EGA and CGA rendering modes are supported.
AtariST/Amiga releases
For getting the files for playing the AtariST/Amiga releases, the files should be copied from the disk. One way to do it is to dump the disk and then use deark to extract them. Copy the following files:
- 0.drk
- 1.drk
Keep in mind that some releases are protected with Copylock, which is some kind of encryption. In that case, follow the instructions here to obtain decrypted versions of the games.
Other releases and demos
Other releases are unsupported right now (e.g. C64), but we are working to support all of them. Some demos are also supported, following the corresponding instructions. We collected all the supported Freescape demos, in case you want to test them. If you find an unsupported demo, please open an issue or contact us.
Improvements
Beyond the general Freescape engine improvements, Dark Side was re-implemented with the following new features:
- It can be played using the converted music from the original compositor Wally Baben. From the original Dark Side releases, only the C64, the Amiga and the Atari ST version had music. These release only allowed to play digitalized sounds or the music, but not both. Other releases are completely silent, despite their hardware could play music. This is likely related with the resource constrains of the release, more than an artistic design. Fortunately, ScummVM allows to play Dark Side with the intended music. To enable this feature, you must extract the music data from the Amiga or AtariST releases and convert it to one of the several formats are supported including mp3, ogg, flac. Place the song "Dark Side Theme" (with the corresponding file extension) in the same directory as the data files from any Dark Side release and ScummVM will automatically use it as music during gameplay.
Bugs
This is an incomplete list of bugs in the original implementation, indicating if the bug is already fixed (✓) or not fixed (✗) in ScummVM:
✗ The player can stand up even if there is no room above it. This was fixed in the following Freescape games.
✗ Some indicators such as score or ECD percentage are not resetted when replaying the demo. To reproduce:
1. Start a new game
2. Collect some points, lower the ECD percentage.
3. End game
4. Wait for the demo to play. The score and ECD percentage are not restarted to the initial values.
✗ Reading the sphinx message will not pause the game. You can get attacked and the time will decrease (only Amiga/AtariST).
Guides and Walkthroughs
Dark Side is not exactly the same in different platforms. While the areas are the same, they feature puzzles with different solutions. We compile a list of walkthroughs for different platforms: