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Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

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Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#11

Post by bzzzt »

snthpy wrote: post #5

I used to play an Amiga 500 version of this. I think it was Test Drive 2 though.

Test Drive 2 (and 1) used a pseudo-3D renderer with scaled sprites (see https://www.mobygames.com/game/2107/the-duel-test-drive-ii/s...) TD3 used a 'real' 3D engine, but as a result it needed a beefy machine for the day. Driving felt a lot slower too, I never found it as much fun as TD2.

Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#13

Post by warpspin »

mikestorrent wrote: post #4
sedatk wrote: post #2

I used to play the demo of Test Drive III. It only had one map I believe. But I loved that it was a sandbox, so you could drive anywhere. I specifically remember following along the railroad. It was way ahead of its time back then.

Between this and Stunts 4d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunts_(video_game) what more could a kid ask for

I'd ask for Rock n' Roll Racing!

Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#14

Post by ggambetta »

I'm very happy to see this! Not so much because of TDIII (which I played, although not nearly as much as Stunts), but because there seems to be some momentum building around recreating old games using AI agents, and I love that! I had explored some related ideas [0] but throwing Claude at the problem seems super promising. The recent Crimsonland thing [1] was great!

[0] https://www.gabrielgambetta.com/remakes.html

[1] https://banteg.xyz/posts/crimsonland/

Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#15

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tdrgabi wrote: post #6
mikestorrent wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between this and Stunts 4d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunts_(video_game) what more could a kid ask for

Carmageddon would be what a kid could ask

I wonder / doubt it or something like it would shock anyone as much as it seemed to back then.

Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#16

Post by 47282847 »

mikestorrent wrote: post #4
sedatk wrote: post #2

I used to play the demo of Test Drive III. It only had one map I believe. But I loved that it was a sandbox, so you could drive anywhere. I specifically remember following along the railroad. It was way ahead of its time back then.

Between this and Stunts 4d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunts_(video_game) what more could a kid ask for

Time for a modernized port true to the original! I also liked the TrackMania series but I wish there was something reduced to the amazing essence of Stunts.

Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#18

Post by noufalibrahim »

ggambetta wrote: post #14

I'm very happy to see this! Not so much because of TDIII (which I played, although not nearly as much as Stunts), but because there seems to be some momentum building around recreating old games using AI agents, and I love that! I had explored some related ideas [0] but throwing Claude at the problem seems super promising. The recent Crimsonland thing [1] was great! [0] https://www.gabrielgambetta.com/remakes.html [1…

This is an interesting area. I've felt that with AI, it would be nice to have a project that I work on "by hand" so that my general skills don't atrophy and I've been writing an implementation of the Kyra engine used by old DOS games like Eye of the Beholder. It's mostly well documented and there are full fledged implementations (like with ScummVM) so this is just exercise for me.

I wrote a decoder for the CPS file format they use for sprites and it worked file for all images except one. It rendered half the image properly and then scrambled the rest. I could see that the sprite information was there but there was some offset problem. I had claude dig into it in detail along and gave it the ScummVM source for reference. I also gave it Ghidra so that it could debug the actual EOB.EXE file but nothing we tried got it to render properly. Even SSI's own code which got from a modding wiki failed to render this image. My final conclusion was that it was a half done asset that somehow found its way into the asset archive and is never used in the game but that's a flaky conclusion given that its name is referenced in the EXE.

I've been having a lot of fun upscaling the sprites used for the cutscenes and remixing the music using AI. It's a game I played a lot as a kid so being able to tinker with it at a low level is a nice distraction.

It's purely a "fun" side project without deadlines or anything so I get to do what I want with it without any hassles about "being productive".

Re: Show HN: I reverse-engineered the world maps of Test Drive III (1990 DOS game)

#19

Post by noufalibrahim »

mikestorrent wrote: post #3

I can hear the PC Speaker music in my head.... oh man! it was actually available in adlib! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayInv3ZZRak

My old PC wasn't good enough to play the game. You could almost see each frame render. However, the PC speaker music was really nice and I used to run the game just to listen to that.
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