Darklands

Prerelease Info

Texts#

Rumours Notices and Orders Revolution Storyline City Politics War Other Texts

Copy Protection#

Copy protection for this game varies. Some versions let you enter a city, only to hit you with a copy protection screen, quizzing you on alchemical symbols found in the manual, when you attempt to leave.

Others use a day counter, displaying the quiz after a number of in-game days elapsed.

These measures still exist in digital versions, like those on GOG and Steam.

Unused Graphics#

In at least one interview, the chief designer, Arnold Hendrick, states that they tried not to remove any unused content from the game, out of fear it was accessed by still-used code. Instead, they opted to recycle and reuse cut content, as not to waste space.

Hall of Fame Leftovers#

The manual states that the game has a hall of fame, but README.TXT states it does not. Here are some leftovers from when it did.

There is an unused 320x200 image PICS\FAME.PIC, similar in style to the title screen:

The purple color looks out of place, but this is the palette inside the FAME.PIC file. It may have been a glitch or it may have been intended for some visual effect like a palette swap animation. PICS\STARTSCR.PIC has similar purple lines, but the game displays it with a different palette, rendering them black.

PICS\STARTSCR.PIC is used for the main menu. It has 3 buttons: "Quickstart", "Create a New World" and "The Story Continues". The pressed state of those buttons is in files PICS\BUTTON1.PIC, PICS\BUTTON2.PIC and PICS\BUTTON4.PIC. But there's also unused PICS\BUTTON4.PIC:

This PIC file has no palette. The uploaded PNG uses the palette from STARTSCR.PIC, which isn't exactly how the game displays the starting screen.

To do: Try experimenting with other palettes.

Wilderness Tiles Legend#

The tiles for wilderness are stored in PICS\MAPICONS.PIC and PICS\MAPICON2.PIC. However, there's some text outside the displayed tiles: