VOGONS


Preistorik 2 demo

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First post, by MrFlibble

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I found what appears to be a playable demo of Prehistorik 2 (at least, that's what the readme says) at cd.textfiles.com: pre2.zip

However I can't make it run in DOSBox (0.74, Linux 64-bit). When I run PRE.COM it just shows the DOS command prompt cursor and nothing happens at all. I tried loadfix -25, setting machine to vgaonly, forcing normal core and max cycles, no effect.

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Reply 1 of 8, by ripsaw8080

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This one has very twisted protection, and it may require floppy controller hardware that DOSBox does not emulate, not sure.

Try this: TYPE PRE.COM (seriously 😀 )

Also, see this thread: Knight Force copy protection

Reply 2 of 8, by konc

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Nice find! First time I hear about this.
You are correct, it doesn't run on DOSBox (0.74 Linux or 0.74-2 Windows). I tried it on a 386 with the exact same behavior. Then I just held shift key down to do a clean boot (MS DOS 6.22 with EMM386 and everything commonly ran on a 386 of that time) and...

The attachment IMG_20190320_205705.jpg is no longer available

And after finishing 1st level you get

The attachment IMG_20190320_210233.jpg is no longer available

Reply 3 of 8, by ripsaw8080

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It has the expected anti-debugger tactic of prefetch tricks, but for some reason cputype=386_prefetch is not enough to get it running. I'll investigate that later.

For now, I've attached the demo's executable with the protection wrapper removed, which DOSBox and other systems will find easier to digest, and it also facilitates nosing around in the game's code for anyone interested in that kind of thing. 😉

Reply 6 of 8, by ripsaw8080

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The original form of the Prehistorik 2 demo is fixed in SVN as of r4201 when using the cputype=386_prefetch setting, but the unwrapped executable in my previous comment can still be useful for 0.74(-2).

Reply 7 of 8, by Calvero

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Nice find, indeed.
The overview map looks different, the font on the Enter code looks different. There's no audio.
Pressing left ctrl + left alt + w already shows a hidden credit screen.
It looks like they where also planning an EGA version.

Reply 8 of 8, by Akuma

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ripsaw8080 wrote:

It has the expected anti-debugger tactic of prefetch tricks, but for some reason cputype=386_prefetch is not enough to get it running. I'll investigate that later.

For now, I've attached the demo's executable with the protection wrapper removed, which DOSBox and other systems will find easier to digest, and it also facilitates nosing around in the game's code for anyone interested in that kind of thing. 😉

Good for its day, now not so much, I doubt you had any problems unpacking it 😉
On that topic, I have a small collection (300+) packers and unpackers if you want them.