Documentation on Tunnels of Doom Game Data

[pixelpedant]

Does anyone have any documentation on the Tunnels of Doom game format and its structure? 

 

As far as I can tell, this is of fixed length and loaded directly into VDP from >0400 to >36FF.  The program itself is written in GPL, but as far as I know, commented source does not exist. 

 

Since a fair amount of game customisation is simply textual (names of monsters, weapons, items), these elements of the format are easy to work out.  But a fair amount of the remaining binary game data is not. 

 

We have TOD Editor (in a couple of iterations), and that's all XB, so there's much information to be gleaned from that.  But the editor doesn't really fully expose the format, even if one did glean everything that can be gleaned from that.

 

As well, Fritz's TOD Editor more completely (and much more conveniently) exposes the format, but I don't think source was released for that. 

 

Clearly, more than a few people had worked this out for themselves back in the day.  Most Doom Games were created with some version of the TOD Editor, but some do incorporate changes not supported by it, which were clearly done with a sector editor or what have you.  And with enough work, it could be done again. 

 

But I'm wondering if anyone has some notes/documentation they or someone else has assembled at some point, which could serve as a starting point. 

[Fritz442]

Check here thanks to MikeV  

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/319811-tod-guide/?tab=comments#comment-4808156

Edited October 16, 2021 by Fritz442

[+Ksarul]

I had notes that I made with a friend BITD when we hand-jammed a couple of TOD games on our own (well before the Editor was in circulation), but that notebook was destroyed in a flood while I lived in Turkey. . .unfortunately.

[pixelpedant]

1 hour ago, Fritz442 said:

Check here thanks to MikeV  

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/319811-tod-guide/?tab=comments#comment-4808156

Ah, yes, that's fantastic. 

 

Figures he'd be the guy to do it, too. 

 

His 1994 Halls of Lost Moria adventure is one of the most extensively and thoughtfully customised of all time.