DarkXL/XL Engine Now Resurrected as the Force Engine

Anyone who has been into the world of PC game source ports may have remembered the rather ambitious DarkXL source port, which later became the XL Engine family encompassing Star Wars: Dark Forces, as well as Outlaws (another game with Lucasarts' own Jedi engine), Daggerfall, and Blood. After years of having become a vaporware, the original author Lucius has finally decided to reboot the source port as the more appropriately named Force Engine. Unlike the previous attempt, the Force Engine focuses only on the first two games, which use the Jedi engine.

As is the case of the earlier DarkXL and OutlawsXL, the Force Engine attempts to reverse-engineer the original games' executable and rebuild the code for more modern systems, ultimately allowing the original games and their mods to be fully playable. Besides a more modern, intuitive UI and control schemes, as well as support for higher resolutions, it also comes with built-in tools such as a level editor that also promises flexibility for modders alike.

It needs to be noted that the project is still in a pre-release state. Instead of directly continuing where the XL Engine left off, the Force Engine is a complete rewrite with more emphasis on accuracy. Lucius has even set up a roadmap plan of further public releases and progress. However, should these plans be achieved earlier, they promise a decent chance of an earlier release. Intended to be open source once the project goes public, there will also be cross-platform and multiplayer supports.

Current test build: 0.01.003 (64-bit Windows only, at least Windows 7 and OpenGL 3.3) 
Link(s):

• Main project page
• Github repo
• Doomworld thread 
• The Force Engine forums

InDOOMnesia: Two new excellent non-Doom source ports by the DOOM fandom

Ever since the release of DOOM source code in 1997, the fandom has been thriving in extensive programming excellence. Not only has this spawned the well-known "can it run DOOM?" meme with the portability of Classic Doom games (if something has a processor, it can, and will, run DOOM), this also continues to give birth to various other gaming projects.

Recently, the Raze source port for several Build engine games (Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Redneck Rampage, etc.), based on GZDoom and other Build engine source ports, has attracted many Build engine game fans for its quality-of-life features. In this post, I will discuss two another non-Doom source ports developed by the fellow people of DOOM fandom.

Crime Scene: Gloom (Part 1)

Ever since I started dwelling into retro games, I've always been fascinated in the Sega Saturn. Even although considered a flop by many, it has garnered a cult following within Sega fans. Then again, how can you say no to a console with two CPU's? Well yeah, its architecture is way, way too complicated that it caused many third-party developers to turn their back away in favor of the more successful and easier-to-program competitor PSX, but the console still has big potential. However, I am here not to talk about the console itself, but my experience with one of its games.