DOS Games Steam Launchers

Just a simple collection of minimal C programs to launch some old DOS games from Steam using source ports instead of the original versions via DOSBox.

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This thing exists because trusting premade closed source/prebuilt similar launchers is unnecessarily risky since I can do this within a minute.

I'm now providing pre-built binaries, but built exclusively by GitHub machines.
You can find that in the releases tab.

I'm still fond of the "don't trust anyone on the internet" thing but when GitHub runners will have been compromised, it will cause a lot more problems than just making doubtful binaries for this little side-project.

What is supported?

• Blood
  • BuildGDX (BloodGDX)
• Doom (1993)
  • Chocolate Doom
• Heretic
  • Chocolate Heretic
• HeXen
  • Beyond Heretic (base game)
    • Chocolate HeXen
  • Deathkings of the Dark Citadel (Expansion Pack)
    • Chocolate HeXen
• Red Faction (not a DOS game)
  • Dash Faction

Common instructions

Dependencies

You'll need to have gcc.exe in your PATH.

I personally use MSYS2 to have MinGW on Windows, but you can use whatever you want.
Just don't forget to add gcc.exe to your system PATH.

How to build?

Just run build.bat to build every exe files.
You now have a bunch of exe files.

How to use?

Blood - BuildGDX

First, check the section above: you need to build the file yourself.

Since this is a BloodGDX launcher, you'll need java.exe to be in the PATH of your system.
You can download the closed source official Oracle JRE or the open source OpenJDK prebuilt binaries by AdoptOpenJDK.

Download BuildGDX on the official website, and put it in your Steam Blood directory. It must be named BuildGDX.jar.
Rename the original dosbox.exe file to whatever you want, for example, dosbox.exe.orig.
Copy the previously compiled dosbox_bloodgdx.exe to your Blood Steam folder and rename it dosbox.exe.

You can now run the game using the Steam Play button.

Doom (1993) - Chocolate Doom

• Go to the base game subfolder
• Rename dosbox.exe to dosbox.orig.exe to be able to revert the process without verifying file integrity on Steam
• Copy dosbox_chocolate-doom.exe to the base folder
• Rename dosbox_chocolate-doom.exe to dosbox.exe
• Go back to the root game folder
• Create a folder named chocolate-doom
• Download Chocolate Doom (the win32 zip one)
• Extract chocolate doom archive to the previously created folder
• Run the game from Steam

Heretic/HeXen games

For every dosbox_<something>.exe file, just rename it dosbox.exe to replace the original dosbox.exe file (rename the original one to dosbox.orig.exe to be able to revert the process without verifying file integrity in Steam).

For the 3 heretic/hexen games supported, the original dosbox.exe file to replace can be found in the base/ subfolder in the game files.

Red Faction

Install Dash Faction in your game directory.

Rename the original RedFaction.exe to whatever you want (i.e. RedFaction.original.exe) and you're good to go.

Antoine "AntoineJT" Tournepiche