Firestaff is a clean-room engine for the Dungeon Master games. It reads the original files you own, identifies each edition by its content hash and keeps that data separate from the program.
Firestaff can start verified original media for Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon Master II: Skullkeep across their supported platforms. Coverage is deliberately conservative: a route is available only when the selected edition has a verified native handoff. Full campaign, save and visual parity remain active work, especially for Chaos Strikes Back, Nexus and Theron's Quest.
The status below was reviewed on 2026-09-12. It reports what has been exercised with real media, not a claim of complete game parity.
Firestaff detects real media and exposes only paths with a verified handoff; it never borrows data from another edition to fill a gap. The detailed status is kept in project status. The published documentation is available at yeager.github.io/firestaff. The preservation status, reviewed 2026-08-12, separates source/disassembly evidence, real-media receipts and open routes.
| Game | Current scope |
|---|---|
| Dungeon Master | PC DOS, Atari ST, Amiga and FM Towns startup and selected dungeon routes have real-media coverage. The PC 3.4 Hall of Champions candidate panel is rendered from authenticated C040/C026 assets. Further gameplay and visual parity work continues. |
| Chaos Strikes Back | Amiga, Atari ST and FM Towns startup routes have real-media coverage. FM Towns uses its own authenticated entrance palette and MINI.DAT bootstrap state. Campaign, saves and presentation parity are still being completed. |
| Dungeon Master II: Skullkeep | DOS, Amiga, FM Towns and Macintosh have real-media startup and selected runtime coverage. Title timing/palette, menu handoff, input, audio and dungeon-composition parity remain open per edition. |
| DM Nexus | Saturn disc parsing and native MAPD title rendering work from the original CUE/BIN; later menu, HUD and dungeon presentation remain capture-gated. |
| Theron's Quest | PC Engine/TurboGrafx real-media startup and initial dungeon parsing work; later presentation and level-transition evidence is still required. |
DM2 has bounded native routes from four authenticated source families:
| Edition | Accepted source data | Verified runtime scope |
|---|---|---|
| DOSBox / PC English | GRAPHICS.DAT + DUNGEON.DAT; matching DOS saves are optional resume data |
New Game, active runtime, movement, pits, stairs, level transitions, creatures and spell handoff |
| Amiga English | Original installer archive, read and verified in memory | New Game, active big-endian runtime, clipped source CHARSHEET inventory, movement, pits, stairs, level transitions and creatures |
| FM Towns Japanese | Original HME-242 ZIP/disc image; non-Japanese text uses the built-in GDAT-keyed l10n bridge | Title sequence, New Game, inventory, movement, level transitions and creatures |
| Macintosh English | Authentic retail ZIP/HFS media | New Game, active big-endian runtime, movement, stairs, level transitions and combat/creature handoff |
The shared DM2 data root may contain all four editions. Firestaff resolves a
selected version to its own source owner: the DOS data tree or symlink,
Amiga installer, FM Towns disc archive, or Mac archive. Original archives are
kept intact and archive members are read into bounded memory; Firestaff does
not use a sibling edition as a fallback.
Firestaff offers 20 interface languages: English, Swedish, German, French,
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Russian, Japanese,
Korean, Simplified Chinese, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish
and Indonesian. Auto uses the system language when it is supported and
otherwise uses English. A language chosen in the start menu or with
--lang <code> takes precedence over Auto.
For the Japanese FM Towns edition of DM2, Firestaff keeps the original Towns
disc as the only game-data owner. A built-in, GDAT-keyed bridge maps the
disc's authenticated text records to canonical English gettext entries, so no
PC-English GRAPHICS.DAT is required at runtime. The selected catalog then
applies the chosen supported language, including Swedish. Catalog completeness
is checked in CI; an unavailable or invalid catalog falls back to canonical
English rather than to text from another edition. See
translation status for the generated per-language coverage.
Focused real-media checks and their current boundaries are documented in TODO-dm2.md, DONE-dm2.md, DM2 platform variants and the DM2 FM Towns wiki guide.
Theron's Quest uses ordinary desktop controls in Firestaff: Up/W moves forward, Down/S moves backward, and Left/A and Right/D turn while held. Keypad 8/2/4/6 provides the same four directions. Left and right mouse buttons are Button I and Button II; mouse motion only moves the normal pointer and never changes the selected object or jumps between controls. On touch screens, a short touch is Button I and a long touch is Button II.
README screenshots are Firestaff-rendered screenshots only. Original-media emulator captures are kept out of the public README and are not presented as Firestaff output. Theron's Quest remains in source-bound runtime bring-up; see the capture handoff record for the non-visual media and trace evidence.
Firestaff recognises original CSB editions by hash rather than by their folder names. The scanner currently covers the following families when the required matching data is present:
| Original family | What Firestaff does with it today |
|---|---|
| Amiga 3.1 and 3.5 | Default CSB route when a verified native program handoff is available. Native startup, entrance, supported HUD and viewport material use the Amiga data path. |
| Atari ST 2.0 and 2.1 | Native media uses its own animation, runtime, HUD and supported viewport-material routes. |
| FM Towns English and Japanese | Native CD installations use their version-specific Towns packages for the supported title, Game and Utility routes. |
| PC-9801 Japanese 3.1 | Not supported. The media is retained only as preservation reference and cannot select a data, startup, gameplay or input route. |
| X68000 Japanese 3.1 | Not supported. The media is retained only as preservation reference and does not select a data, startup or gameplay route. |
Recognition is deliberately separate from a playability claim. A recognised edition has passed the data gate; it does not imply that every screen, save format or gameplay path has reached parity. Firestaff keeps each edition on its own data path and never borrows files from another release to make a route appear to work.
A complete original-named legacy CSBWin slot can resume with matching Atari
ST 2.0/2.1 GRAPHICS.DAT and DUNGEON.DAT, from both the launcher and CLI:
firestaff --game csb --data-dir /path/to/CSB --save /path/to/CSBGAME2.DATThe loader validates the full save body and source provenance before starting.
It does not treat an arbitrary 512-byte header, renamed copy, compact roster,
or DMSAVE.* file as a CSB resume. Extended Features/DSA saves remain
fail-closed pending authenticated real-save coverage; its behavior is
source-locked against CSBWin reference code and does not create a CSBWin game
route.
No game data is included. Keep your legally owned files in any directory and tell Firestaff where to look. It searches recursively and can inspect supported loose files, ZIP archives and disc-image containers without relying on filenames.
For the DAT-based games, GRAPHICS.DAT and DUNGEON.DAT must come from the
same original edition. The launcher rejects incomplete or mismatched pairs.
Optional title, animation, music and save files stay useful when they belong
to the same edition, but they do not replace the required game data.
Suggested layout:
~/.firestaff/data/
dm1/
csb/
dm2/
nexus/
theron/
Use the launcher setting or --data-dir to select another root, then inspect
what was recognised:
firestaff --scan-data
firestaff --data-dir /path/to/games --scan-dataSee game-data setup for the accepted media and the role of optional files for each game. The game-data format reference explains the verified containers, record families and save boundaries.
Firestaff never requires, searches for, reads, or bundles a BIOS, firmware, System Card, or external emulator. The only runtime input is your legally obtained game data in the local data directory; repository CI enforces this boundary.
The reproducible source dependency inventory is available as
sbom/firestaff.spdx.json (SPDX 2.3). It excludes
game media and every user-local input.
Firestaff also ships desktop tools for working with files you own. They are optional and never run while playing a game.
| Tool | Purpose | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Firestaff Artpack Studio | Creates and validates Modern-mode artpacks without modifying original game media. | Artpack Studio guide |
| Firestaff Dungeon Studio | Views and edits supported dungeon data, with a built-in screenshot option for documentation and review. | Dungeon Studio source |
| Firestaff Savegame Editor | Inspects and edits supported save files; always keep a backup of an original save. | Savegame Editor source |
The desktop bundles build translations from their .po source catalogs during
packaging. Generated .mo files are not stored in the source tree.
| Game | Playable | Verified runtime routes | Data/preservation only | Unsupported |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DM1 | — | PC DOS, Atari ST, Amiga and FM Towns startup and selected dungeon routes | PC-9801 preservation | X68000 |
| CSB | — | Atari ST, Amiga and FM Towns title/start-menu routes | — | PC-9801, X68000 |
| DM2 | — | DOS, Amiga, FM Towns and Macintosh startup plus selected runtime routes | Mac JP/FR preservation | X68000 |
| Nexus | — | Saturn disc/resource parsing and bounded native MAPD title presentation | Saturn demo/fan translations | — |
| Theron's Quest | — | PC Engine/TurboGrafx US ZIP and Japanese CUE/Track 02 startup plus initial dungeon parsing | Later gameplay, saves and presentation remain evidence-gated | — |
This table is a summary. Use Platform status for the exact feature boundary and Project status for cross-game evidence rules.
Build from source when a suitable package is not available:
git clone https://github.com/yeager/firestaff.git
cd firestaff
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build build --parallel
./build/firestaff --scan-dataFirestaff requires CMake, a C11 compiler and SDL3. On macOS, SDL3 is available through Homebrew:
brew install sdl3Useful command-line options:
firestaff --game <dm1|csb|dm2|nexus|theron>
--data-dir <path>
--platform <auto|pc|amiga|atari-st|fm-towns|pce|saturn>
--dm1-fmtowns-ja
--csb-fmtowns-ja
--csb-utility-disk
--scan-data
--fullscreen
--scale-mode <n>
--no-music | --music
--version
In the startup menu, Settings → Audio → Music Volume → Off disables
music while preserving sound effects and UI audio. --no-music applies the
same choice for a direct CLI launch; --music explicitly re-enables it.
Nexus renders the admitted retail MAPD title sequence natively from the original CUE/BIN. The later menu, HUD and dungeon compositor remain deliberately fail-closed until their own real Saturn consumer evidence exists. Firestaff never delegates Nexus startup or gameplay to Mednafen (or another emulator); emulator tooling is used only outside the product to obtain and validate capture evidence.
--csb-fmtowns-ja explicitly selects the hash-verified Japanese FM Towns
package and fails if that original package is not present; it never guesses
from the host language or substitutes the English package.
--dm1-fmtowns-ja explicitly selects the hash-verified Japanese FM Towns
edition and fails closed if its original members are unavailable; the default
FM Towns selection remains the English edition.
Place the original US Track 02 BIN in .firestaff/data/theron/ (or pass a
data root that contains theron/TQUS02.bin) and start it normally:
./build/firestaff --game theron --data-dir "$HOME/.firestaff/data"The title accepts Enter, followed by the stage and Soul Room selections. The Japanese Rev 1 CUE then reaches the bounded native Akutuba runtime through hash-verified Track 02 records. For a headless, reproducible CLI receipt, use:
SDL_VIDEODRIVER=dummy SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy ./build/firestaff \
--game theron --data-dir "$HOME/.firestaff/data/theron" --boot-probe \
--script 'enter,enter,action' \
--boot-probe-expect-phase theron-runtime --boot-probe-expect-runtime \
--boot-probe-expect-level-loaded 1 --boot-probe-expect-party 1,0,0 \
--boot-probe-expect-startup-active 0This confirms the source-backed title → stage → Soul Room → initial runtime
handoff, not broad PC Engine gameplay parity. Uncaptured later-level/object
publication, creature AI, combat, generator, sound-effect and text-control
semantics remain unavailable rather than being replaced with host behavior.
--csb-utility-disk opens the separately preserved FM Towns Utility Disk
after normal verified CSB startup; it implies --game csb --platform fm-towns
and fails closed if that package is unavailable. The start menu also has a
dedicated CSB Utility Disk (FM Towns) entry. This is distinct from the
Atari Hint Oracle (--csb-hint-oracle) and never substitutes its data or UI.
The Hint Oracle needs --data-dir <root> containing its matching verified
files; those files may be loose or inside a supported archive. The Japanese
Utility Disk chooser additionally requires the user's authorised FM Towns
font ROM for original Shift-JIS glyphs. Firestaff never substitutes a system
font or installs the ROM into game data.
Run the local test suite with:
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failureSome tests need original game data and skip when that corpus is not present.
The launcher selects a game and its verified data. The game layer then owns rendering, input and runtime state, while the data layer reads the original files and models the dungeon.
Launcher
└─ Game runtime
└─ Dungeon and data layer
└─ Original game files supplied by the player
Gameplay work is checked against primary references. DM1 and CSB use ReDMCSB, with CSBWin and documented original formats as additional references. DM2 uses skproject; Nexus and Theron's Quest use their respective platform analysis and original media.
The documentation index links the user guides, data notes and technical references. The project status is the place to check the current boundary before relying on a development route.
Firestaff is a clean-room engine reimplementation. You need game files from copies you legally own; the repository contains no copyrighted game data.
Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon Master II are trademarks of FTL Games. DM Nexus is a trademark of Victor Interactive Software. Theron's Quest is a trademark of Working Designs and Victor Interactive Software.
MIT. See LICENSE.