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Harold

A post-nuclear RPG remake

This is a modern reimplementation of the engine of the video game Fallout 2, as well as a personal research project into the feasibility of doing such.

The project is based on darkfo codebase, but is modernized for Python 3, potentially with more improvements and bug fixes coming in the future.

It is written primarily in TypeScript and Python, and targets recent browsers with WebGL 2.0 support.

Status

Harold is not a complete remake at this time. A lot of core functionality works, but major parts are missing or need work.

If you're looking for documentation on how Fallout 2 works, or documentation on certain file formats, or just want some tools to work with them, this project will be useful to you as well.

Here is a very rough list of what is known to work:

  • Map loading
  • Walking, running
  • Talking to NPCs
  • Bartering
  • Some quests (a lot of the scripting works, majors quests can be completed)
  • Some party members
  • Some skills (lockpicking and repair, and some passive skills)
  • Sound (scripted sound effects, music; not hardcoded sound effects, yet)

Some features are more middle ground:

  • Fonts are rendered within HTML elements, which makes it impossible to use native Fallout bitmap fonts. The UI system needs to use the WebGL renderer instead of HTML and DOM for bitmap font rendering to work well.
  • Combat works at an extremely basic level but not to a great degree (only the SMG and spear is really tested, you cannot swap ammo, etc.)
  • No equippable armor
  • The world map is rough and buggy, and on the area screens entrances are misplaced
  • Random encounters work, but not all of the setups are implemented
  • Lighting works, but has some minor bugs and inaccuracies. It is also particularly slow, especially outside of the WebGL backend.
  • Saving and loading is at an alpha stage: it works to a basic degree, but is missing some features and is not tested. As such, consider it experimental.
  • Some animations are off, particularly related to combat
  • Leveling up (including XP, leveling stats/skills, etc) partially works

Some features are not implemented at all:

  • The PipBoy map

and other minor features here and there.

If you'd like to contribute, those might be major parts to look into.

Installation

To use this, you'll need a few things:

  • A copy of Fallout 2 (already installed). You can buy one on GOG, download the standalone installer, and unpack on any platform supported by innoextract, or run the installer .exe if you're on Windows.

The rest of the dependencies can be installed all at once if you're on macOS and using Homebrew. Just run this command in the directory of your repository clone:

brew bundle

Otherwise you can install the dependencies manually:

  • Python 3.9 or later, earlier minor versions of Python 3 may work, but are not tested. Python 2 is not supported.

  • Pipenv for Python dependency management.

  • The TypeScript compiler, installed via pnpm i (you'll need node.js).

Once you've got all that, you can start trying it out.

Open a command prompt inside the Harold directory, and then run:

pipenv install
pipenv shell
python setup.py path/to/Fallout2/installation/directory

This will take a few minutes, it's unpacking the game archives and converting relevant game data into a format Harold can use.

You'll need an HTTP server to run (despite being all static content) due to the way browsers sandbox requests. If you're comfortable with setting up nginx, lighttpd, or Apache, go for that. If not, a simple way is to use Python:

  • Python 3: python -m http.server

Then run pnpm dev after you've run pnpm i to compile the source code.

Browse to http://localhost/play.html?artemple (or whatever port you're using). If all went well, it should begin the game. If not, check the JavaScript console for errors.

Alternatively, Firefox can load directly from file:// by opening play.html file.

Review src/config.ts for engine options. Be sure to re-compile if you change them.

OPTIONAL: If you want sound, run python convertAudio.py. You'll need the acm2wav tool (you can get it from No Mutants Allowed).

FAQ

Note: This section has been copied from README.md of DarkFO, the answers don't represent opinions of the current maintainer of Harold and are only given to explain the status quo. The technical direction of Harold may change in the future.

  • Q: Why TypeScript? Why a browser?

    A: Everyone has a browser: it's a portable platform for running code with more features than people expect. There are other projects that use native code already... and are already seeing segfaults. :)

    The project started out in JavaScript and was ported to TypeScript as it was continuing to grow. TypeScript strikes an excellent balance between useful and safe.

  • Q: But why Python?

    A: Python is actually quite fast when written well, despite many peoples' expectations. It is very elegant and allows me to write backend code like file parsers and exporters with tiny code, very few troubles, and that I know is portable and safe.

  • Q: Why do I need acm2wav for sound?

    A: Because it hasn't been ported to Python yet. If you're willing to contribute, give it a shot: the original Pascal source code is available online.

    Additionally, FFmpeg might be able to transcode ACM audio, so give that a shot. (See darkf/darkfo#30)

  • Q: Why convert all assets up front, why not load them directly?

    A: Because it would require more processing time to load them each time they're needed rather than having them already in a sane, modern format.

    By converting, for example, FRMs (a proprietary Interplay format) to PNGs (a ubiquitous, open modern format) we allow normal browsers or image viewers to open them, as well as edit them -- a huge win for modders. Other games or tools could take advantage of the new formats as well.

  • Q: Why do this at all?

    A: Why not? It's a fun project, and I love Fallout. Fallout 1 and 2 do not run particularly well on modern machines, even with engine hacks. They're also hard to mod -- I'd like to change that.

License

Harold is licensed under the terms of the Apache 2 license. See LICENSE.txt for the full license text.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

Testing is more than welcome: if you have issues running Harold, or if you find bugs, glitches, or other inaccuracies, please don't hesitate to file an issue on GitHub and/or contact the developers!

To contribute code, simply submit a pull request with your changes. Take care to write sensible commit messages, and if you want to change major parts of the code, please discuss it with other developers first (see the Contact section below). I apologize in advance for any injury sustained while reading the code. :)

Thanks!

Contact

If you have an issue, please file it in the GitHub issue tracker.