[AmigaCD] onEscapee - .HDF & .LHA (for real Amiga users)

[DamienD]

Hello there my friends,

Not sure if it's due to all the recent "Heart of the Alien" & "Another World: The Lost Level" threads but..

Today I received a PM from a friend saying the following:

Hello mate,

I came across this article posted here http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/one.../onescapee.htm and I have never seen this game before but it look kinda like Flashback and Another World which is cool.

There is also info about it over at HOL http://hol.abime.net/2305 and a patch to bring the game up to date and probably fix bugs and so on...

What I was wondering is if you know how to extract the game data, patch it with the latest patch and then make the game into a playable/bootable HDF so i can play it on WinUAE for xBox.

A kind user did this for me a while back with another CD game and it worked like a charm but I can't remember who or exactly when it was.

...so, given that I have time on my hands and never one to not try out something new I set forth

I've now created a bootable .HDF (no Kickstarts / Workbench files) that has the following:

• Displays the English "Readme" (which I reformatted to fit on screen).
• Loads the Faction trainer.
• Starts the game.

Note: this is just a beta; all looks good to me so far but please test and report anything not right

Use a "Quickstart A1200 configuration with 2MB Chip & 4MB Fast RAM"

You can grab the .HDF from the EAB File Server under the directory "~Uploads/DamienD/HDFs"

[ransom1122]

Cool. Thanks I will try this out.

[butfluffy]

thanks so much for this

[DamienD]

No problem guys. I presume all is working for you and no issues then?

Today I slightly modified the .HDF to point the save games to a directory: DH0 : onEscapee/SaveGame

Re-uploaded the file to the EAB File Server under the directory "~Uploads/DamienD/HDFs"

I think that should be all, enjoy!!!

[butfluffy]

thanks for the updated version

[Gzegzolka]

Big thanks

[Neil79]

:d :d

[AmigaBill]

This is really amazing. I have had so much fun with Heart of the Alien, Another World the Lost Level, and Karateka this year. Kudos to all you guys who make these ports happen. You efforts are very much appreciated! Is there a recommended workflow to get the game to run an a real Amiga 1200? I know I could burn the HDF file to a CF Card with UAE but I would rather not have to open up my 1200 and swap out my current CF card. Thanks again to all you guys who put in so much work on awesome projects like this. AMIAG4EVER!!!

-- Bill

[DamienD]

Heya AmigaBill,

Welcome to EAB

Technically speaking; "onEscapee" isn't a port as such... It's an "Amiga CD" game so can be run from an Amiga with a CD-ROM drive.

All I did was:

... Create a .HDF in WinUAE.
... Copy all required data from the disc to a directory on the .HDF.
... Work out how the game is started; make some assigns so that the original disc isn't required any more.
... Add in the English "Readme" file (reformatted to fit on screen) via PPMore.
... Download / add in the trainer.
... Setup the S/Startup-Sequence.
... etc.

I was going to make an .LHA file that anyone could extract on their real Amiga hard drive but got stuck with one part...

If you would find this useful I can have another attempt?

[Neil79]

DamienD pm

[AmigaBill]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Heya AmigaBill,

Welcome to EAB

Technically speaking; "onEscapee" isn't a port as such... It's an "Amiga CD" game so can be run from an Amiga with a CD-ROM drive.

All I did was:

... Create a .HDF in WinUAE.
... Copy all required data from the disc to a directory on the .HDF.
... Work out how the game is started; make some assigns so that the original disc isn't required any more.
... Add in the English "Readme" file (reformatted to fit on screen) via PPMore.
... Download / add in the trainer.
... Setup the S/Startup-Sequence.
... etc.

I was going to make an .LHA file that anyone could extract on their real Amiga hard drive but got stuck with one part...

If you would find this useful I can have another attempt?

Thanks for the warm welcome DamienD! It is great to be here. I have dropped by in the past but never actually signed up until recently thanks to the awesome Indie Retro News posting links to threads here. I will certainly try to participate more. I would absolutely love it if you make an .LHA file, however you have done so much work already, please don't do it just for me. I love emulation, but nothing beats using the real thing. Now that I understand your workflow I can probably piece it together. Although it sounds like that won't be as difficult as actually playing the game. Amiga difficulty!!! Kids today have it so easy, we were trained properly Thanks and great job once again

[MickGyver]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I was going to make an .LHA file that anyone could extract on their real Amiga hard drive but got stuck with one part...

If you would find this useful I can have another attempt?

Nice work with this! I would love to see an .LHA so I can play it on my real A1200.

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by AmigaBill

Thanks for the warm welcome DamienD! It is great to be here. I have dropped by in the past but never actually signed up until recently thanks to the awesome Indie Retro News posting links to threads here.

Woohoo

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by AmigaBill

I would absolutely love it if you make an .LHA file, however you have done so much work already, please don't do it just for me. I love emulation, but nothing beats using the real thing. Now that I understand your workflow I can probably piece it together.

Originally Posted by witchmaster

Nice work with this! I would love to see an .LHA so I can play it on my real A1200.

To be honest my only hurdle was to get the icon to point to my script for starting the game...

...I wanted to use the same nice icon which is on the original CD-ROM.

Anyway, leave it with me an I'll have a play some more

[AmigaBill]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Anyway, leave it with me an I'll have a play some more

[Retrofan]

DamienD first thanks. About the icon that's very easy, just use copyicon to change the icon of your script.

[DamienD]

Cheers Retrofan; think I've already got it sorted.

Just creating the .LHA file; which is taking forever given all files / directories are roughly 130MB.

Afterwards will test on a simple "WB 3.1" .HDF & "Classic WB 3.1 Lite" .HDF.

...then if all good will upload

[DamienD]

Phew; finally finished

Well, that was a mission!!! I mean, working out how to point the icon to the script wasn't too difficult. The time consuming task was LHA'ing up all the files / folders afterwards. This took 4 hours 15 minutes to complete.

Then it was time for testing. Extracted and ran; ooops... I forgot one small thing

Corrected the issue and then had to LHA everything up again; another 4 hours 15 minutes...

Anyway, all good now and have tested on a freshly installed / bog-standard Workbench 3.1 .HDF and also a Classic Workbench 3.1 Lite .HDF.

So, just extract the archive to the root of your hard drive and when in the folder "onEscapee" it's looks like this:

Workbench 3.1:



Classic Workbench 3.1 Lite:



Now, if you don't want to install into root of your hard drive you can extract elsewhere but... note that you will need to edit the file "onEscapee/onEscapee" to point the assigns to the new location

Let's say you extracted the LHA file to "SYS:Games" (so the game is now located in "SYS:Games/onEscapee"). Using a text edit change these lines:

From:



To:



...and that's about it guys

The "onEscapee.lha" file has been uploaded to the EAB File Server under the directory "~Uploads/DamienD/LHAs"

Any questions / issues, please let me know

Enjoy!!!

[Retroplay]

DamienD I dare you, try lha'ing Emerald Mines CD, no jit or other "trickery" allowed.

[DamienD]

No thank you