We  announced a few days ago that a DOS port was in progress... Well it is finally ready to get some testing!

The DOS version of the game has a dedicated page: https://raphnet.itch.io/dos-evil

The shareware version will soon become available.

This is still a work in progress. Feel free to comment on the game page for any missing features, or let us know which planned features you think we should prioritize!

System requirements:

The engine implements the equivalent of a SMS VDP chip in software, and the screen is redrawn on every frame which uses a lot of memory bandwidth. So you will need a fast VGA card (most likely VLB or PCI) and a 486 or Pentium. 

(Tested only on Pentium 133 so far) - Please post feedback on the game page if you test on a slower machine!

Graphics:

The game uses VGA Mode X, 320x240, for its square pixels and 60Hz refresh rate. The SMS screen is smaller (256x192), so there is a border. A scaled mode is available in the options menu, but the result is terrible...

Sound:

Support is implemented for PC Speaker, AdLib (OPL2) and SoundBlaster (PCM).

PC Speaker and AdLib perform an algorithmic transformation of the original PSG music. (i.e. One note selected based on pitch and volume for PC Speaker, and per-channel instruments + experimental PSG noise to percussion conversion for AdLib). Manually remastering each track for PC Speaker and AdLib would give much better results, yet this altorithmic conversion is interesting and not that bad!

The SoundBlaster option is the only one which tries to reproduce SMS PSG sound by emulating a PSG chip. However this is also more CPU-intensive. If the game runs too slowly on your machine, try the AdLib or PC Speaker driver.

Input:

Keyboard only, 1 player only at the moment. 2-player keyboard and joystick support should be added in the future.

Save file / config:

The game writes scores, achievements and configuration data to DOSBALL.SAV when quitting. If you just turn off your PC without quitting, your high score will not be saved.