Firestaff project status
Last status review: 2026-10-28 (working tree based on 56f99cdcf). This page
is the concise status source for the README and wiki. The full documentation
map is in DOCUMENTATION_INDEX.md.
This is the short, user-facing status summary for the whole project. Detailed source audits and capture receipts remain in the linked game documentation.
| Game | Current status | What is verified | Main open boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dungeon Master 1 | Playable PC DOS 3.4; bounded native routes for other editions | PC 3.4 runtime, viewport, HUD, input, combat and saves; Apple IIGS 2.0/2.1 original-media CLI/M12 first-world startup; Apple Silicon macOS boot smoke and original-data gates | Broader original-vs-Firestaff capture, IIGS title/entrance and DOC playback, and V2 material; the unreleased historical Macintosh prototype has no local authenticated data |
| Chaos Strikes Back | Verified bounded real-media routes; active hardening | Atari STX 50 Hz title-to-FTLCODE/runtime route, start-menu CLI, Amiga and FM Towns routes; FM Towns C28 entrance palette and MINI.DAT bootstrap state; Amiga F0107 source MEDIA720 scale and C696 anchor selection from authentic Graphics.DAT; SWSH palette/logo/sample parsing and playback path | Matched Amiga frame, palette/light, inscription and trapdoor verification; native intro timing and audible output; DSA/save corpus, wider campaign and viewport evidence |
| Dungeon Master II: Skullkeep | Verified bounded real-media routes; active hardening | M12 source-owner selection, English/French DOS menu-to-runtime routes, Amiga title/New Game/runtime, FM Towns in-memory title/menu/runtime slices, source-owned viewport/HUD and focused mechanics | Edition-matched title palette/timing, input, audio and dungeon-composition parity across editions |
| DM Nexus | Active real-data bring-up | Saturn DMDF/DGN data, CUE-owned CDDA and STABG source selection, source-bound decoding and bounded rendering of five authentic MAPD title planes, capture-only VDP1/VDP2 decoders, and an NBG1 tile-fetch address correction tested against an authentic Japanese startup frame in merged PR #19. Firestaff does not yet reproduce the native Saturn title composition or menu. Japanese retail and English-version Ymir cold boots reach the native title menu; the English screenshot replay is pixel-exact, and its source join has 126 informative matches among 137 textured draws. These are reference-emulator results only. A mixed directory containing extracted Japanese data and regional disc images is not verified as edition-safe: Japanese and English discs share DM.BIN, and the M12 route selected an English supplemental CUE for the Japanese edition. |
Full Firestaff Saturn title composition and title-to-menu parity; verified ownership for mixed extracted/disc directories; menu/face, HUD and dungeon source-to-VDP material semantics; native event/audio playback and full playability; production readiness remains 0% |
| Theron’s Quest | Verified bounded JP runtime and US routes; active real-media bring-up | JP Rev 1 title → stage → Soul Room → Akutuba runtime; three JP Debug loops reached a loaded dungeon with ticks, rendered frames and a nonblack Firestaff snapshot, without an original-emulator comparison; source-only loading of all seven JP dungeons from authentic raw BIN and CUE-projected ISO; US Track 02 direct CLI and no-game M12 routes reach bounded runtime; CloneCD ZIP startup and MODE1/2048 ISO Akutuba forcefield handoff; raw/assembled-ISO equivalence for all 34 maps and 2,269 linked source-object records in each region; separate world ledger retains 2,266 ground-reference occurrences | Later campaign progression, save-body semantics, validated original presentation, JP initial party pose/map join and end-to-end gameplay |
The latest local M12 real-media sweep separately exercised keyboard and mouse selection for all five game cards. Its first-runtime route passed for DM1, CSB, DM2 and Theron US; a direct Theron JP selection also passed. Nexus selection remains an authentic title handoff only; it does not pass the Saturn menu capture gate or start gameplay. The detailed commands, data-preservation checks and limits are in the startup support gap analysis.
Completion reporting
Firestaff does not assign invented percentages to a game, version or platform. Completion is reported by the strongest evidence-backed status in the platform matrix: Playable, Verified route, Data path, Preservation, or Unsupported. A verified boot probe is therefore not reported as completed gameplay, and a parser or synthetic fixture never raises a row above its real-media evidence.
| Game | Completion status | Platform source of truth |
|---|---|---|
| Dungeon Master 1 | Playable on PC DOS 3.4; other editions remain separately scoped. | DM1 platform rows |
| Chaos Strikes Back | Verified bounded routes on Atari ST, Amiga and FM Towns; no original DOS/PC release. | CSB platform rows |
| Dungeon Master II: Skullkeep | Verified bounded routes on DOS, Amiga, FM Towns and the listed Macintosh editions. | DM2 platform rows |
| DM Nexus | Verified Saturn data and bounded MAPD title-plane render; Japanese retail and English-version Ymir references reach the native menu, but Firestaff does not yet reproduce that native title/menu or start Nexus as a playable game. The measured implementation coverage is documented separately. | Nexus platform row, Nexus completion, English cold-boot evidence |
| Theron’s Quest | Firestaff runs the game in its native C/SDL runtime. JP reaches a loaded dungeon with native ticks and rendered frames, and a nonblack Firestaff snapshot; no original-emulator image is paired for parity. The US route also has a verified authentic Continue-to-dungeon-2 handoff. Neither route proves full visual/gameplay parity or native save persistence. | Theron platform rows |
Nexus is the sole exception with an explicitly defined numeric measurement: 44.0% implementation coverage across its six measured domains, 33.1% for its weighted startup-to-HUD chain, and 0% production grade. Those values describe only the documented Saturn capture model and must not be averaged with the status labels above.
The dated preservation status records the current source, format and real-media boundary for every game.
CSB boundary in brief
CSBWin is retained as a source/disassembly reference for engine and format
research. It is not game data, not a Firestaff PC route, and cannot make CSB
into a DOS title: CSB has no original DOS release and --platform pc remains
closed. PC-9801 and X68000 are also unsupported CSB platforms.
Shared presentation priority
Across all five games, presentation work is sequenced in the same order:
- Startup — authentic media admission, title/intro route and launch gate.
- Menu — source-bound navigation, options and game selection.
- HUD — real bitmap, palette, font and layout ownership.
- Viewport — source-backed map, object, creature, lighting and camera output.
An earlier stage must be stable before a later stage is described as complete. This keeps a working launcher or synthetic HUD fixture from being mistaken for full original-data gameplay.
Evidence rules
“Verified” means that the relevant source or real-data receipt exists and its focused checks pass. A synthetic fixture can prove a parser or state-machine contract, but it cannot prove original-media parity. Screenshots in public documentation must be real runtime captures; generated or fallback art is not promoted as game evidence.
Runtime dependency boundary
Production Firestaff starts only from user-supplied game media. It neither requires nor reads BIOS, firmware, or System Card files, and it never launches an external emulator. Historical capture and reverse-engineering material may refer to those tools as evidence provenance, but it is not a runtime input or installation requirement.
Build and CI
The canonical local build is documented in DATA_SETUP.md
and the CI checks in CI.md. GitHub Actions runs strict warnings,
asset hygiene, native builds on three operating systems, headless probes and a
cross-platform determinism comparison. Rapid pushes to main cancel obsolete
runs, so status must always be read from the newest commit.
The Firestaff wiki expands this
summary with per-game format, hardware and reverse-engineering notes. The
checked-in wiki source is under docs/wiki/.