DM2 V1 — Platform Variants

Current Firestaff support

Firestaff has verified bounded native routes from authenticated DOS, Amiga, FM Towns and Macintosh source data. The shared M12 data root keeps those editions separate: DOS may resolve through its verified data symlink, while Amiga, FM Towns and Mac retain their original archive owners. Focused M11 real-media regressions verify New Game and selected runtime paths for all four families; they do not establish full visual, timing, input, save or campaign parity.

The remaining items in this page are parity boundaries, not a requirement to substitute one edition’s files for another: native non-DOS saves, positive DOS WIELD/death-drop evidence and broader platform-specific UI/audio owners remain tracked in TODO-dm2.md.

DOS Version

• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: DOS, 3.5” floppy disks (6 disks)
• Release: 1994
• Engine: Similar to DM1 (first-person dungeon crawler)
• Graphics: 3D rendered wireframe corridors, pre-rendered character sprites
• File: Dungeon-Master-II-Skullkeep_DOS_EN.zip

Windows 3.1 Version

• Release: 1995
• Platform: Windows 3.1 with VP6 codec for video
• Video playback: FMV sequences using VP6 codec
• Same game content, different media handling
• The supplied authenticated PC-DOS archive contains the PC data owner (data/graphics.dat, MD5 25247ede4dabb6a71e5dabdfbcd5907d) and DOS executables only. It does not contain a separately identifiable Windows executable or Windows-specific GRAPHICS.DAT.
• Firestaff correlates every currently bridged non-Japanese FM Towns text key byte-for-byte against that PC-English archive member in memory. This is a verified PC-English compatibility reference, not a claim that an unavailable Windows-specific dump is byte-identical. The complete PC-English text inventory is larger than the current bridge; its exact coverage is reported by the real-media regression.

Amiga Version

• Dungeon Master II was released for Amiga in Europe as version 1.0 in English/French/German. It is a distinct 16-colour, big-endian DM2 port; it is neither a DOS data alias nor an unofficial conversion.
• The original retail media consists of six install floppies. It cannot run directly from those floppies: the supplied installer concatenates dm2_arcsplit1 through dm2_arcsplit6 into DM2_archive.LZX, then runs unlzx to create the hard-disk game tree. Firestaff must perform that original archive operation in memory before it can hash-verify an Amiga GRAPHICS.DAT/DUNGEON.DAT pair; it must never unpack the game data to disk or present the installer disks as playable.
• Amiga music is map-triggered MOD playback (CD.DAT and SK00.MOD through SK09.MOD), not the PC HMP route. The Amiga-specific keyboard, video, animation and MOD paths remain separate runtime work after media admission.

Source: DMWeb’s Amiga edition notes, Greatstone’s DM2 version index, and the local archived copy in docs/DMWEB_REFERENCE.md.

Macintosh Version

• Macintosh is a separate 68k release family with its own big-endian data, resource-fork/container and menu/audio conventions. It is not a DOS or FM Towns data alias.
• Firestaff admits the authentic US English retail ZIP as mac-en-retail. Its raw MODE1/2352 BIN is read in memory through the Apple Partition Map and HFS catalogue. DMFiles/Dungeon.dat, Graphics.dat, and md.dat remain owned by the original ZIP and are never unpacked to the game-data directory.
• The retail version has a hash-paired boot receipt and uses the 39,411-byte big-endian dungeon. The Japanese Mac multi-track archive is readable through its authentic late Apple_HFS partition and case-preserving catalogue. Its known GRAPHICS.DAT hash is 283d5456c4f676609489e200219605bb; its HFS catalogue has four movie resources but no application forks, md.dat music map, or Mac sound resources. The Japanese archive therefore remains a preservation input, not a launchable variant; a Japanese boot/runtime owner and authenticated dungeon-pair receipt are still missing. French Mac remains preservation-only.
• The Mac dungeon reader keeps the ZIP/HFS source bytes intact and carries the 68k word order through the authenticated column, ground-stack and record-link accessors. The retail ZIP passes the source record-graph and start-pose gates. Retail map-wide GAME_LOAD passes all 44 authentic maps using the canonical File_header pool layout without extracting the ZIP data.
• The English Macintosh input table is source-locked and tested for both versions: inventory keys, movement aliases, freeze/wake, Command-O/S/Q, entrance/credits Return, and the three wall-button columns. Actions represented by the existing command queue are enqueued; wall-button columns use the separate source-owned activation gate described below. Held keyboard/gamepad movement uses the same source boundary, with Mac-specific A/D/W/S/X/Z/C and keypad meanings; host autorepeat is not used as the game clock.
• The authenticated GAME_LOAD sound owner is wired for both English editions. Immediate gameplay SFX resolve the source xsndptr2 binding (w_00) to its real GDAT raw sample (w_05), decode the original Mac Graphics.dat payload in memory and hand it to the verified playback backend. Missing source rows or an unavailable backend stay fail-closed; no DOS sample, snd MIDI instrument resource or synthetic PCM is used.
• In the M11/SDL route, an admitted DM2_PLATFORM_MAC_EN profile takes precedence over generic PC key aliases. Movement, champion/leader inventory, freeze, wake, save and quit are dispatched through the existing runtime boundaries. Mac wall-button columns now reach a source-owned activation gate: Firestaff consumes an authenticated renderer target, either the original c_rwbb door target or a target published from a visible wall tile’s real DB3 mechanism. A complete real PUSH_BUTTON_SWITCH (0x46) chain may mutate only its direct DB0 door targets. Authenticated local-action DB3 chains for 0x17, 0x18 and 0x1A use the source actuator-list rotation path (including mixed chain members). Source 0x04 wall- and floor-mecha timers remain fail-closed until the complete DB3/DB14/DB0 GAME_LOAD transaction is owned atomically; Firestaff must not derive mutable targets from raw timer bytes. Remote Mac 0x17/0x1A item admission and the small demo’s authentic target class 7 still require their original GAME_LOAD owner before mutation. No chain is converted into a DM1 front-cell action.
• Both English Mac editions now also admit the authentic 16-colour INTERFACE_CHARSHEET/0/dtImage/1 inventory frame. The M11 inventory toggle consumes its original local palette and RECT_1EE/RAW4 placement directly from the selected Mac Graphics.dat, without extracting or redrawing the panel. Inventory item-slot selection, drag/drop and the remaining native modal event owner are still fail-closed until their Mac source owner is recovered.
• Dynamic creature admission now reads the authenticated FB/FC/FD animation tables from the selected Mac Graphics.dat through the same source-owned GAF lookup used by the other admitted editions. Each authenticated Mac image may legitimately lack a row on a particular source path; that case preserves the source creature/timer owner with no animation rather than borrowing a different edition’s table or inventing a frame. The supported English Mac retail image remains the only Mac runtime owner.
• The authenticated GAME_LOAD party snapshot is now copied read-only into the M11 presentation mirror. This enables the English Mac F1-F4 champion inventory commands to select a real party champion and open/close the Mac CHARSHEET route. The snapshot copy does not create heroes or invent missing item records; native item-slot and drag/drop event ownership remains a separate gate.
• Keyboard/gamepad confirmation of the selected slot is now an accessibility path into the same authenticated ObjectID/leader-possession exchange for both English editions. A missing or rejected source slot remains unavailable; Firestaff does not create an item. Native Mac pointer and drag/drop input is still blocked until the dynamic Control/Event owner from the retained Mac application is bound. The Mac CODE(3) path does not use the PC or FM Towns expanded-rect table, so those coordinates are not reused.
• Mac retail save parsing preserves the source big-endian word order for the 42-byte save header, dungeon prefix, column/ground links and initial s_savegamebuffer scalars. This is a read-only admission boundary only: .firestaff/data/dm2 contains no authentic Mac save to verify, and Resume remains closed until the complete Mac DM2_GAME_LOAD record/possession owner is implemented. The corpus scanner now carries an explicit big-endian body-order receipt for a future authentic Mac corpus; it never guesses from the host or filename. No synthetic save is used.
• Retail HFS media now exposes the authentic raw MooV data forks and HFS Resource Manager forks in memory. The four present movies have source-owned moov resource payloads; Firestaff keeps the data fork, complete resource fork, and extracted resource separate: Title.MooV (2,403,013 bytes), Swoosh.MooV (463,528), Credits.MooV (5,601,948), and Ending.MooV (6,138,318). Story.MooV is absent from this image. Firestaff does not synthesize, flatten, or convert these files; Firestaff also builds a bounded in-memory QuickTime view (moov followed by mdat) for each present movie without changing either fork. The view keeps the authentic four-byte prefix present before Swoosh.MooV’s mdat out of the atom stream while preserving the source fork as the authority. The retail decoder gate covers all four present movies. M11 now presents the authentic Title movie at Mac startup and opens authentic Credits from the authenticated Credits rectangle; Mac Return/Enter closes that movie through the source input table. M11 now holds each decoded frame for the positive duration carried by its authentic QuickTime frame record; the real-media gate rejects zero-duration or non-monotonic frame timing instead of inventing a host cadence. Exact original presentation ownership remains separate.
• The retail image also retains the complete authentic resource forks for Music (662,956 bytes), General.sounds (134,562), and Weapon.sounds (50,651). These are source-bound Mac resources, not DOS HMP substitutes; a bounded format-1 snd parser now validates their authentic resource counts and sample headers in place. The exact signed 8-bit sample range from resource 10001 is hash-checked and transported through the SDL host mixer at its source rate. The four present movies are also available through an optional FFmpeg-backed in-memory QuickTime decoder: Cinepak/Animation frames and each movie’s PCM audio are delivered to the M11 surface/mixer without creating a converted movie file. Frame timing is now source-duration gated in M11. The 28 authentic application Midi resources (IDs 1000-1027) are parsed in place as SMF and selected by the Mac md.dat map route. Native CoreMIDI scheduling parity and the remaining snd timing classes remain separate runtime work.
• The retail HFS volume’s real Dungeon Master II application is also kept as separate in-memory data/resource forks (484,944 / 5,046,234 bytes). This preserves the source owner for the authentic Midi, snd , menu and event resources without flattening or extracting the application. During gameplay, the Mac runtime advances an authenticated MIDI map cue on the same 55 ms source tick used by the DM2 runtime after a cue is selected; it does not use a host frame delta, and the scheduler consumes each event once as the source playhead crosses it instead of replaying the elapsed prefix on every host tick. The retained application resource map is also source-censused: it contains CNTL resources 130 and 131 (32 bytes each), alongside the MENU, DITL, and DLOG families. These are authentic dialog/control resources, not permission to invent gameplay hit rectangles; native CHARSHEET pointer/drag ownership still depends on the dynamic Control/event records published by CODE(3)/CODE(11). CoreMIDI device/timing parity and that dynamic pointer owner remain open gates. This is a verified media/resource boundary, not a claim of complete Macintosh playability.

X68000 is not part of the DM2 support matrix.

PlayStation?

• DM2 was never released on PlayStation

Source Reference

• skproject (https://github.com/gbsphenx/skproject) contains DOS source code
• SKULL.ASM is the main DOS executable/disk image file
• No separate source for Windows version - same codebase

Conclusion

Amiga, DOS, FM Towns and Macintosh are separate original DM2 media/runtime families in Firestaff’s support matrix, and all four have bounded native source-owned routes. X68000 and PlayStation are outside the supported matrix.