Skip to content

Home

Jump to bottom
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa edited this page Jul 31, 2021 · 43 revisions

Der Clou! - SDL Port

Original version by

  • neo Software Produktions GmbH

Port by

  • Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Thanks to

  • Thomas Trummer for the HSC music code and valuable insight
  • Jens Granseuer for patches and bug reports

Please read the license summary and the neo license before proceeding.

Instructions

To run the game type derclou.

Here is the command line usage:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syntax:
    derclou [-h] [-d[<num>]] [-f] [-m<num>] [-s<num>]
Flags:
    -d[<num>]  - enable debug output (debug level [1])
    -f         - fullscreen mode
    -g<mode>   - graphics mode (normal,2x,linear2x)
    -h         - show help
    -m<num>    - set music volume to <num> (0-255)
    -s<num>    - set sfx volume to <num> (0-255)
    -t         - trainer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Implementation

The game autodetects the following data files:

  • Der Clou!
  • Der Clou! CD-ROM
  • Der Clou! Profidisk
  • Der Clou! Profidisk CD-ROM

PC version only.

It also autodetects the language: German/English/French/Spanish/Slovak.

The game tries to load the datafiles from the directory pointed by the environment variable DERCLOU_ROOTDIR. Failing that it will try to load them from the current directory.

The free datafiles (German) can no longer be downloaded from the neo website. The website has been down for some time. I put these files in a tarball here (2.3M).

Just cd into the created directory and run derclou to play.

The English datafiles have not been released by neo Software since they do not own the copyright for them. Not that you should have much trouble finding them...

Bugs

Mouse control does not work properly. Please use the keys for now.

Enjoy!

Developer Info

The intro animation is stored in IFF-ANIM format. The game images are also stored in IFF-ILBM format. The text files are (IIRC) plain Latin-1 text (XOR) encrypted with a 1 byte key.

The PC sound samples are in Creative Voice (VOC) format. The music is in HSC-Tracker format (AdPlug can play it). To play the music we use a Yamaha OPL chip emulator.

The game was developed by "...and avoid panic." I assume it was a development team inside neo.

AFAIK the main game developer was Kaweh Kazemi from Austria. Hannes Seifert wrote the sound code (HSC-Tracker). Both were neo Software Produktions (Vienna, Austria) founders.

The English translation was done by, I think, someone at Kompart UK.

Clone this wiki locally