Firestaff

A source-faithful Dungeon Master engine for modern hardware.

Firestaff brings the classic FTL dungeon crawlers to macOS, Windows, Linux and Steam Deck era machines while keeping the original game logic anchored to the best available source references. It runs original game data you already own, validates it by hash, and lets you choose between pixel-perfect presentation, filtered/upscaled modes and modern rendering experiments.

Screenshots

Original-style DM1	Enhanced title rendering

V1 title source path	V2 4K presentation work

Current Status

Firestaff is in active development. The launcher, data scanner, build system, packaging scripts and source-lock verification framework are in place. DM1 is the strongest runtime target today. The other games have hash-verified launch profiles and substantial engine slices, with end-to-end playability still being hardened game by game.

Game	Runtime status	Data status	Presentation status
Dungeon Master (DM1)	Playable, source-locked V1 runtime with active visual polish	PC 3.4 English and multilingual data are hash-verified	V1 original, V2.0 filtered, V2.1 upscaled and V2.2 modern pipeline
Chaos Strikes Back	Launch/profile boundary, dungeon model, mechanics, utility/import and verification slices implemented; full runtime proof still in progress	PC/ST/Amiga variants are catalogued by hash	V1 parity slices plus V2 scaffolding and active hardening
Dungeon Master II: Skullkeep	Boot/profile and utility flow implemented; dungeon, rendering and mechanics are still being hardened	PC English, French and German/English JewelCase data are catalogued by hash	V2 presentation pipeline is implemented; V1 runtime completion remains active work
DM Nexus (Saturn)	Saturn data, world, render, save/load and runtime-state paths implemented; real-asset handoff proof still in progress	Saturn DMDF/DGN data is catalogued by hash	V2 asset, lighting, UI and controller slices implemented; more verification remains
Theron's Quest	V1 parser, rendering, mechanics, progression, save/load, direct Track 02 launch handoff and a narrow US bank-boundary signal are verified; full dungeon data parity is still being hardened	JP and US Track 02 provenance is hash-verified	V1 presentation implemented; V2 modes not started

What Firestaff Gives You

• Source-faithful gameplay work: DM1 and related systems are checked against ReDMCSB, CSBWin, skproject, CSB lineage sources and Greatstone data references.
• Modern launcher: a 1920x1080 start menu with per-game status, settings, language support, availability checks and hash-verified data discovery.
• Game-data scanning: Firestaff searches recursively by file hash, not by filename or folder layout. It lists required files that are found or missing.
• Launch safety: games with missing required data are shown as unavailable and cannot be started until the required hashes are present. Optional title, intro and other non-essential extras can be absent.
• Multiple presentation modes: original V1 rendering, filtered V2.0, upscaled V2.1 and modern V2.2 pipelines.
• Cross-platform C11 engine: pure C, CMake, SDL3, no C++ dependency.
• Packaging path: preview packaging scripts exist for macOS DMG/ZIP, Windows ZIP/installer and Linux DEB/RPM.

Latest Release

Current version: 2.7.5

The latest release fixes DM1 launch regressions reported in v2.7.4 on macOS:

• Restored the initial FTL/SWSH animation in nested data-directory layouts.
• Restored the source-locked TITLE animation palette steps.
• Fixed Entrance door button clicks after live macOS window-size changes.
• Corrected wall inscription source-font rendering and slowed the title cadence to the V1 tick path.
• Cleaned stale Firestaff queue failures and made the CSB DSA probe mkdir path portable for CI.

See RELEASE_NOTES.md for the release history.

Download

Get the latest build from GitHub Releases.

Platform	Package
macOS	DMG and ZIP
Windows	Installer and ZIP
Linux x86_64	DEB and RPM
Linux ARM64 / Steam Deck	DEB and RPM

All game data is user-supplied. Firestaff does not include copyrighted game assets.

Quick Start

1. Download Firestaff from Releases.
2. Run it once so the default data directory is created.
3. Put your original game files anywhere under the configured data directory.
4. Start Firestaff. The launcher scans the directory automatically and shows which games are ready.

Default data directory:

~/.firestaff/data/

Suggested subdirectories:

~/.firestaff/data/
  dm1/
  csb/
  dm2/
  nexus/
  theron/

Filenames are less important than file hashes. Firestaff searches recursively, so a custom folder layout works as long as the original files are present. Game data may also live inside ZIP archives or ISO/BIN disc images; the scanner hashes archive contents and reports matches as virtual paths.

Game Data Scanner

Use the CLI scanner to see what Firestaff can find:

firestaff --scan-data

or:

firestaff --scan-game-data

The scanner reports required data per game. Required files block launch when missing. Non-essential extras such as title or intro animation files are reported as optional and can be skipped.

ZIP files are supported for hash discovery across the game-data root. Stored entries are supported everywhere; deflated entries are supported when Firestaff is built with zlib, which is enabled automatically when CMake finds it. ISO/BIN disc images are scanned as ISO 9660 containers, covering DM2 disc images and the existing Saturn/Nexus data-image path. For DM1, CSB, and DM2, required files found inside archives are materialized into Firestaff's local asset cache before launch so the runtime still receives ordinary game-data paths.

You can point Firestaff at a custom root:

firestaff --data-dir ~/Games/FirestaffData --scan-data

The launcher also exposes the configured data directory and game availability in the start menu.

Command-Line Options

firestaff [options]
  --duration <ms>       Run for a fixed duration (-1 = run until exit)
  --width <px>          Window width
  --height <px>         Window height
  --scale-mode <n>      1=V1 original, 2=V2.1 enhanced, 3=V2.2 modern
  --script <cmds>       Comma-separated input script
  --data-dir <path>     Game-data root
  --scan-data           Scan game data and print found/missing files
  --scan-game-data      Alias for --scan-data
  --game <id>           Pre-select dm1, csb, dm2, nexus or theron
  --fullscreen          Run fullscreen
  --no-vsync            Disable vertical sync
  --fps                 Show FPS counter
  --version             Show version and exit
  --help, -h            Show help

Examples:

firestaff --scan-data
firestaff --game dm1 --scale-mode 1
firestaff --data-dir ~/Games/FirestaffData --fullscreen
firestaff --duration 5000 --fps

Graphics Modes

Mode	Resolution target	Purpose
V1 Original	320x200	Pixel-faithful original rendering
V2.0 Filtered	320x200 plus post-processing	CRT scanlines, palette correction and sharpening
V2.1 Upscaled	High-resolution source-preserving upscale	Cleaner modern output while preserving the DM look
V2.2 Modern	1920x1080 class presentation	New modern art and UI experiments

V1 owns gameplay-critical behavior. V2 modes are presentation layers and must not bypass source-locked command, collision, timing or inventory routes.

Architecture

M12  Modern launcher UI
  -> M11 game engine, render loop, input and audio
      -> M10 data layer, dungeon state, graphics, combat and timeline
          -> Original game files supplied by the player

Main source areas:

Directory	Purpose
src/engine/	SDL loop, game view, rendering, input, save/load and audio
src/ui/	Modern launcher, menu state, rendering and hit-testing
src/shared/	Asset loading, hash validation, palette, config and localization
src/frontend/	Title screens, entrance sequences and boot presentation
src/memory/	Dungeon, movement, combat, sensors, timeline and savegame model
src/dm1/	DM1 source-locked runtime systems
src/dm1v2/	DM1 enhanced presentation systems
src/csb/	Chaos Strikes Back runtime and presentation work
src/dm2/	Dungeon Master II runtime and presentation work
src/nexus/	Saturn DM Nexus DMDF/DGN support
src/theron/	Theron's Quest support
tests/ and probes/	Integration tests, source-lock gates and headless probes

Source Fidelity

Firestaff is built around source references, not guesswork.

Primary references:

• ReDMCSB for DM1 and large parts of the PC-34 lineage.
• CSBWin and CSB for Chaos Strikes Back lineage.
• skproject for Dungeon Master II.
• Greatstone for dungeon maps, data notes and graphics atlas material.

Source-lock comments in the code cite the relevant original source files and functions for gameplay-critical behavior.

Building from Source

Requirements:

• CMake 3.20 or newer
• A C11 compiler
• SDL3

On macOS:

brew install sdl3

Build:

git clone https://github.com/yeager/firestaff.git
cd firestaff
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel
./build/firestaff --help

Run the headless Phase A probe:

SDL_VIDEODRIVER=dummy ./build/firestaff_m11_phase_a_probe

Run the full local test set:

ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Some integration tests need original game data.

Localization

The launcher uses gettext PO files and supports a broad language set, including English, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish.

Legal

Firestaff is a clean-room engine reimplementation based on public source and format references. You need original game data files that you legally own.

No copyrighted game data is included.

Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon Master II are trademarks of FTL Games. DM Nexus is a trademark of Victor Interactive Software. Theron's Quest is a trademark of Working Designs / Victor Interactive Software.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.