Shandalar Mod (beta)

[Tapani]

A new beta version of this mod is available, see the first post for download links.

News are that Shandalar now works under Vista, and both deck editor and duels are in their own windows as well.

[Bog Wraith]

Jatill,

I also looked into missing graphics/black screen problems, and I don't know how to resolve that. Seems like Magic is made for DOS originally (or by DOS programmers heh), and that is an artifact of that cludge.
//Tapani

That is correct Tapani. The original code for Shandalar, and the game in general, was originally written for DOS. As the game was nearing completion, Windows 95 was announced and MicroProse decided to re-write a portion of the code so it could then run inside the Win '95 UI, which was a better choice for many reasons then continuing to run it in DOS.

Incidentally, MTG would be the last game that the great Sid Meier of Civilization fame would help to create for MicroProse. He especially worked on creating the module in the game known as Shandalar!

[franjoal]

You are doing a good work. I it proved in windows 7 and it works of marvel. The only one but that it has is that in the deck editor the cards that you buy or obtain after winning in the duels are not seen in the editor with which I cannot add them to the deck.

[reng0r0]

You are doing a good work. I it proved in windows 7 and it works of marvel. The only one but that it has is that in the deck editor the cards that you buy or obtain after winning in the duels are not seen in the editor with which I cannot add them to the deck.

Yeah, I have the same issue here on Windows 7.

[Tapani]

franjoal, reng0r0

Ok, you having this problem as well convinces me that it is not an isolated problem. I had already heard of two others, of which one is using XP.

At least one of these cases has this problem with the original game, so I doubt it is caused by this mod. A very bad (insufficient imo) workaround is to move cards into the deck by colour, and then double click out the cards you don't want in the deck.

Keep all bug reports coming, the more people have a problem, the higher it ends up on my TODO list.

More techincal info about this particular problem:

The cards are drawn in response to a WM_PAINT message, using BitBlt onto the deckeditor window. This is a GDI operation. So the causes could be a lack of paint messages, or due to some GDI settings.

[Malacshakor]

I am also experiencing this problem on XP. I cannot see the cards I have won in duels while playing Shandalar. The problem with the work-around is that you cannot pull special lands (dual-lands, strip mine, Urzas, etc.) into decks this way. Been tough to advance in deck efficiency without those.

[Tapani]

franjoal, Malaschakor, Malice, McCrea, reng0r0, ...

this is a long shot for those who have the problem of missing cards in deck editor.

Right click between the filter button blocks (on the few pixels of background visble there), and select "Main menu buttons on".
Actually, toggle those on and off and on again.

Any difference?

(I do not have any computer with your bug, so I am kinda groping around in the dark now).

[McCrea]

No help. They seem to be operating normally -- the whole groups will toggle on and off, but I never see any cards down there.

[jasonbrown669]

I'm reading this thread and the Technical changes really WOW me.

Technical changes:
Shandalar runs in a window.
Reduced CPU usage when game is idle (i.e. in villages).
Bugs with missing text has been remedied in many cases.
Bug with default player name fixed.
Shandalar is made independent of Manalink 2.0 by separate DLLs.
EDIT 2009-11-25: Duels and deck editor runs in their own windows as well. One deck editor memory allocation bug fixed.
EDIT 2009-11-25: Should work under Vista without compatibility

Windowed mode,text fixes and compatibility all sound really good. But that list of Game Play changes kind of frightens me.
Maybe I'll install it as is and try it.
But a patch for a debugged Shandalar in windowed mode would be EPIC.
What about the 'broken town' bug? Where you walk in and the game freezes, the town music plays but no 'town' buttons appear and you have to end task Shandalar, has anyone ever figured that out?

[aww1979]

What about the 'broken town' bug? Where you walk in and the game freezes, the town music plays but no 'town' buttons appear and you have to end task Shandalar, has anyone ever figured that out?

I remember that happening to me years ago on an older machine, but I haven't seen it since. I'd guess it was due to old hardware or a different version of windows. I had win98 back then.

[Professor]

No help. They seem to be operating normally -- the whole groups will toggle on and off, but I never see any cards down there.

I thought the answer to this was to reduce the resolution. It's been so long I can't be sure, but I think dropping to 800x600 should cure that issue. If not, well, I'm old and my memory isn't what it..uh what was I talking about again??

[mathusalem]

I'm old and my memory isn't what it..uh what was I talking about again??

yee forgot tae take yer pills agin, warren ! the gentleman was askin' if yee wanted some mo' of those cumcumber sandwiches !

What ?
i can't hear yee !
I forgot me hearin' aids ! i'm as old as yee are and completely DEAF !

[aquilla]

This seems interesting. What ever happened to this project? All the links are dead.

[Tapani]

I have added an more up-to-date link to the top post:
Download 1
Download 2

This new version contains an attempt to make many low-level creatures easier (this was tricky to do, those decks appeared to be rumbles of crappy cards already!). Also, some (7-8?) computer decks did contain double strip mines; I have reduced most of those to just one.

All comments are welcome!

//Tapani

[Huggybaby]

Thanks Tapani.

I tried this mod with the MTG 2010 ISO and Shandalar wouldn't launch because of a problem with Cards.dat. I guess your mod won't work with the updated CardArtNew and Cards.dat for Moks 2.0? Although AFAIK those updates don't affect the cards available in Shandalar, and you do say your mod works with 2.0.

The corrected CardArtNew is here: viewtopic.php?p=30392&f=25#p30392

I really hope you can help me figure this out, because this may be the one mod that could be packaged with the new installer.

<edit> OK, I got it working, I think I had failed to move over CardO.dat.

The window mode isn't as promising as I thought, because it can't be resized and when I minimize it, upon restore the screen is black. As I mouse over the window I can get five icons to show but that's it. So, I won't minimize but it would be cool if you could figure out how to fix the restore/screen refresh issue.