mangofizz/demon

Demon is a free reimplementation of the Halo PC demo

Demon

Demon is a project with the goal of reverse engineering and reimplementing the functionality of the Halo PC demo, AKA Halo Trial.

Please see the Frequently Asked Questions for more information.

Features

These are features added that are not originally present in the original Halo PC demo. These are done to help with improving the functionality of the game as well as making it easier to test.

• New debugging messages to assist with modding (more will be added as the project continues).
• Backported -console and -devmode from Halo Custom Edition, allowing you to enable a fully-featured console.

Compiling Demon

The current progress of demon can be compiled into a replacement strings.dll, where core game functions will be redirected at runtime into our re-implemented versions.

Dependencies

Demon requires the following software for the build process:

• mingw-w64
• CMake (mingw-w64)
• python

Compilation steps

First, recursively clone the git repository.

git clone https://github.com/Aerocatia/demon --recursive

Next, cd into the project directory and prepare the build directory using i686-w64-mingw32-cmake

cd demon
i686-w64-mingw32-cmake -B build -S .

The project can now be built using cmake.

cmake --build build

Build options

Demon has some build time options that change functionality.

Option	Default
DEMON_ENABLE_ENHANCEMENTS	OFF

DEMON_ENABLE_ENHANCEMENTS

This option enables some enhancements to re-implemented functions, adding extra features to assist in debugging and running the game. In the future it may also enable some core features and fixes seen in the mod Chimera.

By default this setting is off.

Testing Demon

Once strings.dll has been compiled, it can be run using an original install of Halo Trial

Creating a testing environment

First, download a copy of the original Halo Trial Installer. This can be obtained here.

Next, extract the contents of this installer using 7-zip to a desired location. Installing Halo Trial the usual way is not recommended as this Windows XP-era game assumes you are likely to have direct write access to Program Files.

Finally, back up the original strings.dll and replace it with the one created by compiling this project.

You can now start the game by running halo.exe

Tips

• Use the argument -window to start the game in a window.
• Use the argument -vidmode <width>,<height>[,<refresh rate>] to set the game resolution.
• Use the argument -novideo to skip the promo video when exiting the game.
• Use the argument -console to enable the console and -devmode to enable all commands.