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1. Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:01:08 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

   While on my Cannon Fodder kick the other day I have discovered, to my surprise, that a work-in-progress version of the PC port of Cannon Fodder was somehow pirated & preserved.

   You can tell it's a beta right away because...
   - 450 resource files are just dumped into a directory. They are in one neat file in the final
   - 610kb conventional ram required vs 580 in the final

   #DOSGaming #VideogameHistory #SensibleSoftware #PCGaming

   • Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:02:12 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

     in reply to

     It has no title theme, although the rest of the music is present.
     Just like with some other graphics in the port I assume this was an attempt to spruce up the title screen with VGA graphics, but thankfully they reverted back for the final.
     Sensible team photos are the same as in the Amiga version vs rescanned VGA in the final:

   • Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:03:17 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

     in reply to

     The game still has Amiga's Royal British Legion disclaimer. It's missing a set of MIDI files for MT-32 music playback, so if you select it, the game crashes with an error message. However, there's a PC Speaker music option that was excluded from the final. For a good reason:

   • Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:03:59 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

     in reply to

     MIDI-to-AdLib FM synth player hasn't been tweaked yet, so the music sounds all kinds of messed up. Here's Narcissus, for example:

   • Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:04:38 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

     in reply to

     Credits for the PC porting team are missing, BUT as a bonus it comes with 24 saves! One for each mission in the game.

   • Andrew (andrewt@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:05:10 UTC Andrew

     in reply to

     @dosnostalgic this implies that all other games ARE endorsed by the royal British legion

   • mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:11:29 UTC mcc

     in reply to

     @dosnostalgic hm, yeah, I dunno, it's not great but I feel like it's *on* to something. Maybe with another couple revisions

   • Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:19:49 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

     in reply to

     And now it's been pointed out to me that the PC demo of Cannon Fodder actually has sampled version of the theme song that didn't make it into the final build.
     No tracker player, sadly. The song is broken up into mono samples that play in sequence. It sort of works.

   • Anatoly Shashkin💾 (dosnostalgic@mastodon.social@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Jan-2023 18:25:16 UTC Anatoly Shashkin💾

     in reply to

     • mcc

     @mcc Yeah, I feel like it's on its way to being something like PC Speaker music from DOS port of Lotus 3:
     https://youtu.be/WEwT_fgEV2c