Raptor: Call of the Shadows (DOS)

Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Developer: Cygnus Software Publisher: Apogee Software Platform: DOS Released internationally: April 1, 1994 This game has unused music. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has anti-piracy features.

To do: Check the demo CD for anything.

Debug Mode

Set the environment variable S_HOST to be the string CASTLE in the DOS prompt. The player will be invincible, can use all the game's weapons, and gets a large amount of cash. The player can also skip to other levels two ways:

• Press Escape, then click "No" or press N to go back to the hangar. When leaving the hangar, the player will go to the next level.
• On the level selection screen, press Z, X or Y for Episodes 1, 2 or 3 respectively, followed by any key in the row between Q and O (using an English keyboard). Warping to a level only in the registered version with the shareware version will crash the game.

(Source: 3DRealms/Apogee)

Unused Music

bos1.mus

Some simple blips that were likely supposed to play after the player finished a regular wave, but before reaching the boss.

bos2.mus

Likely a warning sound for when the player is approaching the boss.

bos3.mus

And finally, an actual tune. This would have most likely been the actual boss music. There's also a boss4 in the game's data, but this ended up being used for the credits screen.

(Source: TheAlmightyGuru (VGMPF))

Anti-Piracy

The registered version of Raptor uses a simple anti-piracy method that was in common use at Apogee at the time. It checks for a FILE_ID.DIZ file (commonly used as an archive description on BBSes) that contains the following:

████▓▒░ ALERT THE SYSOP IMMEDIATELY! ░▒▓████
████████████████████████████████████████████
THIS FILE IS NOT SHAREWARE -- it is ILLEGAL
and forbidden to upload this copyrighted
software to bulletin boards. If you see this
message on a BBS, please request that the
Sysop remove this software IMMEDIATELY!!!
█▓▒░ OR CONTACT APOGEE: (214) 278-5655 ░▒▓█
IT IS ILLEGAL TO GET THIS FILE FROM A BBS!
████████████████████████████████████████████
�

This effectively labels pirated copies of the game on BBSes so that SysOps could quickly remove them. While starting up, the game will run a checksum on FILE_ID.DIZ. If it doesn't match up with a hardcoded value, the game will immediately fail to start with the following message:

Critical file FILE_ID.DIZ missing
or modified. If you purchased the
game from Apogee simply re-install
the game from the original disks.
You can call Apogee tech support at
(214) 278-5655 between the hours
of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CST.

To do: Examine the exact details of how the checksum is, well, checked.