Bio Menace - Thrillogy - Amiga PORT (OCS/ECS)

Bio Menace - Amiga

The complete trilogy

====================

Apogee Software's Bio Menace (1993, MS-DOS) ported to the Commodore

Amiga. All three episodes, complete and playable.

    Biomenace_1/     Episode One   "Dr. Mangle's Lab"

    Biomenace_2/     Episode Two   "The Hidden Lab"

    Biomenace_3/     Episode Three "Master Cain"

Each directory is self-contained: the game, its data, and its own

README.txt. Copy the one you want to your Amiga and run it from a

shell:

    bio_menace

There is nothing to install and nothing shared between the episodes,

so they can live side by side or be used separately.

WHICH DOWNLOAD DO I WANT?

-------------------------

The icon release launches from Workbench via WHDLoad and needs

WHDLoad 20.0 or newer (released March 2026). Older installs refuse

it outright with "needs at least WHDLoad version 20".

If you cannot update WHDLoad, take the plain release instead. It is

exactly the same game build without the icons, and is run from a

shell see first paragraph.

REQUIREMENTS

------------

Kickstart 2.0 or newer, roughly 1 MB of chip RAM plus some fast RAM (8MB or more).

Developed and tested on WinUAE, a PiStorm and a Vampire V4.

The game takes over the display and hands it back on exit, so run it

from a shell rather than from Workbench.

ONE THING NOT TO DO

-------------------

Do not delete or edit FILE_ID.DIZ. The game checks it byte for byte

and refuses to finish a level without it, showing "Critical file

FILE_ID.DIZ missing or modified". That is the original 1993 copy

protection, not a fault in the port. Transferring it in text mode and

converting the line endings will also break it - copy it as binary.

Do not touch SVGA option or toggle it off it will corrupt the screen! 

LEGAL

-----

Bio Menace is FREEWARE. Apogee Software released the complete trilogy

as freeware in 2018, and the original game data here is distributed

under that release. It is not shareware, it is not a demo, and no part

of it is being sold - please keep it that way, and pass the episodes

on complete and unmodified.

The port code and the reconstructed game source are GPLv2. The game

data files are Apogee freeware and ship alongside under that release;

they are not covered by the GPL.

CREDITS WHERE CREDITS DUE

-------

  Bio Menace (1993), Apogee Software Ltd.

    Game design .............. Jim Norwood

    Producer ................. George Broussard

    Music .................... Bobby Prince

    BBS support .............. Joe Siegler

    Game engine .............. id Software

  The engine is id Software's, from the Catacomb 3-D / Commander Keen

  line of 2D EGA engines - the refresh manager, the caching manager

  and the RLEW / Huffman / Carmack data compression are all id code,

  credited to John Carmack.

  Source reconstruction

    K1n9_Duk3 ................ Reconstruction of the Bio Menace source

                               covering all three episodes and every

                               released version, rebuilding the

                               original executables byte for byte.

                               Episodes 2 and 3 of this port exist

                               because of that work.

                               https://k1n9duk3.shikadi.net/

    Nikolai Wuttke-Hohendorf . BioMenaceDecomp, the Episode 1 C

    (lethal-guitar)            decompilation this port was first built

                               on, and which Episode 1 still ships

                               from.

                               github.com/lethal-guitar/BioMenaceDecomp

    Nuke.YKT ................. Nuked OPL3, the cycle-accurate Yamaha

                               OPL emulator used to pre-render the

                               sound effects and the music.

  Amiga port

    Astair86 ................. porting, Amiga platform layer, audio

                                     pre-rendering tools, testing.

   Retroamiga ................ Icons pack and art, WHDLOAD slave 

                                       (AmigaFrance)                             Aladdin.................... WHDLoad packages links: 

https://www.amigafrance.com/forums/topic/biomenace/ 

Thank you to Apogee for releasing these games as freeware, to id

Software for the engine that has outlived its hardware by thirty

years, and to K1n9_Duk3 and lethal-guitar, without whose

reconstruction work none of this would have been possible.

Bio Menace and Apogee are trademarks of their respective owners. This

port is an unofficial fan project, not endorsed by or affiliated with

Apogee Software, 3D Realms or id Software.

This was alot of work ( i do this for a hobby) i had to choose between heavy artifacting and smooth scrolling, occasionally there will be some weird glitches on the screen => those are now minimized also this was tested on Amiga2k keyboard and cursor keys work well BUT on the Amiga 1200 keyboard use cursors on the numeric keys since cursor keys are different and have problems with pressing two keys at once (cursor down+fire for example) otherwise i've also wired in cd32 controller support but since i dont have one i cant test this, that's all enjoy! 

UPDATED: no graphical glitches anymore on the 020 version!

Reported (will look into it!) : "the CD32 controller, the red button works for jump but the blue button (or any other button) does not fire your weapon"  

Sadly i dont have a CD32 controller and i couldn't seem to make it work with "3-action button => in the emulator it works by pressing Y but emulator isn't a real HW" but hopefully i've made a nice compromise with pressing UP+FIRE it gives you a grenade throw please try/test it for yourselves and report back. 

For gamepads i've used (Logitech is on HID2AMI 3.1) and Sega gamepad is on C64lover adapter converter (c64lover.com) bought of of ebay....

Both files now incorporate this FIX

***Roadmap/DONE : Plan to give this a proper OCS/ECS remake in the near future, updates will be here ↓

UPDATE1: Episode 1,2 and 3 OCS/ECS(should be playable on 68k@7mhz) barely fits in 1MB of Chip Ram- sadly no room for music on 1x floppy disk (release with music will be separate) ...working out quirks

UPDATE2: available for download now - try it out! (tested on my A1200 with gotek drive, should work fine on A500) - needs testing and some feedback (i was wrong in the past)

UPDATE3: also as promised OCS/ECS version with music is also available for download. Music is streamed rather then loaded into the memory and that way we honor 1MB of chip memory thats all you need. 

UPDATE4: OCS/ECS versions completely free of graphical artifacts 

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While i consider this a done project now, i've learned alot porting this to use custom chips,... so whats next Dangerous Dave, Crystal caves, Commander Keen they all share the similar engine, maybe a little break?

If you like what i do buy me a coffee/beer, cheers!