Deathtrack
| Levels? |  Editable |
|---|---|
| Tiles? | N/A |
| Sprites? |  Partially editable |
| Fullscreen? | Partially editable |
| Sound? | Partially editable |
| Music? | Partially editable |
| Text? |  Not editable |
| Story/cutscenes? | Partially editable |
| UI/menus? | Not editable |
| Demos? | N/A |
Deathtrack is a first-person combat racing game by Dynamix, published by Activision for DOS in 1989. The player races armed cars through ten American cities (Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, Seattle and St. Louis) against nine named rivals. The game runs in 16-colour EGA or in CGA, and can play music on an AdLib or a Roland MT-32. Sound effects always use the PC speaker.
Most data files use the Dynamix resource chunk format with LZW or RLE compression, an early form of the resource format of Dynamix's later games. The 3D cars and roadside objects are stored as polygon tables, the roads as lists of 3D points and the horizons as 1920×25 skyline panoramas. Game logic, menu text and the car statistics are inside DTRACK.EXE and have not been documented as file formats.
The extension identifies the format reliably, but the names can mislead: .MAP files are skylines (not road maps), .TRK files are the roads and .BMP files are not Windows bitmaps.
Tools
| Name | Platform | Archives | Levels | Graphics | Music | Sounds | Text | Saves | .exe patch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| re-deathtrack | Web browser | No | Edit | Export | Export | Export | No | No | No | Open-source HTML5 port of the game, translated function by function from DTRACK.EXE (play it). Includes an asset viewer (images to PNG, 3D models, tracks, skylines, sound effects to WAV, music to MIDI, title script and high scores) and a track editor (reshape roads, set heights, place roadside objects; saves .TRK files). Needs your own copy of the game files. |
| re-deathtrack Vehicle Foundry | Node.js + web browser | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Part of re-deathtrack, runs locally. Edits the 3D vehicle models and saves .TBL files; also has an MCP server for scripted editing. See its documentation. |
| Westwood Font Editor | Windows | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Edits Dynamix v3 fonts and lists Deathtrack among its supported games |
File formats
| Filename | Format | Details |
|---|---|---|
| All chunk-based files | Deathtrack Chunk Format | Tagged chunk tree used by .BMP, .SCR, .BLK, .MUS, .TTM and activisi |
| Compressed chunks, *.MAP | Deathtrack Compression | Stored, RLE or LZW |
| *.BMP BITMAPS.BLK, bitmap in PALS.BLK | Deathtrack Bitmap Format | Sprites, car parts and menu graphics (179 frames in total) |
| *.SCR, screen in activisi | Deathtrack Screen Format | 320×200 full-screen pictures (dashboards, cars, city picture) |
| FONTS.BLK | Dynamix Font Format v2-v3 (v3) | Three fonts, see the notes below |
| Palettes in PALS.BLK and activisi | Deathtrack Palette Format | EGA palette words plus CGA dither tables |
| *.MAP | Deathtrack Skyline Map Format | Horizon skyline of each city (not a road map) |
| *.TRK | Deathtrack Track Format | Road centreline points and roadside objects |
| SHAPE.TBL, driver and car *.TBL | Deathtrack Model Format | 3D polygon models |
| Sound effects in PALS.BLK | Deathtrack Sound Effect Format | PC-speaker effect programs |
| DANGER.MUS TRAX.MUS | Deathtrack Music Format | Compressed Standard MIDI Files for the MT-32 |
| TITLE.TTM | Deathtrack Title Script Format | Script for the title sequence |
| HI_SCORE | Deathtrack High Score Format | Ten names and winnings |
| *.RCT | Deathtrack Save Game Format | Saved games, written by the game |
Notes
- Integer fields are little-endian, except for the MIDI data inside the music files.
- A .BLK file is a bundle of several resources, of the same type or of different types: PALS.BLK holds the sound effects, two palettes and the mouse-pointer bitmap.
- FONTS.BLK holds three consecutive uncompressed FNT: chunks of 96 glyphs each, starting at character 32: 4×5, 6×6 and 8×8 pixels. The game uses the 8×8 font by default. The loader copies font data in 80-byte reads with an 8-bit loop counter, so a font smaller than 80 bytes would not load correctly (the shipped fonts are all larger).
- The game writes only two files: HI_SCORE and the *.RCT saved games. HI_SCORE must exist, or the game will not get past the start.
- The chunk files, the compression and the model, track and skyline layouts have been checked against all shipped files: 92 files, 179 image frames, 136 models, ten tracks and 88 title-script commands.
External links
- re-deathtrack – play the HTML5 port in your browser (load your own copy of the game files)
- re-deathtrack on GitHub – source code, plus detailed reverse-engineering notes in the docs/ folder