Zone 66
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This article is partially complete. This means that all known information is here, but there is still more information that needs to be discovered and/or reverse engineered. If you know some of the missing information, you can help the ModdingWiki by adding this info yourself. |
Zone 66
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| Levels? |  Editable |
|---|---|
| Tiles? | Editable |
| Sprites? | Editable |
| Fullscreen? | Editable |
| Sound? |  Not editable |
| Music? | Editable |
| Text? | Editable |
| Story/cutscenes? | Not editable |
| UI/menus? | Not editable |
| Demos? | Unknown |
Zone 66 was written by the demogroup Renaissance, previously well known for their demo Amnesia (a section of which can be seen in the Zone 66 credits, accessible from the main menu.)
Tools
The following tools are able to work with this game.
| Name | Platform | Group/archives | Levels | Graphics | Music | Sounds | Text | Saves | .exe patch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camoto | Linux/Windows | N/A | Partial edit | Edit | Edit | No | No | No | No |
File formats
The following file formats are used by this game.
| Filename | Format | Details |
|---|---|---|
| cng.z66 | ASCII text with codes (compressed) | Credits text, function of formatting codes is unknown |
| demok.z66 | Zone 66 Demo Macro | Macro file for demo |
| demot.z66 | ASCII text with codes (compressed) | Text displayed during demo, function of formatting codes is unknown |
| et.z66 | B800 Text (compressed) | Text screen shown at exit (registered screen at offset 0, shareware screen at offset 4000) |
| highs.z66 | Zone 66 High Scores Format (uncompressed) | High scores |
| instr.z66 | ASCII text, CRLF. 0xFD is pagebreak, 0xFE is EOF. (compressed) | Instructions text |
| cn??grfx.z66 maingrfx.z66 miscgrfx.z66 map?m0.z66 sh??grfx.z66 zil?.z66 |
Zone 66 Tileset Format (compressed) | Tilesets. All use mpal.z66 as palette except for zil?.z66 which uses an ! unknown palette |
| map?grfx.z66 | 32×32 8bpp raw images concatenated, no header (see Zone 66 Level Format, compressed) | Tilesets used for drawing game levels |
| font.z66 font2.z66 |
Zone 66 Tileset Format (compressed) | Fonts. Tile #0 is a list of characters - tile #1 is an image of the first character, tile #2 of the second, etc. |
| os.z66 | Concatenated Raw VGA Images (uncompressed) | Ordering information screens. File has single byte holding the number of images minus one, then repeated this many times is a 64768 byte image (64000 byte VGA image with palette appended) |
| map?.z66 map?dat*.z66 map?m0.z66 |
Zone 66 Level Format (some are compressed) | Game maps |
| mpal.z66 | VGA Palette (compressed) | Map palette |
| m??gmuz.z66 zim0[012].z66 |
CDFM Format (probably .670, compressed) | Music |
| title.z66 zil0.z66 (tile #0) |
Raw VGA Image (compressed) | 8bpp 320×200 image (standard VGA mode 13 format, 64000 bytes long) |
| tpal.z66 | VGA Palette (compressed) | Main menu palette |
| zone66t.z66 | Raw VGA Image (compressed) | 2x unused logo images, consisting of a 768-byte VGA Palette followed by 64000 byte full-screen image (then a second palette + image) |
Most files are compressed with a custom algorithm based on LZW. The maximum codelength for all files appears to be 13, but there is some uncertainty about this and a few files may be 14, but this is currently unconfirmed. ! Find a file that doesn't work with codelength 13
Notes
- There are two versions of Zone 66 available - one that requires no memory manager (so it won't run under Windows or with DoubleSpace) and one that will work by sacrificing SoundBlaster sound effects and music (only Adlib music will work.) Both versions will work under DOSBox, but the former requires that you disable DOSBox's EMS and XMS support (but it's worth it, because the SoundBlaster track is much better than the Adlib-only one.)
- The game supports Adlib/SoundBlaster (SB) and Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) hardware, however the music tracks were composed specifically for each device, so the GUS tracks sound a little different to the SB ones. This is most noticeable during the intro sequence, when entirely different songs are played depending on whether you have a SB or a GUS. Since DOSBox supports both, you can run Zone 66 with one of the command line parameters below to hear the different songs. The shareware version doesn't include any GUS tracks by default, but there's a separate patch available which adds these tracks.
| Command | Result |
|---|---|
| zone66 /gus | Use Gravis Ultrasound music/effects |
| zone66 /sb | Use SoundBlaster music/effects |
| zone66 /adlib | Use Adlib music/effects |
- According to the Wikipedia article, Renaissance developed the CDFM tracker format capable of both digitised and FM/OPL playback in the same song. It is highly likely that this song format is what was used for Zone 66 (or possibly the .670 demoscene version which has all song/instrument information removed.)