Saturday, 21 May 2016

Diablo 1 deserves some love: introducing DiabloPatch



Hello fellow diablo fans, let me introduce DiabloPatch.

TL;DR: it's a patch for Diablo 1, download it on https://diablopat.ch/download.php

What is it?

This is a is a patch for Diablo 1. It is meant to add features to the game and make it compatible with modern versions of Windows, while fully retaining the original spirit of the game. Think of it as patch 1.10.

I developed this as a personal project, because Diablo 1 missed so much features that would make it much more enjoyable. After Diablo 2 was updated recently by Blizzard, I've decided to release this unofficial Diablo 1 update.

Features
  • Full compatibility with modern versions of Windows
  • Windowed mode: Diablo now runs in a resizable window
  • Non-intrusive: modifies game code only in memory
  • Items on ground are highlighted by pressing ALT
  • Highlighted monster has a health bar at the top of the screen
  • Life and mana bulbs also display life and mana in numeric form
  • Spells level modifiers are displayed in spell book
  • Shrines effects are displayed in the text zone when highlighted
  • Dupe bug fixed (by the way, I've read somewhere that fixing this bug was not possible for Blizzard because it would mean rewriting a good part of the game engine... This is absolutely false. It is just a few lines of code to add).

Download and usage

There is no risk in using DiabloPatch, as it does not modify the original game files at all. The game is patched in memory, making it easy to revert to the original game (just launch diablo.exe as usual).

How do I know it's safe?

The source code is not available yet (and I don't know when it will be). You can check virustotal's analysis here:https://virustotal.com/en/file/27a1af8f85e944103799bce7a35f9c7721d4095b540e6790ea9178d11cbb2b2a/analysis/1463835232/

If you're really paranoid about it, I guess you could run it in a VM and monitor sytem calls.

I've created a subreddit for feedback, discussion, features request, ...: /r/DiabloPatch

EDIT: some answers to questions in comments:
  • Diablo 1 files and saves are absolutely safe and will never be modified by DiabloPatch (it's an in-memory patch).
  • Resizing the window only works only in game, not in the menus (the new size is saved between sessions, so no need to redo it every time).