Dusk '82 was developed by David Szymanski, who is me. It's based on the 2018 shooter DUSK. I'm assuming anyone who bought this game and found this readme file is probably already aware of that, but... you know, just in case.

Music was composed by Buttrock God Andrew Hulshult, and last minute anal retentive font adjustments were mandated by meme-purveyor and muscle-haver Dave Oshry. Background art was made by enigmatic Twitter person Blasko_Art, and general quality was ensured by the entire New Blood team, particularly the ones whose job it is to Assure Quality.

If you've never heard of Dusk, check it out at Blood3.com (yes really), or refer to any of the various links in the "CREDITS" portion of this file for more information about Dusk, New Blood, or me.

If you wanna link your friends to this game, use this handy URL we purchased: DUSK82.COM

You can create your own levels and map packs with the in-game level editor. In Dusk '82 levels are always part of a map pack, which is as its name suggests a pack of maps. It's not possible to create standalone levels.

First, select "-CREATE NEW-" from the level editor menu and enter the name of the map pack you want to create. An empty first level will automatically be created. You can select this to begin editing it, or scroll to the right to add a new level. Levels are stored by number inside the map pack folder and are played in order from 1 to whatever.

Map packs are stored in "Dusk '82\levels\". "Main" is the main level set and should not be tinkered with. To distribute your map pack, simply upload it to the Steam workshop via the saving/uploading menu in the level editor, or zip up the appropriate folder and other players will be able to drop that into their own levels folder to play.

You can delete or re-order levels by deleting or renaming the appropriate files in your map pack folder.

To add a workshop preview image, include an image file named "preview.png" in the root folder of your map pack (i.e, where all the levels are). This image must be in .png format. It is unfortunately not possible to add a preview image via Steam's workshop interface, so if you forget to include one you will need to upload your map pack again to add it to the workshop item listing.

Please note that map packs have a maximum size of 50mb. This should be more than enough for any number of levels, but will need to be kept in mind if you're using custom sprites or custom music (more on these in a little bit).

Adding story text to the beginning of your level is also simple. Create a new text file in your map pack, and name it "[level number]_story.txt" where [level number] is the number of the level you want the text to display before. For instance, story text that displays before level 11 would be in a file named "11_story.txt".

Adding custom music to your levels is similar to adding story text, but with an extra step.

First, create a folder inside your map pack called "music." Place whatever music file(s) you want to use in this folder. Please note that only .wav, .ogg, and .flac are supported. Unfortunately I'm not able to support .mp3. If you intend to upload to the workshop, I would strongly discourage use of .wav files as map packs have a maximum size of 50mb.

Second, create a new text file in your map pack and name it "[level number]_music.txt" where [level number] is the number of the level you want the music to play in. Open the file and add the name of the track in the /music folder that you want to play, including the extension.

For example, if you want a music file called Dusk82Music.flac to play in level 11, you would place Dusk82Music.flac inside the /music folder, then make a file in the base map pack folder (the same place where your levels are) called "11_music.txt," and inside that file you would write "Dusk82Music.flac". If you wanted the same track to play in level 14, you would create a file called "14_music.txt" and write "Dusk82Music.flac" in that file.

Once again, if you want to upload your map pack to the Steam workshop, keep in mind that there is a maximum file size of 50mb, so use of .wav files is strongly discouraged.

Most gameplay-related sprites can be modified. Simply edit or replace the appropriate file in "Dusk '82\graphics\". The file name must be the same and the format must be .png. Level packs can also contain a graphics folder, and any files inside that folder will be used instead, for that level pack only. Or, in other words, if you want custom visuals for your map pack, make a graphics folder inside that map pack and name your new sprites whatever they're supposed to replace.

Two really early ASCII games of mine, 'Spy' and 'ASCII Arena' are included in the goodies folder. Use the included .bat files to run them, and refer to the documentation in each games' folder for more information. There are also some other things if you search around <_<

Dusk '82 takes inspiration from an old QBasic puzzler called Darkwoods (not to be confused with Darkwood, the survival horror game on Steam). It was created by a programmer named Jocke the Beast in 2002, with an improved sequel and a "graphical remake" released that same year. Both Darkwoods and Darkwoods 2 were some of my favorite ASCII games when I was working in QBasic, and I continued taking inspiration from their simple but fun movement-puzzle mechanics when designing the enemy behaviors in Dusk '82.

They're still very fun puzzle games even today, and if you enjoy Dusk '82 I suggest giving them a look. They can be found on archive.org pre-setup to run in DosBox, either by downloading or playing directly through your browser. The personal webpage of Jocke the Beast is amazingly still up, although it hasn't been updated in years. On it you can find other games and a collection of fan levels made for Darkwoods 2.

Darkwoods - https://archive.org/details/DarkWoods
Darkwoods 2 - https://archive.org/details/DarkWoods2
Darkwoods: The Graphical Remake - https://archive.org/details/DarkWoods2Remake
Jocke the Beast's site - http://jocke.phatcode.net/products.shtml

DEVELOPER - David Szymanski
email - [email protected]
twitter - twitter.com/DUSKdev
steam creator - steamproxy.com/steamstore/developer/davidszymanski

PRODUCER - Dave Oshry
email - [email protected]
twitter - twitter.com/DaveOshry

MUSIC - Andrew Hulshult
website - www.hulshult.com/
twitter - twitter.com/AndrewHulshult
bandcamp - andrewhulshult.bandcamp.com/music

BACKGROUND ART - Blasko_Art
twitter - twitter.com/blasko_art

PUBLISHER - New Blood Interactive
website - newblood.games
twitter - twitter.com/NewBlood
steam creator - steamproxy.com/steamstore/publisher/NewBlood

NEW BLOOD QA AND OTHER ASSISTANCE
Scott Gurney
Cameron Martin
"Zombie" Benjamin "$40,000"
Trey Powell
Christian Pounds
Richard James Cook
Dalia Figueroa
Tucker Wilkin
Rhiannon Mitchell
Stephen St. Germain
Arsi "Hakita" Patala

You can rip the assets (except for the music because that's Andrew's) for your weird Roblox level or make Let's Plays or look at the terrible code or whatever you want and I'm cool with it as long as your aren't selling this game for real money without my permission or not giving me credit or stuff like that.

Also don't rip the music. Normalize paying musicians for their work tbh.

And yeah I know some of you probably torrented this because that's how things go. Maybe buy it later if you end up feeling like it deserves cash. Or at the very least tell your friends about it and I'll consider that a fair trade.

Also keep in mind that you, the user, are responsible for obtaining whatever legal rights are necessary in order to distribute the music and/or sprites you use in your levels. We take no responsibility if you, like, decide to use a pirated NIN album and Trent's lawyers want to sue somebody or whatever. That's on you. GLHF.