OpenScreamer

A reimplementation of Screamer (Graffiti / Virgin Interactive, 1995, MS-DOS) and Screamer 2 (Milestone / Virgin Interactive, 1996, MS-DOS) for Linux and Windows, written by reading the original programs.

• Screamer: the whole game — the six tracks and their reversed versions, the championship, time attack, cone carnage and slalom, replays, records, the menus and the intro, with the original's sound and its FM music.
• Screamer 2: the game's own 3D menu with its rooms, arcade, the championship's four leagues, time attack with its ghost car, the seven tracks with their weather, the car set-ups, damage, replays and best times, the attract race, its sound and the CD's music — in 320 x 200 or 640 x 400, as its two original programs. Not in it: two players and the network game, and the 65,000-colour versions.

Beta. Version numbers look like 0.4.12b; openscreamer --version prints it.

You need the original games

OpenScreamer contains no part of either game. Both are still sold (GOG, Steam): buy them and copy each game's folder — the one that holds DATA and GFX — next to the program, Screamer's as screamer and Screamer 2's as screamer2 (or name one with -data DIR). The games' own files are read as they are; nothing has to be unpacked. At every start the files are checked and anything missing is listed by name.

With both folders there, a first page asks which game to play (the last one chosen is lit); -game 1 or -game 2 starts one straight away.

Screamer 2's music was the CD's audio tracks. Put them in a folder music inside screamer2, one file a track, named by the track's number on the disc: track_02.ogg, track_03.ogg ... (.ogg, .mp3 or .wav). Without them the game plays without music.

Download

Built programs are on the releases page:

• Linux (x86-64): openscreamer-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz. It needs SDL2 installed (libsdl2-2.0-0, SDL2 or sdl2, by distribution) and runs on any distribution of 2018 or later. Unpack it, put the games' folders next to the program as screamer and screamer2, start ./openscreamer.
• Windows (10 or 11, 64-bit): openscreamer-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip. Unpack it, put the games' folders next to openscreamer.exe as screamer and screamer2, and double-click the program. Settings and saves go to %APPDATA%\openscreamer.

Building

SDL2, CMake and a C compiler:

cmake -S port -B port/build && cmake --build port/build
port/build/openscreamer

openscreamer --help lists the options, the keys and the game controller's buttons. Settings and saves go to ~/.config/openscreamer (or -home DIR).

The picture's size is chosen in each game's settings: RESOLUTION in Screamer's OPTIONS and in Screamer 2's GAME SETTINGS (320 x 200 or 640 x 400, both shown 4:3); -res low|high sets it for one run.

What is in here

port/	the program (C, SDL2)
tools/	what was used to read the original: unpackers for its files, Ghidra scripts, viewers
CLAUDE.md	the summary of the whole project: the working rules, the file formats, where to look
docs/NOTES.md, docs/NOTES2.md	the full record for each game: every file format, where each rule of the game is in the original program, how it was checked, what is exact and what is the port's own
VERSION, tools/version.sh	the version: the number in VERSION, its last part raised by one with every commit since

The same source runs on the MiSTer FPGA as a hybrid core: openscreamer_MiSTer (the code for it is in port/src/mister.c and behind MISTER_HYBRID; an ordinary build has none of it). tools/release_linux.sh and tools/release_windows.sh (MinGW-w64, on Linux) make the releases.

Credits

• Screamer is by Graffiti (later Milestone), Screamer 2 by Milestone, both published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment. This project is not affiliated with them.
• Written by Danik with Claude (Anthropic); the first day's groundwork with DeepSeek.
• The music's FM chip is Nuked OPL3 by Nuke.YKT (port/src/nuked/, LGPL 2.1 or later).
• Screamer 2's music files are read with stb_vorbis by Sean Barrett and dr_mp3 / dr_wav by David Reid (port/src/third_party/, public domain or MIT-0).

License

GPL-3.0, see LICENSE. That covers this source only, not the games or their data. port/src/nuked/ keeps its own licence (LGPL 2.1 or later), and port/src/third_party/ its own (public domain or MIT-0), stated in their files.