OMF2097-3DO

A port of One Must Fall: 2097 to the Panasonic/3DO (Real3DO), built on top of the OpenOMF reimplementation.

It started as a feasibility experiment ("can a 3DO actually run OMF's CEL engine at a playable rate?") and grew into a real, if minimal, playable build.

📓 DEVLOG.md — war stories on the 3DO hardware quirks this port ran into (32-colour PLUT cap, no float runtime, the ISO tool that ballooned a 95 MB image to 1.7 GB, …). Probably the most fun read here.

No game data is included in this repository. OMF:2097 is © Diversions Entertainment; you must supply your own copy of the original game files. See Assets & legal.

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Status — 0.1 "playable 1v1" (honest caveats)

This is an early milestone, not a finished game. What it does:

• A complete 1-on-1 match vs the AI: pick a pilot + HAR, VS screen, fight, KO → YOU WIN / YOU LOSE → back to menu.
• Both fighters are real: walk / crouch / jump, ground attacks (data-driven input grammar), throws, air attacks, launchers; bidirectional damage.
• Hit feel: clang + hit-pause + source-derived knockback; health bars with canon damage; SFX; per-arena music.
• Per-pilot primary armour colour in battle (e.g. Crystal = cobalt blue, Jean-Paul = red) — see the hardware caveat below.
• Full scene flow: splash → menu → pilot/HAR select → VS → battle → menu.
• A heuristic AI (spacing, timed attacks with reaction delay, jump-ins, light evasion).

What it does not do yet (known, intentional for 0.1):

• 2 of 10 HARs are wired as fighters (Jaguar, Thorn). The rest aren't ported.
• Single round only — no best-of-three, no round counter.
• No victory animation / scrap pose — the match cuts to the win/lose text.
• No "screws/debris" flying off a hit HAR, no impact sparks (cosmetic).
• AI does not block.
• No endurance/stun bar — in OMF a second bar depletes and staggers the opponent when empty; not implemented yet (only the health bar + KO are).
• No arena hazards (the environmental damage some arenas inflict).
• No "FIGHT!" voice (the audio path was silent on the emulator; deferred).
• Network / settings / language / mech-lab menus are out of scope by design.

Per-pilot colour — a real 3DO hardware limit

Only each HAR's primary colour zone is recoloured per pilot; secondary and tertiary zones stay neutral grey. This is not laziness — a 3DO coded CEL's palette (PLUT) caps at 32 colours, and three distinct OMF colour zones push most frames past that, which would blow the DRAM budget (~2.4 MB vs ~1.2 MB for two fighters). Recolouring one zone keeps every frame ≤32 colours and fits.

Consequence: pilots whose identity is their primary colour read well; pilots built on a two-colour contrast (e.g. Raven's black-and-gold) lose some character. Full write-up and possible future fixes: port_3do/PALETTE_NOTES.md.

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Assets & legal

This repo contains only original source code. To build a runnable ISO you must locally provide things that are not ours to redistribute:

1. OMF:2097 game data — your own copy of the original files (FIGHTR*.AF, ARENA*.BK, ALTPALS.DAT, SOUNDS.DAT, CHARSMAL.DAT, MELEE.BK, …). OMF:2097 is freeware since 1999 but still © Diversions Entertainment; "freeware" ≠ redistributable. The pipeline reads these to generate the CELs, atlases, palettes, audio and *_data.h headers (all .gitignored).
2. 3DO system boot files — takeme/System/ (Kernel, Folios, Drivers, …) comes from the Trapexit 3do-devkit, © The 3DO Company. Copy it from the devkit; it is not committed here.

OpenOMF itself is MIT-licensed and is vendored under openomf-master/ (unmodified). We link a subset of its .c files in the host tools and firmware and port a few systems (intersect.c, har/player logic). See THIRD_PARTY.md.

The port's own code is MIT — see LICENSE.

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Building

Primary toolflow is WSL (Ubuntu) + the Trapexit 3do-devkit, driven from Windows by port_3do/build.ps1. A Dockerfile is provided as an alternative.

Prerequisites

• WSL Ubuntu (or Linux) with gcc, make, rsync, libpng, python3.
• Trapexit 3do-devkit at ~/3do-devkit (override with OMF3DO_DEVKIT_PATH). Provides armcc/armlink, 3it, 3doiso, modbin, 3DOEncrypt, and the System/ boot files.
• Your own OMF:2097 data directory.

1. Point the pipeline at your OMF data

export OMF_DATA=/path/to/your/OMF      # required by every pipeline script

2. Regenerate the assets + data headers (one-time, from your OMF data)

One command rebuilds every .gitignored artifact (the *_data.h/*_meta.h headers the firmware #includes, plus the CELs/atlases/palettes/audio):

cd port_3do
./host_tools/regen_assets.sh

It runs all the individual generators in port_3do/host_tools/ in the right order (HAR movesets + *_meta.h, pilots, portraits, font, idles, VS sheet, intro, insults, per-pilot primary palettes, arena/VS backgrounds, HUD, and — if ffmpeg+libopenmpt is present — music). The header steps are mandatory to compile; music/background steps warn if a tool is missing.

Verified 2026-06-03: a clean git clone + regen_assets.sh + the devkit regenerates all 14 required headers and the firmware compiles and links (make launchme → takeme/LaunchMe).

Then copy the devkit's System/ boot files into port_3do/takeme/System/ (the 3DO OS image — © The 3DO Company, not shipped here).

3. Build the ISO

# from Windows, in port_3do/
.\build.ps1            # builds takeme/LaunchMe + iso/omf2097.iso (encrypted)
.\build.ps1 clean

Run iso/omf2097.iso in a 3DO emulator (e.g. RetroArch + Opera) or on real hardware.

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Credits

• OpenOMF — the reimplementation this port derives from (MIT). Thanks to the OpenOMF authors; their license and notice are in THIRD_PARTY.md.
• One Must Fall: 2097 — © Diversions Entertainment / Epic MegaGames.
• Trapexit 3do-devkit — the open 3DO toolchain that makes this buildable.

This is a fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the above.