Shadowgreat

Shadowgreat

Shadowgate (NES) as a native Windows game, built on your own PC from your own ROM, with mouse and controller pointing, an optional narrator voice, a torch tracker, and options you can change while you play.

Version 1.0.0

Shadowgreat is built with nesrecomp, which turns the NES game's code into a native Windows program, and recomp-ui for its menus.

No part of Shadowgate is included here or in the download. You need your own legally obtained Shadowgate (USA) .nes file. The launcher checks it and builds the game from it on your PC. See LEGAL.md.

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What's in it

Mouse control

• Left click selects verbs, objects, doors, inventory items and menu choices; right click is the B button.
• Hand follows the mouse: the game's own pointing hand becomes your mouse pointer on every screen.
• A clickable SETTINGS line on the file select and save screens opens the Shadowgreat options, so the whole game can be played with just a mouse.

Controller

• Any controller Windows knows works (tested with an Xbox controller). Buttons can be changed on the game's start screen (Controls).
• The left stick moves the pointer, like the mouse; the D-pad still moves the game's own cursor.
• A clicks where the pointer is (after a D-pad move, A is the normal A). Pressing either stick in is A too.
• B is on the controller's B button.
• Choose the right stick instead, or change the pointer speed, in the options.

Narrator voice (optional)

• Reads the message box aloud, using the Kokoro voice model (runs offline on your PC, no internet needed once installed).
• Stays in step with the box: it pauses at the end of each page until you press A (or click), and stops when the box closes.
• The game's music dips while the narrator talks, then comes back.
• Short pauses after quotations and after "!", adjustable.
• Three voices: Dungeon Master (deep, the default), Old Man and Woman.
• Make each voice your own: Speed, Depth and Pause (the pauses at commas and between sentences) are set separately for each narrator, so switching voices keeps what you chose for each one.
• It's a separate download (about 358 MB). You can play without it and add or remove it any time.

Torch tracker (optional)

• Shows how many actions each lit torch has left, above the torch.
• Turns orange at 15 (when the flame gets smaller) and red at 7 (when the warning music starts).
• Off by default, so the game plays like the original until you turn it on.

Options while you play

• Press Esc for the in-game menu. The Shadowgreat section has every option, grouped under Control Options, Sound Options and Narrator Options (choose a heading to show or hide its options), and changes apply at once.
• The menu scales with the window, so it stays readable on large and 4K screens.
• Restore Defaults at the bottom puts every Shadowgreat option back.
• Narrator Options has its own Restore Defaults, so you can experiment with the voice safely: it puts back the chosen narrator's Speed, Depth and Pause and the two quote pauses, and keeps your narrator choice and every other setting.

The launcher

One window takes you from your ROM to playing:

1. Your ROM: choose your .nes file; it's checked to be Shadowgate (USA).
2. Build the game: a one-time download of the build tools (about 283 MB), then a build of a few minutes.
3. Narrator voice (optional): Download voice files, or Play without voice.
4. Options: the same options as the in-game menu, under the same headings (including the narrator's Speed, Depth and Pause and both Restore Defaults buttons), plus Skip the game's start screen.
5. Play.

Every download comes from its own project's official release on GitHub and is checked against a fixed SHA-256 fingerprint before it's used.

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Playing

You need

• Windows 10 (version 1803 or later) or Windows 11, 64-bit.
• Your own Shadowgate (USA) .nes file. Other versions and hacks are refused.
• About 3 GB of free disk space (about 1 GB more with the narrator voice).
• An internet connection for the first setup (the build tools and the voice). After that, none.

Install

1. Download the latest Shadowgreat-<version>.zip (for example Shadowgreat-1.0.0.zip) from the Releases page.
2. Unzip it to a folder with a short path, for example C:\Games\Shadowgreat.
3. Run ShadowgreatLauncher.exe and follow the steps from top to bottom.

Updating

Unzip the new version over your Shadowgreat folder (replace the files), run ShadowgreatLauncher.exe and press Rebuild. Your saves, settings, build tools and narrator voice are kept; the launcher asks for the Rebuild itself and won't start an old build.

Controls

	Keyboard	Mouse	Controller
A	Z	Left click	A, or press a stick in
B	X	Right click	B
Start	Enter		Start
Select	\		Back
Move the cursor	Arrow keys	Move the mouse	D-pad (left stick moves the pointer)
Menu	Esc	SETTINGS on the file and save screens	Right shoulder
Fullscreen	F11
Screenshot	F12
Save states	F7		Back + press the left stick in
Rewind	F8		Back + press the right stick in
Fast forward	Tab (hold)		Right trigger (hold)

Keys and controllers are changed on the game's start screen (see Things to know).

Options

All are in the in-game menu (Esc → Shadowgreat), in the launcher's Options step, and in config.ini beside shadowgate.exe (section [Game]):

Option	config.ini key	Default
Control Options
Mouse control	Mouse	On
Hand follows the mouse	HandFollowsMouse	On
Analog stick as mouse	PadPointer	On (needs Mouse control)
Analog stick	PointerStick	Left (or Right)
Pointer speed	PointerSpeed	5 (1-10)
Sound Options
Voice volume	VoiceVolume	100
Music volume during narration	MusicWhileSpeaking	40 (100 = no dip)
Narrator Options
Narrator	Narration	On (needs the voice files)
Narration voice	NarratorVoice	Dungeon Master (or Old Man, Woman)
Pause after quotations	QuotePause	0.80 seconds
Pause after "!"	ExclaimPause	0.60 seconds
Speed (each narrator)	DungeonMasterSpeed, OldManSpeed, WomanSpeed	1.22, 1.12, 1.00 (0.5-1.5)
Depth (each narrator)	DungeonMasterDepth, OldManDepth, WomanDepth	0.85, 0.95, 1.00 (0.5-1.5; lower = deeper)
Pause (each narrator)	DungeonMasterPause, OldManPause, WomanPause	0.5, 0.6, 0.6 (0-2)
Other
Torch tracker	TorchTracker	Off
Skip the game's start screen	[Launcher] SkipLauncher	0 (off)

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Things to know (from testing)

Windows Defender or SmartScreen may warn about the launcher. Shadowgreat is new and isn't code-signed, and the launcher downloads and runs build tools, which is enough for Windows' automatic guesswork to flag it. One test PC reported Trojan:Win32/Bearfoos.A!ml. The !ml means a machine-learning guess, not a known virus. The source code is all here to check.

• SmartScreen ("Windows protected your PC"): click More info → Run anyway.
• Defender quarantine: Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Protection history → select the entry → Actions → Restore. Only do this if you downloaded Shadowgreat from this project.

Start the game from the launcher. With Skip the game's start screen on, double-clicking shadowgate.exe opens and closes straight away, because only the start screen (or the launcher's Play button) tells it where your ROM is. If the game ever closes at once, the launcher shows the exit code and where the log (shadowgate.log) is.

Key bindings and display settings are on the game's start screen. That's the screen before the game, and it's shown unless you turned on Skip the game's start screen.

Change the launcher's options while the game is closed. They're greyed out while the game is open, because the game saves its own copy of the settings when it closes. Use the in-game menu (Esc) instead; the launcher picks up your changes when the game closes.

Use a short install folder. The build tools have deep folders inside them, and very long paths can make Windows tools fail. C:\Games\Shadowgreat is a good place.

The first build takes a few minutes, and so does a Rebuild. You can cancel and start again. If a build fails, tick Show details; the full output is also saved in launcher-build.log.

About the narrator.

• The narration options show Off and are greyed out until the voice files are installed. Sound Options and Narrator Options are also greyed out while Narrator is off.
• Speed, Depth and Pause changes are heard from the next message (Depth at once).
• The voice is made on your PC as you play, so a slow or busy PC can add a short delay before it starts speaking. Lines it has already spoken start at once.
• The first word of a line can occasionally sound a little odd; that's the voice model, not a bug.

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Building from source (developers)

The launcher does all of this for players. To work on Shadowgreat yourself:

Folders. Clone these side by side, for example in F:\NESDev:

ShadowgatePort\   this repository
nesrecomp\        https://github.com/mstan/nesrecomp  (with submodules: git submodule update --init)
recomp-ui\        https://github.com/mstan/recomp-ui
Tools\            llvm-mingw, Ninja, SDL2 (MinGW), Python 3.11+ (the launcher can download these)

Build the game (portable toolchain, from PowerShell in ShadowgatePort):

$env:PATH = "F:\NESDev\Tools\llvm-mingw-20261020-ucrt-x86_64\bin;F:\NESDev\Tools\ninja;" + $env:PATH
cmake -S . -B build-mingw -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release `
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ `
  -DSDL2_DIR=F:/NESDev/Tools/SDL2-2.30.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib/cmake/SDL2 `
  -DNESRECOMP_ROOT=F:/NESDev/nesrecomp -DNESRECOMP_RECOMP_UI=F:/NESDev/recomp-ui `
  -DSHADOWGATE_ROM="F:/path/to/Shadowgate (USA).nes"
cmake --build build-mingw

Visual Studio 2022 also works: use -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 instead of Ninja and the compilers.

Build the launcher:

cmake -S launcher -B build-launcher -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release `
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ `
  -DSDL2_DIR=F:/NESDev/Tools/SDL2-2.30.0/x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib/cmake/SDL2
cmake --build build-launcher

Make the zip to share (needs everything committed; your ROM is only read to check the zip has none of it):

python tools\package.py --rom "F:\path\to\Shadowgate (USA).nes"

Turn on the commit safety check once after cloning. It refuses ROMs, build output, saves, dumps and pictures of the game:

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

Project layout

Path	What it is
src/	The Shadowgreat features: mouse, hand pointer, narration, menu rows, SETTINGS link, torch tracker
launcher/	The launcher (SDL2 + Dear ImGui) and fetch.py, which downloads the build tools and voice
patches/	Small build-time changes to recomp-ui's menu (scaling, button labels, decimal values, headings that open in place)
shadowgate-map.toml	What we know about the game's memory and screens: addresses and meanings only
game.toml	nesrecomp's settings for this game
voice/sg-names.txt	Pronunciations for the narrator
tools/package.py	Makes the zip and checks it holds no game data

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Licence

• Shadowgreat's own code: MIT.
• nesrecomp is PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0, so Shadowgreat as a whole may be shared freely but not sold or used commercially.
• recomp-ui, Dear ImGui, recomp-net and rbengine: MIT. Lato font: OFL-1.1. SDL2: zlib. The packaged zip includes every licence in its LICENSES folder.
• Downloaded by the launcher: Python (PSF), llvm-mingw (Apache-2.0 with LLVM exception), Ninja (Apache-2.0), SDL2 (zlib), CMake (BSD-3-Clause), sherpa-onnx and the Kokoro model (Apache-2.0).

Shadowgate belongs to its rights holders. Shadowgreat isn't affiliated with or endorsed by them. See PROVENANCE.md for where every fact about the game came from.