Abuse 1996

About

Abuse is a run-and-gun game developed by Crack dot Com and published by Electronic Arts (Origin Systems in Europe), released for MS-DOS on February 29, 1996, with a Mac OS port by Bungie following in 1997; its source code and some shareware content have been in the public domain since the late 1990s. Abuse 1996 is a fork of the Abuse SDL2 port maintained by Xenoveritas (itself descended from the original Abuse SDL port at abuse.zoy.org), adding custom resolutions, OpenGL rendering with vsync, window/fullscreen scaling, some high-resolution images from the 1997 Mac OS release, fixed level music, local save/config files, quick save/load, a cheat console, and Xbox 360 controller support. It builds against SDL2, SDL_mixer, GLee, and OpenCV, targets Windows, and its listed development status is halted.

How it differs from the original

Compared with the original 1996 release, this version adds things the DOS original never had: OpenGL rendering with vsync and adjustable window scaling, Xbox 360 controller support, and a console-based cheat menu (god mode, give-all-weapons, speed, flight, and health cheats). Playing above the original's native 320x200 resolution reveals secret areas that stayed hidden at the original resolution.

Getting started

No pre-built binaries are described; the game must be built from source (a build guide from the Xenoveritas project is referenced) with SDL2, SDL_mixer, GLee, and OpenCV as requirements. Once running, movement uses the arrow keys or WASD, the mouse aims and fires, and F5/F9 give quick-save and quick-load at in-game save consoles.

Known issues & limitations

• rendering: Low rendering speed due to multiple copy operations and format conversions during the rendering pipeline.
• timing: Game is designed to run at 15 FPS; higher or lower framerates speed up or slow down the game.

Media

Additional notes

Quirk

The game's physics are tuned for its original 15 FPS update rate; running at a different framerate speeds up or slows down the game itself, not just the visuals.

Quirk

According to the README, disabling music in the config file can also silently disable sound effects due to what the author believes is a bug in the audio library.