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(Link to the GitHub)This is the latest version of the Descent 3 source code. This includes the '1.5' patch that Jeff Slutter and Kevin Bentley wrote several years ago. At the time, it worked for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Some proprietary sound and video libraries from Interplay have been stripped out (the ACM and MVE format). I have that code if someone wants to help make a converter so the old cutscenes work. It'll take some effort to stub out that code so it compiles.
this has been a very long time coming, as the source code for the first two games was shared online all the way back in 1998.
while the obvious question is when a modern source port will be made using this. it’s worth noting that the Steam release of the game quietly received an update by Ryan C Gordon (one of the programmers who originally ported the game to Mac/Linux) more or less adding the features you’d expect from one in 2020 (I.E. native 64-bit support, widescreen compatibility.), albeit with the unusual catch that it was exclusive to those platforms.
(From my original coverage of the update, the patch was never pushed to GOG for whatever reason.)Which leads us to now, as it turns out. Ryan kept basically everything relating to his work at Loki. Specifically in the hopes of being able to preserve them, and thanks to the help of Interplay. He was able to release this new patch for the Steam (A GOG release is being considered, but it'll probably take a few months of work.) release of Descent 3.
Sadly, Ryan doesn't have any interest in porting this new build back to Windows.
Which means we have a particularly unusual case of an exclusive on our hands.
this source release doesn’t include any of the changes Ryan made for that update,
but he’s currently working out the legal stuff to ensure his branch of the code gets out there.