Hi Christophe,
Your ReDMCSB project is extraordinary. The care you've put into
reverse engineering 36 versions of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes
Back, and the depth of your BUGX_YY / CHANGEX_YY documentation,
represents decades of work that would otherwise be lost. Thank you.
I'm working on an open-source port of DM/CSB called Firestaff (named
after the game's central artefact). My aim is preservation: a
deterministic, modular engine that reads original player-owned
DUNGEON.DAT files and makes the games playable on modern systems
(Linux, macOS, Windows). No commercial distribution, no assets
redistributed — just the engine.
The architecture is purely original code: I study ReDMCSB as reference
documentation, write my own implementation in a different style (pure
data-layer modules with invariant-based probes), and never copy code
verbatim. Current status: 19 of 20 milestones passing with full
bit-identical round-trip serialisation, driven by your insights into
Fontanel's MEDIA240/PC 3.4 structures.
Two requests, if you have the time:
1. Permission confirmation. I'd like to confirm that using ReDMCSB as
a reference for reverse engineering — without redistributing your
source — is acceptable to you. Your work is credited prominently in
Firestaff's documentation ("Based on reverse engineering research by
Christophe Fontanel"), and the final product will link back to
dmweb.free.fr.
2. Explicit licence. ReDMCSB currently ships without an explicit
licence. If you'd consider adding one — even a permissive one like
CC-BY or MIT — it would dramatically clarify what downstream projects
can do with it. Clones like Return to Chaos, DMNet, Dungeon Master
Java, and my own Firestaff would all benefit.
A separate technical question: I've scraped your BugsAndChanges.htm
into a structured JSON database (201 entries) for use in a per-bug
toggle system in Firestaff's startup menu — letting players choose
which historical version of DM/CSB they want to play, down to
individual bugs. Would you be open to that JSON being published as a
community resource (CC-BY, fully credited to you) so other clones can
consume it too?
I'm happy to answer any questions about Firestaff's architecture or
scope. The code is at (will share link when repo goes public), and I
can share early access if you're curious.
Thanks for everything you've already given this community.
Best regards,
Daniel Nylander
Stockholm, Sweden
daniel@danielnylander.se
. Personally, I love the Amiga CSB version thanks to its magic map feature as well as stereo sounds. If wasn't there be that protection 
.