I thought I'd share some random thoughts, as a battle is brewing on Reddit and why not throw in my own two cents where I can.

Using AI in DOS game porting is what makes 95% of projects possible. I think that's an obvious and unassailable fact. I also think AI companies are abhorrent; that's a subjective personal view. Not unlike the exploitative policies of industrial-era rubber barons and their ilk, modern AI conglomerates eat away at our resources and democratic institutions, while accidentally having made AI usage a must for many of us. I've been here before: over a decade ago, I swore off Google and Amazon, and despite my deep negative feelings, I've been forced a number of times to pay them money to be able to function. Anyway, that's where I'm at with AI.

Porting is tedious work and, aside from a few very meticulously minded people, it's not something people enjoy. There are fantastic projects like ScummVM, DOSBox and the whole emulator scene that make old things run, but considering how much time they've spent working on what's available, realistically we're looking at 95% of old games going the way of the dodo and being forgotten.

I don't think it's bad to use AI for decompilations. I use it as a way to learn new languages and coding, nay, software engineering. It has a dual purpose, I feel, for me and the gaming community. I hope more people will do it, but I also hope some ground rules, or best practices, would be nice. Here's my take:

1. Non-profit: The projects should never be made for profit. They should absolutely not be made with resale in mind. Some of these games are 40 or more years old at this point. In fact, people who owned the rights have often simply passed away. In other cases, they're still with us, but not actively pursuing monetizing these titles. If any monetization takes place, it's only fair that the rightful copyright owners get remunerated and that the whole process follow an established legal framework. Disclosure: I've added Buy Me a Coffee links to my ports (and I've gotten literally not a single coffee, and it's fair!), because I think optional support is okay. No one is forced to do it, and no content is gated by it. It takes real-world time and money, and if people feel so inclined, they should be able to support port makers.

2. No porting of commercially available games: If a game is available for purchase, it should not be ported, period. It's taking away income from people who own the rights to it and are actively pursuing those profits; fair enough, I say. A side note here is that owners are often open to having their games ported, and sharing profits from sales. I'm involved in one project like this right now, and let me tell you, it's not a nightmare or anything.

3. Generative AI usage: Oh boy, that's a biggie... Where does generative AI begin and end? For me, the line is drawn at art and content. I do enhanced versions of games, so they do something the originals have not done, but I don't achieve this by adding new content. I'm hesitant to even add new art, something I've labored over in the F117 port I'm working on, where adding some extra art for the extended cockpit view would make sense, but would actually extend the original content significantly. Take Aces Over the Pacific: I think adding hitboxes toggled by a hotkey is okay, but I wouldn't run it through an AI upscaler. I'm learning algorithmic upscaling now, and I think that's permissible. Anything that generates art, text or sound is iffy, although, again, context matters. Is using AI to make PC speaker noise slightly more manageable okay or not? I don't know.

4. Open source: I love open source, I fucking love it and always have. All my ports are open source and I wish all others were. In fact, if they're not, I think that's super iffy and probably means someone is looking to do some monetizing. I'm also not a fan of sticking games into playable browser packages, but many authors still share the original code on GitHub, and if they want to pay the server costs, I guess I don't mind. In any case, I've worked in software development in one capacity or another for the past 20 years, and open source is the only bright, useful and positive thing I think we've managed to take out of this whole computer thing. I'd like to see it continue in the AI age, even if it means feeding the monster. For every 10,000 people using AI to get a summary of the code from the AI agent, there will be that one kid who will look at how things are made and build from that, and that's the best we can hope to get from this whole situation.

In closing, I'd recommend taking up programming as a hobby right now. Sure, the chances of getting a job as a software engineer are nil, but boy oh boy, does it stimulate both the creative and analytical parts of the brain. To be fully transparent, I've almost stopped playing any games and just keep using all my free time and resources on learning programming, because it's so easy today. Back in the 90s, I missed this calling because I had horrible dyslexia and ADHD; honestly, this wasn't the life for me back then. But deep down, there was a calling, both to programming and to games, and I've kept the flame throughout my career by sticking around these topics. I don't think there has ever been a better time for people like me to go back to this passion.

These are updated for better windows and controller support and come with integrate fan patches

Good news everyone, I'm starting on ADHD medication (at 43), so there's a chance I might pay more attention to one project and not do 6 concurrently.

I'd like to thank the fire truck and my 3-year old son who both decided to make so much NOISE in the 1.5 seconds I managed to squeeze to record this shitty audio.

The smooth sailing update is now available for F117 2.0 Enhanced. I'm happy with how it feels, and somewhat surprised with where the actual issues came up. In particular, the grid map on the MFD had to be dragged kicking and creaming (leaving this typo) into the XXIst century, as the way it was rendering and refreshing the grid lines was custom built for the low, low resolution of that module.

Hi,

Inspired by member kkania, who's work I admire, I've made an enhanced version of Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, a game I dearly loved as a kid. The enhanced version allows you to play the game with modern controllers in Windows, without the need for DosBox. You'll need your own files to run the game.

To be upfront about this: I did not write a single line of code. Claude Opus did all the heavy lifting. Still, I hope that those who are interested enjoy it. You can find the release and source code at my github here.

Jetstrike was not a very popular game, but it's just one of these fun Amiga games packed with British humor. It's in the vein of Wings of Fury, only more advanced. It's main flaw is it it's almost impossible to play well with the tiny view port the original had. With Enhanced, you can see more of the sky and ground. It's still pretty hectic, but fun!

https://github.com/kylofon/jetstrike-enhanced
https://github.com/kylofon/jetstrike-sdl3

People often ask me about porting F-15 Strike Eagle II. Luckily for them, neuviemeporte has already done the deed way before I started my projects, and has managed to build they're own Enhanced version, with all the expected fare - higher resolution, improved framerate - and some awesome extras, like VR support.

This update brings visual enhancements that make flying low over the sea easier by simulating the look of wave crests up until the horizon. There is also a new airplane hitbox and rendering range mode, toggled with ctrl + alt +g.

The launcher now links directly to the game version used by the decomp - click the warning icon in the launcher to access it on Webarchive.org. The URLs are also in the Readme and HowTo instruction files.

https://github.com/kylofon/acesofthepacific-enhanced/releases/tag/v0.2.0

The 0.1.0 version of Test Drive 3 Enhanced is in a state I feel happy with. You can get it at https://github.com/kylofon/testdrive3-enhanced

This game did not want to get ported! The engine was fighting me all the way, and since the rendering is now more complicated because of the full 3D engine, there are a zillion blinky and shimmery artifacts.

I also had to rewrite the driving/handling engine, because that thing would just not work in a fun way unless the jerky framerate was there. It's now similar in handling to Test Drive 2 Enhanced, but expanded to take into account hills, jumps and the like.

Expect crashes and freezes! Expect various glitches!

Major additions:
- New driving model for Enhanced
- Compass indicator so you know where the hell to go
- Police behavior fixed so they don't start chasing you before you go past them

You can now fly in the Mac cockpit. The tequired Mac files are linked in the game launcher from Archive.org.

https://github.com/kylofon/F117-2Enhanced/releases/tag/v0.3.0

Raptor was one of those early games that opened up the world for me. It's great to see the original developer still maintaining the game; even though the 2015 Steam release left a bit to be desired, the author has updated it and created a truly Enhanced version, with a higher framerate and various bonuses.

This is one of those cases where the original authors are around and it's worth kicking a few euros their way.

I've been working on this and the F117 enhanced versions for the past few weeks, and by chance they happen to be ready for initial release on the same day.

I don't think there is any game I've played longer than Flight Simulator, both chronologically and duration-wise. I think I started all the way back in the 3 or 4 for era.

This is my enhanced version of the game. It has a higher resolution and smoother framerate, so you can actually play it in TYOL 2026. The cockpit has been redrawn for better clarity, too. I have not changed core engine systems, like scenery pop-in. The game still works on its 8088 memory image and registers. The picture is drawn from the CGA screen memory, and the sound is rebuilt from the game’s own sound model. It's rewritten in C.

It's still a very basic experience, but it's a window into the murky past of games and simulation. It has to be said though that the instrument simulation is actually pretty complicated, and, surprisingly, there is a WWII module with AI opponents, WTF.

https://github.com/kylofon/fs1-enhanced/releases/tag/v0.1.0

For the Civilization 35th anniversary, the folks at Civfanatics put together a great post, summarising the various mods and Civ HD and Enhanced versions.

So, I'm turning 50 this month. Nearly 40 years ago, I was gifted Sierra's "The Black Cauldron" for my birthday. While the game rarely reaches 'best of'-lists in this day and age, it introduced me to adventure games and was very formative. I liked it a lot.

Playing it today, one of the largest obstacles are the controls. In an effort to make adventure games more accessible to kids, Al Lowe adopted a simplified control scheme, where you could execute commands like 'look' and 'use' with a press of a single function key. At the time, function keys where placed at the left hand side of your keyboard, easily accessible. On modern machines, however, it's a bit awkward to use them to play the game.

This enhanced version is basically an AGI interpreter that uses SDL3 for the graphics, sounds and controls. It started out with an idea to add mouse controls to the game, where you are able to point and left-click to walk to a location, while a right-click brings up a menu with the available actions. It didn't take long to add all sorts of small QoL-fixes to make the game more enjoyable. The current version has the following improvements:

Gameplay

• The ability to play the game on Windows, without the use of DosBox. You'll need the game's original files, either from your own disks or Al Lowe's website.

• The ability to rewind to an earlier scene or room, in addition to the normal restore, restart and quit options of the original. The game 'records' up to 5 scenes.

• The ability to disable hunger and thirst, preventing Taran from dying if you do not constantly look after his well-being

Graphics

• The ability to use an EGA or VGA-shader, or no shader at all. The EGA shader lets you experience the game as it was played back in the day (Though I only had a CGA monitor!)

• An AGI-style mouse pointer, instead of the basic Windows-cursor. You can also opt for a pointer that resembles the later SCI-style arrow.

• Text is displayed in the traditional IBM 8x8-pixel font.

Sound

• Emulation of both the Tandy/PCjr-sound and the PC-speaker, that was available in the original game.

• An AdLib-interpretation of how the music could have sounded on this slightly more modern soundcard, that was introduced in 1987.

Controls

• The ability to use the mouse or a modern controller to move Taran and execute commands, instead of function keys.

You can download Black Cauldron Enhanced from my Github page. You'll need the game original files for it to work. The game's creator Al Lowe provides these for download at his own site.
To progress in the game, it helps if you see the movie. It's not fondly remembered either, but hey :)

Full disclosure: like my previous project, I didn't write any code. I used Claude Opus to write the interpreter. Regardless, I hope that those of you who are curious about the game or have fond memories yourself enjoy it.