colditz-escape

Frequently Asked Questions

Installation

First, make sure you download the archive that is relevant to your platform, then:

(Windows) Extract all the files and then launch COLDITZ.EXE
(macOS) Extract all the files and then launch colditz. You may need to install XQuartz first.
(Linux) Extract all the files and then launch colditz
(PSP) Extract the files into PSP/GAME/ (so that you end up with a PSP/GAME/Colditz Escape directory on your memory stick. You should now be able to launch “Colditz Escape” in your Games menu.

Default Controls

Keyboard controls

(Numpad) 8 : Move Prisoner Up
(Numpad) 4 : Move Prisoner Left
(Numpad) 6 : Move Prisoner Right
(Numpad) 2 : Move Prisoner Down
(Numpad) 5 : Use Currently Selected Item or Enter/Exit Tunnel (if open)
↑ : Pickup Item
↓ : Drop Item
←/→ : Cycle Through Inventory
Space : Toggle Walk/Run
Esc : Game Menu
F1 : Select British Prisoner
F2 : Select French Prisoner
F3 : Select American Prisoner
F4 : Select Polish Prisoner
F5 : Pause Game / View All Prisoners
F9 : Sleep
F10 : Set Stooge

XBox 360 Controller controls

Note: For XBox 360 Controller support on Mac, you should first install the latest 360Controller package.

XBox 360 Controls

PSP controls

Analog Stick : Move Prisoner
✖ : Use Currently Selected Item or Enter/Exit Tunnel (if open)
○ : Toggle Walk/Run
◻ : Set Stooge
△ : Sleep
↑ : Pickup Item
↓ : Drop Item
←/→ : Cycle Through Inventory
LT/RT; : Cycle Through Prisoners
Select : Pause Game / View All Prisoners
Start : Game Menu

Note that the controls above can be modified by editing your config.xml in the game directory.

Gameplay

How can I use tunnels?

How do I use the candle?

How do I use the saw?

How do I use the pick-axe?

How do I use the shovel?

To use a tunnel, you must first use the right tool to open the tunnel exit. For tunnel exits located on wood floors, use the saw, for exits on pavement, use the pick-axe, and for exits on grass, use the shovel. The tool will be consumed in the process To enter an open tunnel, you must use a candle (which is consumed as well). To open a tunnel exit, from within a tunnel, you need to use the shovel, regardless of the type of ground that exit sits on. If the exit is already open, just pressing action will do.

What is required for a successful escape?

How do I use the papers?

To successfully escape from the castle, you will need to be in possession of German papers (those are different from passes, which are only used with guards). If you don’t have these papers, you will be returned to the Castle

How do I use stooge?

You can set stooge with prisoners, as means of alert for guards. Once a stooge is set (STOOGE should appear in the status bar), the focus will go back to the prisoner who set the stooge if a guard comes close by.

This can be used to warn a prisoner visiting a restricted area that a guard is on his way. To set a stooge, make sure your prisoner is idle and press the “Stooge” key.

How can I open doors?

How do I use Keys/Lock-picks?

Locked doors need to be opened with the relevant tool:

“Low Security doors” require the use of a a lock-pick
“Grade One Security doors” require a security key one
“Grade Two Security doors” require a security key two Any key used is immediately consumed

How do I use stones?

Stones are used to slow down guards that have entered a running pursuit. If guards are running after you, using a stone will make them revert to a walking pursuit, thus giving you a chance to escape.

To use a stone, make sure it is selected in your inventory and press the action key

What is the fatigue bar used for?

How do I use sleep?

Walking, running and especially crawling increase your fatigue. The fatigue level is also increased with every game hour that pass. Once the fatigue bar reaches its max level, you will no longer be able to run.

To reduce fatigue, you must return to your quarters to sleep. Once in your starting room, press the “Sleep” key to go to bed. Note that you can only sleep in your own bed.

How do I use uniforms?

If you find a guard’s uniform, you can change into it to try to fool the guards. To use a uniform, simply select it in your inventory and press the action key. Note however that guards are suspiscious by nature and will ask for a pass if they don’t recognize your face.

How do I use a pass?

The pass is used, when you are wearing a German uniform, and are intercepted by a guard. Unless you can provide a pass then, you will be sent to prison. A pass is immediately consumed.

In the enhanced version of the game, guards do remember when they have seen a pass, and will not ask you again. A guard that has previously seen your pass will be identified with a small pass icon.

How do I use the rifle?

Just like in the original game, the rifle is not used for anything in this game. Our reverse engineering of the original game uncovered no use for the rifle whatsoever. One can only speculate what the developers had meant the rifle to be used for when they designed the game.

Are there other any items available in the game?

If you cheated, are really lucky, or somehow found a bug, you might also find a stethoscope or a prisoner’s uniform in the game.

The prisoner’s uniform allows you to change back into prisoner’s clothes (duh), which is pretty much useless. The stethoscope was not used in the original game.

Are there any cheat modes?

Well, who knows…

The Enhancement menu adds a set of feature that I felt were missing from the original game:

The first enhancement, which is also called opt_enhanced_guards in config.xml, make the guards in the immediate vicinity remember when they’ve seen a pass from a prisoner in uniform, and thus continue to get fooled by that prisoner if they see him again. It will also make their behaviour a bit more human after they caught with a prisoner.

The second enhancement (opt_enhanced_tunnels in config.xml) restricts the field of vision when moving in a tunnel, which makes tunnel handling a bit more challenging.

Enhancements can only be turned on if “Original Mode” is not active.

Game issues

Why are there picture/black corners onscreen?

This version of the game was ported primarily for the PSP (which is also why the base resolution of the game is 480x272), so we tried to use as much screen real estate as possible. However, the original game was not designed for widescreen, and as such, some “tiles” would be missing around the screen corners, when moving on the exterior map. As this would have had a detrimental effect on the aesthetics of the game, we chose to hide them using “picture corners”.

I can’t save the game! / Save and Load are disabled

This is because you enabled the original game mode in the options. The original game did not have a save/load feature, and therefore those features, along with any other enhancements, are disabled when “original mode” is on. To disable “original mode”, and re-enable game saves, go to the options menu. Of course, when you do that, you’ll probably also find out if you’re a chicken…

I get an “Integrity check failure” when starting the game

This means that the data files you are using differ in content from the ones expected by the game, which can happen if:

Your files are corrupted → download the binaries again
You manually changed the data files → if you want to mod the game, you should start by recompiling the source and remove the MD5 checks.

(PSP) Whoa, I never realized the remanence on the PSP was so bad! / The game smears a lot & doesn’t look too good on older PSPs

Indeed. Please address your complaints to “Hey Sony, it sure took you a while to put a decent screen on the PSP, 1-7-1 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0075, Japan”.

More seriously though, the original game was developed for screens (CRT) that, unlike LCD, were a lot more responsive and allowed greater freedom in the choice of palette & contrast. Not much can be done here, apart changing all the palettes. Gotta give props to the actual PSP game artists, who have had to put up with the kind of creativity restriction introduced by Sony when they tried to make a quick buck by using such a poor response time LCD on the PSPs 1000 & 2000…

(Windows) The Intro video does not play

Make sure your video codecs are up to date. You might want to download and install the K-lite codec pack.

(Windows) I get a “winXAudio2Init: failed to init XAudio2 engine” / “Could not initialize audio” error message

The Windows version uses the latest DirectX audio engine. Please make sure you have the latest DirectX runtime installed (which can be downloaded from here).

(Windows) The game doesn’t run / runs too slow on my Windows platform!

If you’re using an embedded GPU (eg. Intel motherboard GPU), chances are the graphics extensions required to play the game (like 16 bit little endian GRAB textures) will not be present, and you will get a white screen
Check that your monitor refresh rate is at least 50Hz. If you run the game with a 24Hz refresh rate for instance (eg, on an HTPC), the game speed will be bound by that frequency, no matter how fast your CPU/GPU are.
If you are using graphics smoothing on Windows (with a GPU cards that supports OpenGL 2.0), the GPU shader filter might increase your CPU usage → disable GFX smoothing.
Try to update to the latest DirectX. Tests showed that there can be a drastic improvement in speed between using DirectX 9 and DirectX 10

Our tests showed that the the game should be playable at full speed on a P4 2.0 GHz Windows XP platform, with a decent nVidia or ATI graphics card and DirectX 10.

Note that you can use the # key on windows to display the game’s current FPS.

Data files

Why didn’t you provide the data files in the first release?

For potential legal reasons. However, since potential copyright holders have not manifested themselves, I will now consider the original game and data as Abandonware and provide the required data files along with the binaries.

Where can I obtain alternate data files?

I am not aware of any alternate data files for the game. However, if you want to replace the files provided with the current binaries, a search for ADF (Amiga Disk File) images of Escape From Colditz in any search engine should direct you to original disk dumps.

You can then extract the data files listed on the home page from the ADF image. You can use the Windows version of the unadf executables (preferably staticunadf.exe) from the binw32.zip archive at http://lclevy.free.fr/adflib/adflib.html

To extract the files:

Extract the files from binw32.zip to a temporary directory
Extract the .adf file from, the compressed ADF image you downloaded to another temporary directory.
Create a new directory (this is required because unadf does not create a subdirectory when extracting the files). Or you can use the directory where you extracted “Colditz Escape”
Copy the staticunadf.exe executable as well as the .adf file (e.g. Escape from Colditz (1990)(Digital Magic)(M4)[cr SKR][FIXED GALAHAD].adf) to the directory above.
From a command prompt, navigate to the directory where you have theses 2 files and run the command:
staticunadf yourfile.adf (e.g. staticunadf Escape from Colditz (1990)(Digital Magic)(M4)[cr SKR][FIXED GALAHAD].adf)

I can’t seem to have `COLDITZ-LOADER` in the files I extracted! How can I make the game work?

Most of the ADF versions found on the internet don’t come with COLDITZ-LOADER, but instead with SKR_COLD, which is the compressed version of COLDITZ-LOADER.

The game engine is smart enough to detect this, and automatically uncompress and create COLDITZ-LOADER if SKR_COLD is found.

Thus you only need to provide either SKR_COLD (compressed version) or COLDITZ_LOADER (uncompressed version) to run the game initially.

Future Enhancements

Do you plan to release new/custom game maps?

Not at this stage. This would require a map editor, which I haven’t any plans for. However, with the source code being available, if you really want, you could probably create a map editor yourself.

Do you plan to port the game to more platforms

Now that we have the common-platform trifecta (Windows+Mac+Linux) that’s unlikely. But this is Free Software, so you can!