Native PC versions of the three Sega Genesis Strike games: Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1992), Jungle Strike (1993) and Urban Strike (1994). They are static recompilations, with modern features added:

• The original game code, recompiled to C. It is verified instruction-exact against a reference 68000 emulator (the Musashi core) in lockstep tests. Sound is the real YM2612/PSG hardware, emulated with ymfm.
• Widescreen: 16:10, 16:9, 21:9 and 32:9, plus "Match window". The battlefield is drawn from each game's own map data beyond the console's 512-pixel limit. Menus, maps and cutscenes stay 4:3.
• HD graphics packs, with a one-click builder. The game extracts its own graphics, upscales them 4× with xBRZ (keeping dithered textures crisp), and loads the result.
• Status HUD: armor, fuel, load, lives and ammo.
• Minimap: the pause map in a corner of your choice, live, with the objectives (and, optionally, nearby enemy guns); LB / RB (Q / E) step through them like the pause menu.
• Pause menu: save/load slots with thumbnails, full keyboard and gamepad rebinding, display, picture, audio and system settings.
• Cheats: god mode, unlimited fuel, ammo and lives, campaign select.
• Rewind (hold the left trigger), autosave on mission start and each completed objective, gamepad rumble, and career stats.
• Game Speed: Smooth (no slowdown) or Original (the console's slowdown).
• Difficulty (prototype, Desert Strike): chosen on New Game. Remastered keeps the full speed and every bullet on screen but rebalances the damage (bullets sting less than missiles, and a crossfire can't empty your armour in an instant); Recruit is gentler; Original is the Genesis as shipped, slowdown included. See docs/14-difficulty.md.
• Launcher: the games' intros play live behind a gamepad-friendly game picker, and a Continue / Load Game / New Game screen picks up where you left off.
• Amiga edition for Desert Strike (work in progress): add your own Amiga Desert Strike disks and the game can use the Amiga's sound effects (weapons, rotor that follows your speed, rescue calls, voice lines), its ProTracker music, its title photos, and its cutscenes, including the animated ones, which run as the original Amiga programs in a small built-in Amiga emulator. Pick Genesis, Amiga or a mix under Settings → Audio → Edition. The mapping of sounds is still being tuned; the Sound Lab and tools/amiga/sound_labeler.html let you choose your own.
• Installer: Inno Setup, with a ROM page that checks your dumps.

No game data is included. You need your own ROM dumps. They are checked by SHA-1:

The recompiled C (generated/) is produced from your ROM on your machine and is not part of this repository.

Gameplay is 16:9 widescreen with the status HUD and minimap. The Amiga pictures need your own Amiga disks.

The Windows installer and a portable zip are on the Releases page. Both need your own ROMs.

1. Run the installer, or StrikeCollectionHD.exe. Point it at your ROMs; they are copied to %APPDATA%\DesertStrikeHD\DesertStrikeHD\roms\.
2. Pick a game. Settings on the game picker, or Esc / Back in game, opens the menu.

Host keys:

• F5 / F7: quick save / load.
• F11 or Alt+Enter: fullscreen.
• Tab or right trigger: fast forward.
• Q / E or LB / RB: step through the objectives on the minimap.
• Backspace or left trigger (hold): rewind.
• Left Shift or Y (hold): strafe, Desert Strike's hold-A sidestep, without ever firing a Hellfire.
• M, or hold Esc / Back: show or hide the minimap.
• Esc or Back: pause menu.

Everything can be rebound under Controls.

Amiga edition: Settings → Audio → Add Amiga Disks, and choose your Amiga Desert Strike .adf files (they are copied to %APPDATA%\DesertStrikeHD\DesertStrikeHD\amiga\). Nothing from the Amiga version is included. See docs/13-amiga-ultimate.md.

HD graphics: Settings → System → Build HD Pack, once per game. It takes a few minutes. See docs/09-hd-packs.md. On Linux, choose the rendering backend in Settings → Display → Renderer (restart). OpenGL (GPU) is the default; enable Show FPS to see the active SDL renderer. Software rendering remains available as a fallback.

Install the compiler, CMake, SDL3 development files, and Python tooling:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential cmake python3 python3-venv python3-pip libsdl3-dev

Create a virtual environment for the ROM analysis tools and install their Python dependencies:

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install capstone pillow

Place your own supported ROM dumps in rom/ as desert_strike.bin, jungle_strike.bin and urban_strike.bin. Then generate each game's C source and build the launcher:

python tools/trace.py --game desert
python tools/recomp.py --game desert
python tools/trace.py --game jungle
python tools/recomp.py --game jungle
python tools/trace.py --game urban
python tools/recomp.py --game urban

cmake -S . -B build -DDS_SYSTEM_SDL=ON -DDS_BUILD_TESTS=OFF -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel

The executable is build/StrikeCollectionHD; the HD pack upscaler is build/hdpack_xbrz. DS_SYSTEM_SDL=ON uses the installed SDL3 package. To let CMake fetch and build SDL3 instead, omit that option; this requires network access during configuration and SDL's Linux development dependencies.

The generated game sources are derived from the ROMs and are not committed. Keep the Python virtual environment active when running the trace and recompilation tools.

Requirements:

• Python 3.10+ with capstone and pillow;
• CMake 3.16+;
• a C/C++17 compiler (Visual Studio 2022, MinGW/llvm-mingw, gcc or clang).

copy "<your roms>" rom\desert_strike.bin, rom\jungle_strike.bin, rom\urban_strike.bin
python tools/trace.py  --game desert   (and jungle, urban)
python tools/recomp.py --game desert   (and jungle, urban)
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --config Release

• CMake downloads SDL3 if third_party/SDL3 is missing.
• Outputs:
  • StrikeCollectionHD: the game.
  • hdpack_xbrz: the HD pack upscaler.
  • ds_test and ds_ref (with -DDS_BUILD_TESTS=ON): the headless recompiled build and the Musashi reference.
• Cross-compiling for Windows from Linux: add -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=cmake/mingw-w64-x86_64.cmake -DMINGW_ROOT=<llvm-mingw>.
• Installer: install Inno Setup 6, put the built programs in dist\, then run installer\build_installer.bat.

tools/lockstep_suite.sh build      # every game and scenario, recompiled vs Musashi, frame by frame

For headless runs of the game: StrikeCollectionHD <rom> --frames N --inputs file --shot-every N dir. To extract graphics for all games: --extract.

games/<id>/        per-game config (game.json, hints.json: jump tables, patches) and module
games/strike_*     shared Strike-engine code: playfield test, ultrawide map painter, HUD, cheats
src/hw/            Genesis hardware: bus, VDP + renderer (incl. HD compose), Z80, YM2612, PSG
src/runtime/       CPU state, dispatch, interrupts, frame stepping, test runner
src/host/          SDL3 program: launcher, menus, input, settings, HD packs, extractor
tools/             tracer, recompiler, lockstep tools, xBRZ pack tool, helpers
harness/           Musashi reference runner + input scripts
installer/         Inno Setup script
docs/              design notes and findings (start with docs/HANDOFF.md)

This project was developed with heavy use of AI: the reverse engineering, recompiler, PC host and features were written by Anthropic's Claude, working with the project's maintainer, who directs, tests and plays it. The recompiled code is checked instruction for instruction against an independent 68000 emulator (see Testing), so the games run exactly as on the console.

The project's own code is under the MIT license (LICENSE). Third-party components keep their own licenses (below).

• Musashi 68000 core (MIT): the lockstep reference, and the CPU of the built-in Amiga that runs the Amiga cutscene programs.
• ymfm (BSD-3, Aaron Giles).
• z80 by Nicolas Allemand (MIT; one local fix: BIT n,(HL) no longer writes back).
• SDL3 (zlib).
• stb_image, stb_image_write, stb_truetype (public domain / MIT).
• Chakra Petch font (SIL OFL 1.1).
• Capstone (BSD), used by the tools only.
• xBRZ (GPL-3, Zenju). It is used only in the separate hdpack_xbrz tool; see tools/xbrz/License.txt.

Desert Strike, Jungle Strike and Urban Strike are trademarks of Electronic Arts. This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by EA or Sega.