REVIVAL! EGGER LAND: RE-REVIVED!
A fan-made special edition of FUKKATSU! EGGER LAND by MP83 (2026)
==================================================================

ABOUT THE GAME
--------------
Eggerland is a puzzle-action game series developed by HAL Laboratory,
beginning with EGGERLAND MYSTERY for the MSX in 1985. Players guide Lolo
through maze-like rooms, collecting items, solving puzzles, avoiding enemies
and finding the exit. Known internationally through the Adventures of Lolo
games for the NES, the series combines strategic puzzle-solving with action
and quick thinking.

EGGER LAND for Windows 95 came out in 1996, with EPISODE 0: QUEST OF LALA
(Lala's own adventure) as a bonus on the disc and as a free download.
FUKKATSU! ("Revival!") EGGER LAND, the 2000/2001 re-release, left Episode 0
out. This edition brings both episodes together again, in English, and makes
them run on today's Windows.


WHY THE ORIGINAL NO LONGER RUNS
-------------------------------
The game was written for Windows 95/98/ME and leans on several things that
modern Windows (10 and 11) no longer does the same way:

 - 256-colour graphics. The game switches the screen to a 640x480,
   256-colour mode through DirectDraw and changes the colour palette on
   the fly for its fades and flashes. Modern Windows only imitates these
   old modes: the result is wrong colours, a black screen, a window stuck
   in a corner, or a crash at start-up. Palette changes are often ignored,
   so fades and flashes break too.

 - Compressed bitmaps. Many of the game's pictures are stored
   RLE-compressed and loaded as "DIB sections", which current Windows no
   longer decodes reliably. Pictures came out garbled or not at all.

 - Text drawn by Windows on the game screen. The game draws its texts with
   Windows' own fonts straight onto its 256-colour screen, which again
   depends on how Windows handles that old mode.

 - A Japanese-only system. All texts are Japanese (Shift-JIS) and only
   show up correctly when Windows itself is set to Japanese. Elsewhere
   they turn into garbage, including in menus and pop-up windows, and the
   Windows 95 style dialogs expect fonts that no longer exist.

 - MIDI music. The music is played through the Windows MIDI stream
   player, which crashes the game when the music changes on modern
   systems, and in any case only sounds like the basic Windows MIDI synth.

 - Timing. The game times itself on Windows' millisecond clock and on the
   screen refresh; with today's clocks and high refresh rates it runs at
   the wrong speed.

 - The registry. Settings and the list of save files are kept in the
   Windows registry. When the game failed to remove a missing save file
   from that list, its Continue screen froze, and Continue without any save
   file froze the original game as well.

 - Episode 0 is a separate, older program of its own, which has the same
   problems and more.


HOW IT WAS FIXED
----------------
Everything was done without rewriting the game: the original game code
still runs, with a new companion file, EGGDX.DLL, standing in for the parts
of Windows it can no longer rely on.

 - EGGDX.DLL is a complete replacement for the old DirectDraw graphics
   system. The game still draws its 256-colour picture exactly as it always
   did, but into memory; EGGDX.DLL then shows that picture enlarged in a
   normal window or in borderless fullscreen, through OpenGL (or plain GDI
   as a fallback). The screen mode never changes, so nothing depends on
   Windows supporting 256-colour modes, and palette fades and flashes work
   as intended.

 - The compressed bitmaps are decoded by EGGDX.DLL itself.

 - Every text and every pop-up window (messages, the save and load
   windows, the stage editor's boxes) is drawn by the game with its own
   font and its own graphics. Nothing depends on the language of Windows,
   its fonts or its look.

 - All texts are translated into English, partly as new text images.

 - The music was pre-rendered from the original MIDI files into high
   quality OGG files, with the same loops as the original, in two
   versions (GS and OPL3 FM). No MIDI playback is involved any more.

 - The game gets an exact clock and a steady 60 frames a second, whatever
   the computer or the screen.

 - Settings and the list of save files live in SETTINGS.INI in the game
   folder instead of the registry, so the game is fully portable.

 - Episode 0 runs inside the same program as Episode 1 and is chosen from
   the main menu, sharing all of the above.

 - Original bugs that froze or crashed the game were fixed.

Why this should keep working in the future: the game no longer depends on
any of the old, fragile parts of Windows (DirectDraw display modes, MIDI,
the registry, Japanese language support, system fonts or the look of
Windows' own windows). What it still uses are the most basic and lasting
parts of Windows: a plain window, OpenGL or GDI to show a picture, and
DirectSound for sound. Everything else, pictures, texts, fonts and music,
comes with the game in its own files.


FEATURES
--------
 - Runs on Windows 10 and 11 (and Wine), no installation, settings or extra
   programs needed
 - Full English translation
 - EPISODE 0: QUEST OF LALA built into the main menu
 - Two soundtracks: GS (the GeneralUser GS soundfont) or OPL3 FM synthesis,
   switched on the fly from the Config screen
 - Fullscreen or window, with several ways of scaling the picture
 - Fast-forward, and separate music and sound effects volumes
 - Fully portable: the game folder holds everything, including settings
   and saves (Saves, Construct and Screenshots folders)
 - Screenshots with the Print Screen key
 - A help key for when you are stuck on a level
 - More settings in EGGDX.INI (open it with Notepad)


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-------------------
 - Windows 10 or 11 (32-bit or 64-bit). Windows Vista, 7 and 8 should also
   work if the "Universal C Runtime" update (KB2999226) is installed.
 - Any graphics with a working OpenGL driver (or set renderer=gdi in
   EGGDX.INI if the picture stays black or flickers)
 - Any Windows sound device
 - A mouse (the pop-up windows are used with the mouse)
 - About 70 MB of disk space with both music packs
 - No DirectX, codecs or other extra programs needed


CONTROLS
--------
 Arrow keys / numpad     Move
 Space / Enter           Shoot, confirm
 Esc                     Back
 Mouse / joystick        Also work, as in the original

New keys in this edition:
 Shift (hold)            Fast-forward (the music keeps its normal speed)
 F1                      Plain black floor (on / off)
 F3 / F4                 Music volume (down / up)
 F5 / F6                 Sound effects volume (down / up)
 F8                      Change how the picture is scaled
 F11 or Alt+Enter        Switch between fullscreen and window
 Print Screen            Save a screenshot in the Screenshots folder
 Ctrl+G                  Help when stuck on a level


NOTES
-----
 - The game folder must allow writing (for saves, settings and
   screenshots), so don't put it in Program Files.
 - Autosave (Config) saves to your current save file when you exit,
   without asking. Starting a New Game switches it back OFF on purpose,
   as in the original, so the first save of a new adventure asks
   for a file name instead of overwriting your old save.


CREDITS
-------
 Revival! Egger Land: Re-Revived!
   Project, translation, graphics and testing ...... MP83
   Technical assistance ............................ Claude (Anthropic)

 Music rendered using libADLMIDI (Nuked OPL3 emulator) and FluidSynth,
 with the GeneralUser GS soundfont by S. Christian Collins.
 stb_image and stb_vorbis by Sean Barrett (public domain).

 EGGER LAND (C)1985-1994 HAL Laboratory, Inc.
            (C)1996/2000 HAL Corporation.
 FUKKATSU! EGGER LAND is a 2000/2001 re-release of EGGER LAND, the 1996
 Windows 95 game developed and published by HAL Corporation. All original
 game content remains the property of its respective owners. This is a
 non-commercial fan project.
