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Black Crypt — Data Formats

DOS Version — Overview

The Windows VGA Port

Section titled “The Windows VGA Port”

Black Crypt was ported to Windows by Rick Johnson starting October 21, 1995, using DirectX 3.0 (GameSDK). The Windows version uses DirectDraw for graphics and DirectSound for audio.

Note: despite the “DOS” label, crypt.exe is a PE32 Windows GUI application (not a DOS program). It requires DirectX 3.0+ and runs on Windows 95/98/NT 4.0.

File inventory

Section titled “File inventory”
File Size Description
crypt.exe 253,952 B Windows PE32 GUI executable (DirectX 3.0)
clipper.clp 1,151,267 B Resource archive (images, palettes, sounds)
maindung.gam 15,099 B Dungeon/map data (demo subset)
Config.dat 14 B Configuration file

The demo contains a subset of the full game’s data — only the first dungeon map (two playable levels). The data files live in data/blackcrypt/dosvga/.

Key differences from the Amiga

Section titled “Key differences from the Amiga”
  • The Amiga spreads resources across 26 bcdf* files; the Windows version consolidates most into clipper.clp.
  • The Amiga uses EHB (64 colours, 6 bitplanes); the Windows version uses VGA (256 colours, 8 bits/pixel).
  • The Amiga uses custom RLE compression; the Windows version stores raw indexed pixels.
  • The dungeon map format (maindung.gam) is structurally identical to the Amiga bcdfs, differing only in endianness.

See the cross-platform comparison for the full table, and clipper.clp for the archive format.