Skids: a Super Skidmarks revival

A cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux) engine written in Rust that plays Super Skidmarks (Acid Software, 1995) on the original Amiga data.

The game's data was converted from the six original ADF disk images into editable files in assets/. The images themselves aren't kept in this repository.

• Each track: a 16-colour PNG (the PNG's palette is the track's palette), plus a text file with the lap gates and height map.
• Each car: a PNG sprite sheet and menu picture, plus a text file with its name, driver and handling.
• Sounds: WAV files.
• Music: the tune, as an OctaMED module.
• Pictures: the title picture and a few other images, as PNGs.

Edit them with any image editor or text editor. The build embeds the assets/ folder, so the finished program is a single self-contained file.

The engine can still read the original disks directly: ADF images, the LHA archives on them, and their CrunchMania-packed files. skids extract --data <adfs> regenerates assets/ from them.

Because the binary and assets/ carry the original game data, anyone you give either to also gets the game data.

What works

• All 24 tracks across the four track files, in their original palettes. Each has its isometric height map and lap gates.
• All 9 cars (Mini, Beetle, Porsche, Formula 1, Midget, Truck, Police, Cow, Camaro) with their drivers' names, each with 32 headings and 25 body-tilt frames for hills.
• The caravan: turn on Caravans in the menu and every car tows one.
• The original sound effects, and the original tune played by a built-in OctaMED player. The menu has a Music option: menus, always, or off.
• The original title picture.
• 1 or 2 players (split screen) plus up to 7 computer drivers.
• Power-slide handling, slopes, car-to-car bumping, and skid marks burnt into the track.
• Lap and position tracking, lap times, and a results table.
• Engine note pitched with revs, tyre screech, crashes, backfires, a horn and start beeps, all from the original samples.

What's reconstructed

The executable is on disk 1, but its game logic, a compiled Blitz Basic 2 program, hasn't been decoded. So the handling, computer drivers and race rules are new code written to feel like the original, not a translation of it.

Each car's original settings file has eleven handling numbers whose meaning lives in that code. They're kept in the car's settings asset for when it is decoded. docs/FORMATS.md covers everything reverse engineered so far.

Running

cargo run --release

The built executable (target/release/skids, or skids.exe on Windows) runs on its own from anywhere.

--data DIR adds to or overrides the built-in data. DIR can be an assets folder, which lets you try edits without rebuilding: skids --data assets. It can also be the original ADF images or LHA archives. Without --data, a folder like that in the current directory or next to the executable is picked up automatically. When a track or car exists both as an asset and on disk, the asset wins.

Action	Player 1	Player 2
Accelerate	↑ (or W in one-player games)	W
Brake / reverse	↓ (or S)	S
Steer	← → (or A D)	A D
Horn	Right Shift	Left Shift
Pause	P
Leave race	Esc

Options: --scale 1|2|4 (window size), --mute.

Tools

skids info    --data DIR                  # list tracks and vehicles found
skids extract --data ADFS [--out assets]  # convert original disks into editable assets
skids bench   --data DIR --seconds 120    # race CPU cars on every track: laps and time on road
skids trace   --data DIR --track 11 --out t.png   # plot CPU racing lines
skids render  --data DIR --track 3 --out shot.png # headless screenshot
skids music   --out tune.wav --seconds 60     # render the tune to WAV
skids unpack  disk.adf --out files/           # extract a disk or LHA archive as-is

Building

You need a stable Rust toolchain.

• Linux: install the ALSA and X11 development packages, e.g. sudo apt install libasound2-dev libx11-dev libxkbcommon-dev. To build without sound (no ALSA needed), use cargo build --release --no-default-features --features embed.
• macOS / Windows: cargo build --release works as is.

The build embeds assets/. To use a different folder, set SKIDS_ASSETS_DIR=/path/to/assets. To build without embedding, so the game needs --data at run time, use --no-default-features --features audio. The ADF images aren't needed to build.

GitHub Actions builds all three platforms on every push (.github/workflows/build.yml).

Layout

assets/        the game data as editable PNG and text files
build.rs       embeds assets/ into the executable
src/formats/   ADF (OFS/FFS), LHA (incl. -lh5-), CrunchMania, IFF 8SVX/ILBM, OctaMED
src/data/      track, vehicle and palette decoding; locating the game files
src/game/      physics, AI and race rules
src/render/    software renderer at 320×256 (PAL low-res) and a bitmap font
src/audio.rs   sample mixer and sound effects (cpal)
src/music.rs   OctaMED player
src/app.rs     menus, race screens and results

Credits

Super Skidmarks is by Acid Software. This project is an unofficial revival for preservation. The CrunchMania bitstream layout follows Teemu Suutari's ancient (BSD-2-Clause).