Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel

Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel

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Launching Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel directly through GZDoom using the official Steam Library entry
By NicNamSam
How to use the official Steam Library entry to launch the GZDoom source port of Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel directly. This process has a handful of steps, but will be appreciated by particular people who like everything to be consolidated and organized.
   
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Requirements
Here are the programs needed:

GZDoom. This is not a guide for how to set up or run GZDoom or the games. There are other guides out there to help you with that.

A Batch file to EXE file converter. If you Google "Bat to exe converter", you will find one.

Notepad.
Process
1) Create a new Notepad file.

2) Type this:

@ECHO OFF START "" "YOUR PATH TO GZDOOM\gzdoom.exe" -iwad HEXDD.WAD

Replace YOUR PATH TO GZDOOM with your file path to the GZDoom folder

Make sure to include the two quotes with nothing between them after START, it's part of the formatting of that command. (It's for the window title of the cmd.exe window, but this window won't even be shown, so it's pointless to give it a title.)

For more custom command line arguments for GZDoom, look here[zdoom.org]

3) Save the notepad file as "dosbox.bat" and close Notepad. Make sure that the file ends in ".bat" and not ".txt".

4) Open the Bat to Exe converter program.

5) Click the three dots to the right of the "batch file:" line, and select dosbox.bat

6) Click "Compile" at the bottom. It will make an executable file named "dosbox.exe"

7) Go to the Steam folder for Hexen Deathkings of the Dark Citadel and rename dosbox.exe to something else (I renamed it to "doxbox_REPLACED.exe"). You could also delete it if you want. In fact, you could delete everything else in this folder if you aren't going to run the dosbox version, except for HEXDD.WAD if you are using it for GZDoom.

8) Copy and paste or move your created dosbox.exe to the Steam folder.

9) To prevent Steam from automatically "verifying" dosbox.exe and replacing it with the official, original executable, right click your created dosbox.exe and check the "Read Only" box at the bottom of the window. This way, Steam won't be able to change it.
Quick Item Bindings and Extra Options
In your GZDoom folder, I recommend creating a text document called "autoexec.cfg" and pasting the following inside it to have helpful quick-use buttons for the healing and flechette items. You can change the F and Q keys to whatever you prefer, but make sure that key isn't used for something else in-game. You can look as this wiki[zdoom.org] to see other custom quick-item bindings you can make.

The "m_showinputgrid -1" is to disable the on-screen keyboard that pops up if you have the mouse enabled in the menus and you try to save by clicking on a save file name. I find it annoying.

bind q "use artihealth" bind f "useflechette" m_showinputgrid -1
4 Comments
NicNamSam  [author] 13 Jun, 2024 @ 11:17pm 
What music issues are you having?
alptraum ⚜ 16 May, 2024 @ 7:30am 
How to fix music using GZDoom?
NicNamSam  [author] 15 Mar, 2023 @ 11:56pm 
It's similar, but that would require you to have multiple copies of gzdoom if you have heretic, hexen, and deathkings of the dark citadel and would only launch gzdoom, not the games directly.
Francisè von Spitroast 13 Mar, 2023 @ 7:48pm 
Doesn't simply renaming dosbox.exe to something else, then renaming gzdoom.exe to dosbox.exe have the same effect?