DethRace · Android port

Native Android build of DethRace — the clean-room reimplementation of the 1997 game Carmageddon. This fork takes the upstream opengles branch, wires it into a Gradle/NDK project, replaces the desktop OpenGL bits with OpenGL ES 3, and adds a touch overlay and lifecycle handling so the game is actually playable on a phone.

The desktop builds still work. Every Android-specific change is gated behind #ifdef __ANDROID__ or if(ANDROID) in CMake. Pull from dethrace-labs/dethrace upstream and you'll see no behavioural differences on Linux / macOS / Windows.

Tested on Galaxy S25 Ultra (Adreno 830, Android 16) — should run on any Android 7+ device with GLES 3.

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⬇️ Just want to play?

You don't have to build anything. Each push to android-port produces a debug APK as a CI artifact:

1. Open https://github.com/mgrz18/dethrace-android/actions/workflows/android.yml
2. Click the most recent green run.
3. Scroll to Artifacts and download dethrace-android-debug-apk.
4. Unzip — inside is app-debug.apk.
5. Install it: adb install -r app-debug.apk (or sideload from the file manager).
6. Provide the game data (next section).

If you don't see Artifacts, you need to be signed in to GitHub.

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🎮 Game data — required

You must own and provide your own Carmageddon files. The APK is empty without them — it'll launch and immediately show a "Couldn't open Key Map file" error until you finish this section.

Step 1 · Get a Carmageddon 1 install on your PC

Easiest source: Carmageddon Max Pack on GoG → https://www.gog.com/game/carmageddon_max_pack.

After installing it on Windows, the install path is typically:

C:\GOG Games\Carmageddon Max Pack\

If you're on macOS/Linux you don't need Windows — extract the offline installer with innoextract (brew install innoextract).

Step 2 · Locate the two folders you'll copy

Inside the install you'll find this structure (only the bits in bold matter):

Carmageddon Max Pack/
├── CARMA/
│   └── DATA/                ← *** main game data, ~190 MB ***
├── __support/
│   └── app/
│       └── CARMA/
│           └── DATA/        ← *** GoG support files (KEYMAP_*.TXT, OPTIONS.TXT, PATHS.TXT) ***
└── (a bunch of other folders we don't need: DOSBOX, __redist, etc.)

You need both DATA/ folders. The first is the game. The second ships with GoG and contains the keyboard mapping the engine refuses to start without.

Step 3 · Copy them onto the phone

The game expects everything at:

/sdcard/Android/data/com.dethrace.android/files/DATA/

(That's the app's external files dir — Android lets the app read from there without runtime permissions.)

Option A · From your computer with adb (fastest, ~5 seconds for 190 MB over USB-C)

Plug your phone in (USB debugging enabled) and run, from your PC's terminal:

# 1. The main DATA folder
adb push "Carmageddon Max Pack/CARMA/DATA" \
    /sdcard/Android/data/com.dethrace.android/files/

# 2. The GoG support files merged INTO the DATA you just pushed
adb push "Carmageddon Max Pack/__support/app/CARMA/DATA/." \
    /sdcard/Android/data/com.dethrace.android/files/DATA/

The trailing /. on the second adb push matters — it copies the contents of __support/.../DATA/ and merges them into the existing DATA/ on the phone, instead of nesting another DATA folder.

Option B · From a file manager on the phone (no PC needed)

1. Compress CARMA/DATA/ and __support/app/CARMA/DATA/ into a single zip on your PC, with the layout:

   carmageddon-data.zip
   └── DATA/
       ├── CARS/
       ├── RACES/
       ├── ... (everything from CARMA/DATA)
       └── KEYMAP_0.TXT, KEYMAP_1.TXT, ... (merged in from __support)
   

2. Send the zip to your phone (email, Google Drive, anything).

3. Install a file manager that can write to app-private storage (e.g. Solid Explorer, MiXplorer, Material Files). The stock Samsung "Files" app on Android 11+ won't work — Google blocks Android/data/ from the system file picker.

4. Extract the zip into Android/data/com.dethrace.android/files/. The result must end up as Android/data/com.dethrace.android/files/DATA/....

Step 4 · Verify it's in the right place

adb shell ls /sdcard/Android/data/com.dethrace.android/files/DATA/ | head
# Expected output includes folders like CARS, RACES, SOUND, ACTORS
# and files like KEYMAP_0.TXT, OPTIONS.TXT

If you see those, you're done — open the app.

Splat Pack and demos

• Splat Pack (also part of the GoG Max Pack, in CARSPLAT/): push CARSPLAT/DATA/ to the same place the same way. The engine auto-detects which game mode is available.
• Free demos (carmdemo, splatdem, Splatpack_christmas_demo) work too — push their DATA/ folder.

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🕹️ Controls

The game launches in landscape, fullscreen, immersive (no status bar / no nav bar). Touch overlay only appears when you're actually in a race — menus stay clean and respond to plain taps.

Region	Action	Equivalent DOS key
Bottom-left, left disc ◀	Steer left	Keypad 4
Bottom-left, right disc ▶	Steer right	Keypad 6
Bottom-right, brake button	Brake / reverse	Keypad 2
Bottom-right, gas button	Accelerate	Keypad 8
Top-right, pause icon	Pause / open menu	Esc

Touch zones are larger than the rendered icons (you can rest your thumbs in roughly the bottom-left and bottom-right corners — you don't have to aim at the icons). For weapons, lookback, etc., pair a Bluetooth keyboard.

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🔧 Building from source

You only need to do this if you want to hack on the port. To just play, see Just want to play? above.

Requirements

• macOS or Linux (Windows untested but should work).
• Android Studio (or the standalone command-line tools) with:
  • SDK platform 34
  • NDK r26 (26.1.10909125 is what CI uses)
  • CMake 3.22.1+
• Java 17.
• curl, tar, unzip (for the SDL2 download script).

One-time setup

git clone https://github.com/mgrz18/dethrace-android.git
cd dethrace-android

# Pull SDL2 source (~15 MB, extracts into android/app/jni/SDL/)
./android/scripts/setup-sdl.sh

# Tell Gradle where your Android SDK lives
echo "sdk.dir=$ANDROID_HOME" > android/local.properties

Build

cd android
./gradlew assembleDebug

The APK lands at android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.

Install + launch

adb install -r android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
adb shell am start -n com.dethrace.android/.DethraceActivity

To stream the game's logs:

adb logcat -s dethrace:V DethRace:V DethRace-native:V SDL:V

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🧱 What changed from upstream

A short tour of the changes — full diff in the first commit on android-port.

New files

Path	Purpose
android/	Gradle project, Java code, build scripts, NDK glue
android/app/src/main/java/com/dethrace/android/DethraceActivity.java	Custom SDLActivity: forces landscape, sets DETHRACE_ROOT_DIR, immersive fullscreen, mounts the touch overlay, polls race state
android/app/src/main/java/com/dethrace/android/TouchOverlayView.java	Steering discs, gas/brake pedals and pause button drawn over the SDL surface
android/scripts/setup-sdl.sh	Downloads SDL2 2.30.10 source into app/jni/SDL/
src/harness/os/android.c	Bionic-friendly OS layer (signal handler, case-insensitive OS_fopen)
src/DETHRACE/android_jni.c	JNI bridge exposing gProgram_state.racing to Java

Engine tweaks — all #ifdef __ANDROID__ / if(ANDROID):

• harness_trace.c — pipe LOG_* to __android_log_print so panics show up in logcat instead of disappearing into stdout.
• gl_renderer.c — skip glReadPixels(GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, ...). It's GL_INVALID_OPERATION on strict GLES drivers (Adreno) and was crashing on Start Race.
• sdl_opengl.c — go straight to GLES (no desktop-GL probe), load symbols with gladLoadGLES2Loader, cap to 60 fps via swap-interval 2 on 120 Hz panels, inject Keypad 4/6/8/2 + Esc from touch zones, pause miniaudio on SDL_APP_*_BACKGROUND.
• harness.c — start_full_screen = 1 by default.
• main.c — include <SDL.h> so the SDL_main bridge picks it up.
• CMakeLists.txt patches — short-circuit find_package(SDL2) when SDL2 is already a target, build dethrace as libmain.so, drop pthread (in bionic), link log android GLESv3 EGL, swap os/linux.c for os/android.c.

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⚠️ Limitations / known issues

• opengles upstream branch is stale — about 700 PRs behind main. Bug fixes landed there don't carry over yet.
• Aspect ratio — the engine renders at the original 320×200 (8:5). On 21:9 phones you'll see black pillars. Removing them while preserving the HUD requires non-trivial engine surgery (see Future work).
• Limited input — only steer/throttle/brake/menu. Weapons, lookback, handbrake etc. need an external keyboard or a future overlay extension.
• Game files must be sideloaded — for legal reasons we can't bundle Carmageddon assets.
• No Splat Pack auto-merge yet — push CARSPLAT/DATA separately if you want it.

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🗺️ Future work

• Wider-FOV widescreen rendering (requires reallocating the BRender pixmap and HUD-coord remapping).
• Forward-port to upstream main to pick up ~700 PRs of fixes.
• Configurable touch layout, on-screen weapon buttons.
• Gamepad/keyboard remapping UI on the Android side.
• F-Droid / Play distribution once the port is more polished.

PRs welcome.

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🤖 Acknowledgements

The Android port — Gradle/NDK wiring, GLES 3 path, touch overlay, lifecycle handling, widescreen pixmap and the rest of the __ANDROID__-gated changes — was developed in collaboration with Claude Code (Anthropic, Claude Opus 4.7).

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📜 License

Same as upstream DethRace. SDL2 is zlib. Carmageddon assets remain © Stainless Games — bring your own copy.