Thyme is an open source re-implementation of Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. Zero Hour is the expansion pack of Command & Conquer Generals, released in 2003.
This project is a bottom-up rewrite of Generals: Zero Hour, using the original binary to provide functions that have not been implemented yet. The intention is to allow the fixing of bugs, implementation of new features and porting to platforms unsupported by the original.
Please note that the Thyme developers have no affiliation with EA. EA has not endorsed and does not support this product.
You can chat and discuss the development of Thyme on our Discord channel.
As of now (Feb. 2023) Thyme only runs on Windows and must be compiled by yourself.
In order to run Thyme, you must meet one of the following prerequisites:
- You have an installation from the original English version on disc (NOT "The First Decade", "The Ultimate Collection" or any other bundled version) which must be patched to version 1.04
- You have got hold of the game.dat from the installation referred to in point 1, and copied it to the root directory of the C&C General ZH installation
If you have either of these options ready, you can proceed with building and compiling the thyme.dll
and
avifil32.dll
as described here.
Once you have successfully created these DLLs, copy them to the C&C Generals ZH root directory.
Next, rename the game.dat in your ZH root directory to game.exe
(the name doesn't matter as long as it has the .exe
extension).
Congratulations, you should now be able to start Thyme by running game.exe
!
To check if Thyme is loaded successfully, you can start the game from CMD or PowerShell (right click in the folder while holding down the Shift key and select "Open PowerShell") with the following command:
.\game.exe -win
This should start the game in windowed mode, so you can see if the window has a name that includes "Thyme".
If you have any problems getting Thyme to work following this guide, feel free to contact us on our Discord.
Thyme is in heavy development and as such, development builds may not behave correctly compared to the original game. We will endevour to create numbered releases that are as free from bugs as possible but even they may have some unexpected behaviour.
Anti-virus software like Windows Defender could mark Thyme as a virus. This is a false-positive. We can assure you that Thyme is fully safe to use. If you are still unsure about this, you can just build Thyme yourself.
A black screen at startup is normally a sign that you have gentool installed. Due to how Thyme currently works, you will need to teporarily remove or rename the gentool d3d8.dll file.
In order to generate a working binary, currently you must build the project using a version of the Microsoft Visual Studio compiler (2017 and above). Building with Clang against a Windows SDK is in theory possible but is untested for a cross compile solution.
It is also possible to build a standalone binary if you want to test compiling on other platforms.
Check the Thyme Wiki for detailed build instructions.
Native support for Linux and macOS is planned for the future, but because of how the project is developed, a fully playable native binary will not be possible for some time. In the mean time, using Wine on Linux and macOS, should be possible but is currently untested.
If you are interested in developing the cross platform aspect of the project
it is now possible to build the project standalone by passing -DSTANDALONE=TRUE
to CMake when configuring the project
but the resulting binary currently has very limited functionality.
If you are interested in contributing to Thyme, you will need some knowledge of C++ as a minimum requirement. Join the developer chat listed above for more information on what else you will need, such as the idc file for the current map of the binary.
You can also check the wiki for more information.
The source code provided in this repository for Thyme is licenced under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later with an exception allowing the resulting code to be linked against a closed source binary which will be in place until Thyme no longer relies on the original.
Below is a list of similar projects and their respective original games:
- Alive - Abe's Exodus
- dethrace - Carmageddon
- Devilution - Diablo
- OpenDUNE - Dune 2
- OpenFodder - Cannon Fodder
- OpenLoco - Locomotion
- OpenMC2 - Midnight Club 2
- OpenRCT2 - RollerCoaster Tycoon 2
- OpenTTD - Transport Tycoon Deluxe
- Vanilla Conquer - Tiberian Dawn & Red Alert
There is also a Wikipedia page for open source games.