Long After Dark

The original After Dark screen savers, Flying Toasters and all, running on today's Windows (and on Linux, through Wine), along with LucasArts' Star Wars Screen Entertainment, Delrina's Intermission and its Opus 'n Bill, Flintstones, Far Side and Dilbert screen savers, Sierra's Johnny Castaway, 7th Level's Take Your Best Shot and Monty Python's Desktop Pythonizer, and MTV's Beavis and Butt-head Screen Wreckers.

What it is

Long After Dark brings back Berkeley Systems' After Dark screen savers from the 1990s, and twelve of their contemporaries: seven that ran on Delrina's Intermission, which are Intermission 4.0 itself (1993), LucasArts' Star Wars Screen Entertainment (1994) and Delrina's own Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver (1993), Opus 'n Bill: On the Road Again!, The Flintstones Screen Saver Collection, The Far Side Screen Saver Collection and Scott Adams' Dilbert Screen Saver Collection (all four from 1994), Sierra On-Line's Screen Antics: Johnny Castaway (1992), a screen saver program of its own, 7th Level's Take Your Best Shot (1995), scenes of Bill Plympton's animation played by 7th Level's own player, 7th Level's Monty Python's Flying Circus Desktop Pythonizer (1995) and its Limited Edition Desktop Extras, scenes of Flying Circus animation played by an earlier version of that player, and Viacom New Media's Beavis and Butt-head Screen Wreckers (1996), nine desktop toys from Cyclops Software that wreck your desktop, all played by one Windows 95 program. It doesn't remake them. It runs the original modules, unchanged, on an emulated PC of the time: the x86 processor and the parts of Windows 95 they talk to. So they look, move and sound the way they did.

It works with twenty-four releases for Windows, 479 modules in all: ten of Berkeley Systems' After Dark, two of other companies' modules for After Dark, the seven Intermission releases, Johnny Castaway, Take Your Best Shot, the Desktop Pythonizer and its Desktop Extras, and Screen Wreckers. Import one or all of them; each works on its own, but for the Desktop Extras, which play with the Desktop Pythonizer.

Release	Year	Modules
Star Trek: The Screen Saver	1992	16
Screen Antics: Johnny Castaway (Sierra On-Line)	1992	1
Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver (Delrina)	1993	16
Intermission 4.0 (Delrina)	1993	54
Marvel Comics Screen Posters	1993	1
The Flintstones Screen Saver Collection (Delrina)	1994	15
The Far Side Screen Saver Collection (Delrina)	1994	14
The Simpsons Screen Saver	1994	15
Star Wars Screen Entertainment (LucasArts)	1994	14
Opus 'n Bill: On the Road Again! (Delrina)	1994	16
Snoopy's Screen Savers (Image Smith)	1994	8
Scott Adams' Dilbert Screen Saver Collection (Delrina)	1994	16
Star Trek: The Next Generation Screen Saver	1994	13
Take Your Best Shot (7th Level)	1995	17
Monty Python's Flying Circus Desktop Pythonizer (7th Level)	1995	22
Monty Python's Limited Edition Desktop Extras (7th Level)	1995	2
The Looney Tunes Screen Saver	1995	12
ScreamSavers (Binary Software)	1995	15
After Dark 3.2	1995	44
Totally Twisted After Dark	1995	13
The Disney Collection Screen Saver	1995	16
After Dark 4.0 Deluxe	1996	84
Beavis and Butt-head Screen Wreckers (Viacom New Media)	1996	9
After Dark 10th Anniversary	1999	46

Star Wars Screen Entertainment is not an After Dark release, though it is sometimes listed as "After Dark Star Wars": its modules were built on Delrina's Intermission screen saver engine, which Long After Dark stands in for just as it does for After Dark's. Its 14 modules include Death Star Trench, Space Battles, Hyperspace, Lightsaber Duel, Darth Vader and the Cantina, with the films' themes as music.

Intermission 4.0 (1993) is the screen saver itself, Anthony Andersen's Intermission as Delrina sold it, the engine all of these ran on, with 54 modules of its own: graphic effects such as Fireworks, Ferns, Swarm, Tunnel and Spirals, effects on the picture of your desktop, animations such as Golfing Ants, Rapping Pig and Cowboy Singer, two FLI animations, a morph of a balloon into a parrot, and The Machine (Palette), which shows two of its modules at once. Intermission 5.0 was never found online as a product of its own; its engine came with On the Road Again and with Dilbert.

Delrina's own collections for Intermission are scenes of comic strips and cartoons, with their sound effects: the Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver (1993) and Opus 'n Bill: On the Road Again! (1994), 16 modules each of Berkeley Breathed's Opus the penguin and Bill the Cat (Penguins, Night Cat, Puddy Passion and Death Toasters in the first; Opus Trek, Opus in Space, Information Highway and Tax This in the second); The Flintstones Screen Saver Collection (1994), 15 of Hanna-Barbera's Stone Age family (The Flintmobile, Bronto Crane, Bowling, Paddle Rock, Prehistoric Clock and more); The Far Side Screen Saver Collection's 14 animated scenes of Gary Larson's cartoons (Hell, Age of Mammals, Deserted Island, Fishbowl, Nerd Clock, Pterodactyl and more); and Scott Adams' Dilbert Screen Saver Collection's 16 scenes from his comic strip (Dilbert at Work, Out to Lunch, Whack a Lawyer, Secretary with a Crossbow, Necktie Clock, Budget Woes and more). Most of them are animations played by Intermission's own animation player, which Long After Dark runs unchanged, as it runs the modules. In a revised build of the first Opus 'n Bill (November 1993), Death Toasters, which Berkeley Systems took Delrina to court over, is Censored Toasters.

Star Trek: The Screen Saver is After Dark 2.0 with 16 modules of the original series, from 1992: The Mission, Final Frontier, Tribbles, Spock, Horta, Tholian Web, Scotty's Files, Sickbay, Communications, Planetary Atlas and more, with the show's theme, its sounds and McCoy's quotes. Its Final Exam is a game: press Num Lock to take the Starfleet Academy exam.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Screen Saver is Berkeley Systems' After Dark 3.0 release of 1994, made under licence from Paramount: 13 modules of the series, among them Data Dances, Encounters, The Borg, Starbase, Warp Effect, Worf's Weapons, Counselor Troi, Personnel Files and Starfleet Messages, with music. Its Officer's Review is a game: press Caps Lock to take the exam and type the number of your answer.

Marvel Comics Screen Posters (1993) is one module, a slide show of 36 Marvel posters with their captions, which you choose with its own Saver.. button. The Looney Tunes and Disney Collection screen savers are Berkeley's 1995 collections of Warner Bros.' and Disney's cartoons, with their music: Pinocchio follows your mouse after a press of Caps Lock. ScreamSavers and Snoopy's Screen Savers are not Berkeley's: they are other companies' modules for After Dark, Binary Software's fifteen modules of Stephen Blickenstaff's creatures (on the After Dark engine it licensed) and Image Smith's eight Peanuts modules, made to run in an After Dark already installed; for Snoopy, Long After Dark supplies the sound library After Dark would have.

Screen Antics: Johnny Castaway (1992) is Sierra On-Line's, made by Dynamix (Jeff Tunnell Productions), and was sold as "the world's first storytelling screen saver": Johnny, a castaway on a tiny desert island with one palm tree, fishes, watches planes fly past through his telescope and much more, day after day, and the program remembers how far his story has gone. It is neither an After Dark nor an Intermission module but a Windows 3.1 screen saver program of its own, which Long After Dark runs unchanged, the way Windows 3.1 ran it, with its Setup... button for its sounds, background and start of day.

Take Your Best Shot (1995) is 7th Level's "Twisted Arcade Games for Twisted Minds", made of Bill Plympton's animation (the program credits his films Push Comes to Shove and The Tune): 17 scenes that were at once its screen savers and its living wallpapers. In most of them Plympton's heads come in from the edges and bounce about the screen (About Face, Headbanger, Screeech, A Shot In The Dark and more); in Rebound they drop in and bounce on the floor, in Skeet a gunner shoots them as clays, and in Bug-eyed and Face Off a man in a brown suit walks in, rubs his eyes and pulls faces. Three are arcade games too: Head Shot (knock the heads out of a wall), Hot Shot (paddles, with a head for the ball) and Line Shot (baseball). As a screen saver each plays a demonstration of itself, and Caps Lock starts the game; in the other scenes Caps Lock lets your clicks reach the heads, as Best Shot's interactive screen saver did. They are neither After Dark nor Intermission modules but scenes of 7th Level's own Runtime Player, which Long After Dark runs unchanged, standing in for the Best Shot program that started them.

Monty Python's Flying Circus Desktop Pythonizer is 7th Level's desktop program of the Flying Circus, first sold in 1994 (this CD is a build of March 1995; the program later came with Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time too): 22 scenes of animation in Terry Gilliam's style that were at once its screen savers and its living wallpapers. Little figures hop, walk, roll and flutter about the screen (Hopping Elephants, BBC Fairy, Walking Girl, Silly Walk, Queen Victoria bouncing on a ball); a giant head looks on between London buildings as a man in a bowler hat, a pig and a parrot fall from the sky (Giant Head); contraptions rise out of a TV set before a man in his armchair (TV is bad for your eyes); fish swim past a diver's helmet (Aquarium). Three are games: The Gopher Game, where you click to whack the heads that pop up from a field of holes, The Chicken Game, played with clicks and drags, and The Pig Game, a cowboy under a flying pig, played with the keys (Enter or Space puts in a coin, the arrow keys move him, Space fires). As in the Pythonizer's own interactive screen saver, Caps Lock lets your clicks and keys reach any of the scenes: that is how the games are played, and in many of the others the figures answer a click (a BBC fairy you hit drops to the ground, the Hopping Green Men count your hits, a pink car comes for the Killer Cars' crowd).

Monty Python's Limited Edition Desktop Extras, a floppy that came with the Limited Edition of Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time, adds two scenes to it: Foot, many copies of the show's foot falling about a blue sky, and Penguins, a troop of penguins marching under a red banner. They play with the Desktop Pythonizer's player, as they did once the floppy had put them beside it, so they need the Desktop Pythonizer imported too: until it is, the settings window lists them as needing it and doesn't play them. Like Best Shot's, these are scenes of 7th Level's own Runtime Player (the Pythonizer's own, an earlier version than Best Shot's), which Long After Dark runs unchanged, standing in for the Desktop Pythonizer program that started them.

Beavis and Butt-head Screen Wreckers (1996) is Viacom New Media's, one of MTV's "Cheap Clicks", made by Cyclops Software as a set of its Desktop Toys: nine toys in which MTV's Beavis and Butt-head wreck your desktop. Beavis eats the sweets and caffeine that fly in while the Cornholio meter fills (Cornholio); the two tumble about in a tractor tire and drag skid marks through your windows (Tire Trouble); Beavis punches and kicks the TVs, pots and nachos hurled at him (Karate Beavis); they spray-paint and brush graffiti over the screen (Painting Dudes), kick a trash can until its garbage piles up (Kick The Can), throw slurpies, eggs and milk at the screen (Chuckfest), spray it with shaken sodas (Soda Jerks), shoot the targets flying across it (Shoot 'Em) and mow it into stripes (Digger). In most of them the damage stays and builds up. Its screen saver played a toy in "ghost mode", the toy playing itself over the desktop, and that is how Long After Dark plays each of them, over a picture of your desktop; with Caps Lock on, the toy is yours to play (see Tips). It is neither a module of any engine nor a Windows 3.1 program but the set's Windows 95 program, which Long After Dark runs unchanged, the first 32-bit program it runs whole, starting it as the set's screen saver did.

• Every monitor. It runs on all your monitors, only the main one, or as a single canvas spanning them all.
• Sound. The modules' sound effects and music, and the Simpsons' voices, with one volume setting for all of it (or off).
• Games. Caps Lock starts the games built into some modules, such as Rodger Dodger, You Bet Your Head, Pinocchio, Best Shot's Head Shot, the Desktop Pythonizer's Gopher Game and Screen Wreckers' toys, and Num Lock Star Trek's Final Exam, without closing the screen saver.
• Living wallpaper. The modules can also play on your desktop, behind its icons, in place of your wallpaper: see Living wallpaper.
• The modules' own options. Each module's sliders and choices, and buttons such as Fish World's Select Fish…, Marvel's Posters..., the Configure... of an Intermission module (Star Wars, Opus 'n Bill, Flintstones, Far Side, Dilbert or Intermission's own) or Johnny Castaway's Setup... that open the module's original settings windows.
• A modern settings window. It follows Windows' light or dark mode, shows each release's box cover, and has a live preview.
• Looks. Keep the original, unaltered sharp pixels, or have the modules drawn as on a 1990s CRT monitor (flat or behind curved glass), smoothed for cartoon art, or through a RetroArch shader preset of your own; the bars beside a 4:3 module can glow with its picture instead of black. Each is off unless you choose it: see Looks.

On Linux you get the modules, their sound and their games, but not the settings window, the looks, the living wallpaper or the modules' own options (see On Linux).

What you need

• A 64-bit Windows PC with an x64 (Intel or AMD) processor. Long After Dark is developed on Windows 11. It also runs on x64 Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 or later), under 64-bit Wine, with a player of its own for X11 and XScreenSaver: see On Linux.
• The screen savers themselves. They aren't included, and you're responsible for sourcing them legally. The importer copies a release from any of these:
  • your CD, or a folder copied from it or from its floppies;
  • a disc or floppy image (.iso, .bin, .img, .ima, .vfd or .flp), or a .zip or .7z of the install files or of the floppy images. For a release on several floppies, choose every image, such as the Simpsons' two or Star Trek's two, or the ZIP they came in, and for a copy made of one ZIP per disk, such as The Far Side's five or the Flintstones' three, every ZIP;
  • a .zip whose install files sit in one folder per disk (Disk1, Disk2, …), as the Internet Archive's copies of ScreamSavers, Marvel and Snoopy do, or all in one folder, as its copy of On the Road Again does, or a folder unzipped from one;
  • the Internet Archive. The importer can download each release for you: a CD image of 381.7 MB (4.0 Deluxe), 181.4 MB (the Desktop Pythonizer), 143.3 MB (10th Anniversary), 89.1 MB (Take Your Best Shot), 58.8 MB (3.2), 46.1 MB (Screen Wreckers), 37.9 MB (Totally Twisted), 6.9 MB (Star Wars Screen Entertainment) or 5.8 MB (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Star Trek's two floppy images (2.8 MB), the Desktop Extras' floppy image (1.4 MB), Johnny Castaway's floppy image in a ZIP (1.3 MB), Intermission 4.0's three floppy images in a ZIP (3.3 MB), or a ZIP of the install files: the Simpsons' (2.6 MB), Marvel's (1.9 MB), Snoopy's (1.9 MB), the Looney Tunes' (2.8 MB), ScreamSavers' (3.3 MB), the Disney Collection's (3.4 MB), Dilbert's (4.3 MB) or On the Road Again's (4.4 MB), or a ZIP of each install floppy's files for The Far Side (five, 5.5 MB in all) and the Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver (three, 2.8 MB). For the Flintstones it fetches a 129.3 MB archive of a 1994 shareware collection and takes from it only the release's three ZIPs, one per floppy.

Every import is checked, file by file, against the original release, so you know you have the real thing. For Star Wars Screen Entertainment that is the build on its CD: the CD, its ISO or Redump BIN image, the ZIP of its files, or the download. The floppy sets found online (the US five-disk set and the German edition) are other builds, so they fail that check (exit code 3) unless you import them with adimport --no-verify. The same goes for the Looney Tunes' later CD (LTW320CD, or LOONEY.zip), which carries After Dark 3.2's engine files in place of the April release's.

The Far Side's only intact copy online is a 1994 bulletin-board copy of its five floppies, one ZIP of each disk's files, and that is what the download fetches. The floppy images in the Internet Archive item named for the release are damaged, so an import from them fails. The Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver's and the Flintstones' downloads are bulletin-board copies of their three floppies too, one ZIP per disk. The notes and programs such copies carry beside the release's files are never opened or run.

The Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver and the Flintstones came in two builds each, and either build imports. For Opus 'n Bill they are the September 1993 build (the download, and two more bulletin-board copies online) and the revised build of November 1993, with Censored Toasters. For the Flintstones they are the June 1994 build, which the download fetches, and the May 1994 build most copies online hold: its Prehistoric Vehicles animation is damaged in every one of those copies, so that build imports without it, with nine modules.

Take Your Best Shot imports from its CD, its ISO image (the download) or a folder copied from the CD. The importer copies 7th Level's player and its 17 scenes, which stayed on the CD when the program was installed, and never runs the CD's setup or the Best Shot program.

The Desktop Pythonizer imports the same way, from its CD, its ISO image (the download), the raw BIN image of it beside that one on the Internet Archive (choose the .bin, not the .cue) or a folder copied from the CD: the importer copies its player and its 22 scenes, and never runs the setup or the Desktop Pythonizer program. The Desktop Extras' two scenes import from the floppy, its image (the download), or a folder or ZIP of its files. Import the two releases in either order; the Extras' scenes play once both are imported.

Screen Wreckers imports from its CD, its ISO image (the download) or a folder copied from the CD. The importer installs the program and the toys' pictures, sounds and help as the CD's InstallShield setup did, from the compressed libraries on the CD, and never runs the setup, the set's screen saver or its toy selector.

Getting started

1. Get the programs. Download LongAfterDark-<version>-x64.zip from the latest release (for Linux, see On Linux) and unzip it anywhere, or build it from source (see Building from source). The programs aren't code-signed yet, so Windows may warn that they come from an unknown publisher: click More info, then Run anyway. It is three programs, which must stay together in one folder:

   • LongAfterDark.scr: the screen saver and its settings window (and LongAfterDark.exe, the same program, to show it in a window or as living wallpaper);
   • adhostwin.exe: the emulator that runs the modules;
   • adimport.exe: the importer.

2. Import your releases. Double-click adimport.exe (or click Import… in the screen saver's settings window) and choose where to copy from: a disc image, a drive or folder, or a download from the Internet Archive. Import as many releases as you like. Each one is added beside the ones you already have.

   

3. Install the screen saver. Right-click LongAfterDark.scr and choose Install (on Windows 11 you may need Show more options first). Windows makes it your screen saver and opens Screen Saver Settings, so leave the folder where it is. To install it for every user of the PC instead, copy the three programs to C:\Windows\System32 and choose Long After Dark in Screen Saver Settings.

4. Choose what it shows. Click Settings… in Screen Saver Settings (Windows Settings → Personalization → Lock screen → Screen saver), or right-click LongAfterDark.scr and choose Configure. Pick a single module, or Random and the modules to rotate through and how often. You can also set the resolution, the monitors, the look and the sound. The live preview shows the selected module with your settings, and Preview runs it full screen.

Looks

The screen saver can draw the modules' pictures in more than one way. In the settings window, click Look: Sharp pixels at the end of the Stretch to fit the screen row (or press Alt+K). The menu that opens lists the looks and, under them, what fills the bars. Pick one, click OK, and use Preview to see it full screen.

Look	What you see
Sharp pixels (the default)	The original, unaltered look: every pixel of the module's picture a crisp, square block, scaled to your monitor, the way Long After Dark has always drawn them.
CRT monitor	The picture as a 1990s VGA monitor showed it, the kind of screen these modules were drawn for: a soft beam that melts dithering and softens jagged edges, faint scanlines, a fine mask and a little glow. It suits every module, and looks best on a 1440p or 4K monitor; on a 1080p one the scanlines are left out, since they would beat against the monitor's own pixels.
Curved CRT monitor	The same, behind curved glass with rounded corners.
Smooth	Outlines redrawn as clean curves and diagonals instead of steps (Hyllian's Super-xBR), for flat cartoon art: the Simpsons', the Looney Tunes', Disney's, The Far Side's and Dilbert's modules. Photographs and dithered pictures look better sharp or on the CRT.
Shader preset: …	A RetroArch shader preset (.slangp) of your own, drawn by librashader, which you supply; it shows in the menu once settings.ini names one (how).

The menu's second group, Bars, is what fills the bars beside a picture that doesn't fill the screen, such as a 640×480 Intermission, Star Wars, Star Trek or Johnny Castaway module on a widescreen monitor: Black (the default, as always), or Ambient glow, a blurred, dimmed copy of the picture.

With Sharp pixels and Black, nothing changes: the screen saver draws exactly as it always has. The other choices draw on your graphics card, through Direct3D 11, on every monitor, and in the window for OBS too. If the graphics can't draw a look, or can't draw it fast enough (Smooth on some integrated graphics, say), the screen saver goes back to sharp pixels and black bars on its own. The settings window's small live preview, and the one in Windows' Screen Saver Settings, always show the plain picture; Preview shows the look.

Tips

• Filter by release. Click box covers to list only those releases' modules, and click again to undo. With none selected, all of them are listed. Right-click a cover to use your own picture for it.

  

• Caps Lock never closes the screen saver. In some modules it does something, like scaring the fish, or starts a game (Rodger Dodger, Lunatic Fringe, You Bet Your Head, Simpsons Trivia, Officer's Review, Best Shot's Head Shot, Hot Shot and Line Shot, and others). In the Desktop Pythonizer's scenes, and Best Shot's others, it lets your clicks and keys reach the scene, which is how the Pythonizer's three games are played. In Screen Wreckers it starts the toy for you to play, as the set's own toy selector did: the mouse and its buttons in most toys, F2 to switch between Beavis and Butt-head, the arrow keys in Tire Trouble and Digger, and clicks or the numeric keypad (with Num Lock on) in Karate Beavis. The toy's own way out (Esc twice, Ctrl+Q or its EXIT) sends it back to playing itself. While a game is on, the keys and the mouse belong to it. Press Caps Lock again to stop playing, or Alt to close the screen saver at once. Otherwise most keys, a click or moving the mouse close it.

• Num Lock never closes it either. In Star Trek's Final Exam it starts the exam: type the number of your answer. Moving the mouse ends the exam and the screen saver.

• Module buttons such as Select Fish…, Configure... for an Intermission module, or Johnny Castaway's Setup..., open the module's original options window. What you choose there is saved straight away, and Cancel in the settings window doesn't undo it. Marvel's wallpaper features (Posters... → Install, and Create Poster On Wakeup) make their picture inside the emulated PC only: your own desktop stays as it is.

• Speed, for Intermission 4.0's modules. Intermission ran its modules as fast as the PC allowed, and 36 of Intermission 4.0's own, Dragon Kites, Ant Mine and Fireworks among them, move a small step each time they're called, so their speed was the PC's. Their Speed slider picks the emulated PC's pace: Normal is about a 1993 486 (an estimate), and Fastest, four times that, is the emulated PC at full speed. Each slider starts where the module's motion is calm: most at Normal, Dragon Kites, Ping and Bricks at Slowest, Wriggly and Snow Flakes at Slow, and Space Shark at Fast. Intermission 4.0's other modules, the animations among them, keep time by the clock and have no Speed.

• Sound plays only from the main monitor's screen saver. The small live preview is always silent.

• Random on several monitors shows the same module on all of them, and changes it on all of them at once. For a different module on each, check A different module on each monitor under Change module every (it shows only when two or more monitors are connected).

• Single canvas across all monitors, a choice in the Monitors list, spans your monitors with one picture. One emulated PC draws for all of them, in the shape they make together, and each monitor shows its part, so a flying toaster crosses from one screen to the next. One module plays across them all, so A different module on each monitor is off while it is chosen. It needs two or more monitors, and Preview shows it full screen.

• Intermission modules (Star Wars, Opus 'n Bill, Flintstones, Far Side, Dilbert and Intermission's own), Star Trek (both releases), ScreamSavers and Marvel modules, Johnny Castaway, Best Shot's and the Monty Python scenes, and Screen Wreckers' toys, always get 640×480, scaled up to fit the screen in its 4:3 shape (with bars at the sides on a widescreen monitor). The Resolution setting applies to the rest. To have them fill the screen instead, stretched, with no bars, check Stretch to fit the screen under Resolution and Monitors.

• Your files are all in %LOCALAPPDATA%\LongAfterDark (paste that into File Explorer's address bar): the imported releases, downloads, your settings and what the modules save themselves, such as message texts and high scores.

Use it as a "be right back" screen in OBS

LongAfterDark.exe, the same program as LongAfterDark.scr, can show the modules in an ordinary window titled Long After Dark, for OBS to capture. From PowerShell, in the folder you unzipped:

.\LongAfterDark.exe /window /size 1920x1080 /random

• /window opens the window. Keys and the mouse never close it, and Caps Lock starts no game: close it as you would any window. While it is open, Windows keeps the display on, which should also keep the screen saver from starting.
• /size WxH is the size of the picture inside the window, in pixels: 1280x720 unless you say. The window can be resized; the picture follows.
• /module shows one module, by its id or by its name as the settings window lists it, in quotes if it has spaces: /module ad40.toasters, or /module "Flying Toasters!". A name several releases share needs the id (the program lists the ids).
• /random changes module as Random does in the settings window: the modules checked there, as often as it says. With /module, that module plays first.
• With neither, the window shows what the screen saver would. Each module's own settings, the resolution, Stretch to fit the screen, the look and the sound settings apply as they do to the screen saver.
• LongAfterDark.exe /help lists the switches.

Use the .exe: Windows starts a .scr with /S and nothing else, whatever follows its name, so LongAfterDark.scr /window runs the screen saver full screen.

In OBS, add a Window Capture source with Window [LongAfterDark.exe]: Long After Dark, Capture Method Windows 10 (1903 and up), and Window Match Priority Match title, otherwise find window of same type, so that it finds the window again each time you open it (the settings window and the program's messages are titled Long After Dark too, but only this window is of its type). Untick Capture Cursor: the window never hides the pointer, so it would show on the stream whenever it rests over the window. For the modules' sound, add an Application Audio Capture source for the same window.

Living wallpaper

LongAfterDark.exe can also play the modules on your Windows desktop itself, behind its icons and under every window, in place of your wallpaper, as Take Your Best Shot's living wallpapers did. It is off unless you start it. From PowerShell, in the folder you unzipped:

.\LongAfterDark.exe /wallpaper /module "Skeet"
.\LongAfterDark.exe /wallpaper /stop

• /wallpaper starts it, on each monitor the Monitors setting gives the screen saver. /module and /random mean what they do with /window; with neither it shows what the screen saver would. A second /wallpaper takes the place of the one running.
• /wallpaper /stop ends it, and your own wallpaper shows again.
• Any module works. Each one starts on a picture of your own wallpaper, as the screen saver's modules start on a picture of your desktop, so the modules that do something to the desktop do it to your wallpaper. Best Shot's scenes play the living-wallpaper form Take Your Best Shot gave them, on their own black (or dark brown) backdrop over the whole desktop, as the original did; its three games show their menu. The Monty Python scenes play as the Desktop Pythonizer's living wallpapers, over a backdrop of their own too, so your wallpaper doesn't show behind them. Screen Wreckers' toys play in ghost mode over your wallpaper, and wreck it.
• Your desktop works as before: keys and the mouse never reach the modules, and Caps Lock starts no game. Sound plays as the screen saver's does (Sound and Volume in the settings window).
• It doesn't keep the display on: the screen saver, the lock and display sleep come as usual. While the screen saver runs, the computer is locked or the display is off, the modules pause.
• It keeps an emulated PC running for each monitor all the time the desktop is shown, at below-normal priority so that your programs come first. That costs processor time and power all day, as a screen saver that never ends would, and so battery life on a laptop: stop it when that matters.
• If Explorer restarts, it comes back with it. Without Explorer's desktop (another shell, say) it shows nothing and exits.

To start it with Windows, press Win+R, type shell:startup and press Enter; in the folder that opens, right-click → New → Shortcut, and give it the full path of LongAfterDark.exe followed by the switches, such as "C:\Programs\LongAfterDark\LongAfterDark.exe" /wallpaper /random. Like /window, it works only with the .exe, and only on Windows.

On Linux

On Linux the emulator and the importer are the same Windows programs, run under 64-bit Wine, and longafterdark, a Linux program, shows the modules full screen (with the Windows screen saver's rules for ending it and for the games), in a window, or as one of XScreenSaver's display modes. Download LongAfterDark-<version>-linux-x64.zip from the releases (1.1.0 and older are for Windows only; the newest build of main, LongAfterDark-linux-x64.zip, is on the latest-main pre-release), then:

sudo apt install wine wine64 libx11-6 libxext6 libxrandr2 ca-certificates unzip   # Debian, Ubuntu
unzip LongAfterDark-<version>-linux-x64.zip && cd LongAfterDark
./longafterdark --import --download simpsons   # or --image <disc image>; --import alone opens its window
./longafterdark                                # full screen, every module in random order; most keys end it

What differs from Windows: there is no settings window (you choose with longafterdark's options, or in XScreenSaver's settings), the modules' own options and buttons aren't there, so each module runs with its defaults, and there is no living wallpaper. On its own it plays on the primary monitor and keeps the others black. XScreenSaver runs it on every monitor, all showing the same module unless you check A different module on each monitor in its settings, but ends it on any key or mouse move, so no game can be played there. The modules' music needs a MIDI synthesizer, such as FluidSynth. What the modules save is kept, in ~/.local/share/longafterdark/state ($XDG_DATA_HOME/longafterdark/state when that is set). docs/LINUX.md has the rest: what you need (fonts, MIDI music), importing, the options, XScreenSaver and where the files are.

Status

Long After Dark is new. It has no installer or code signing yet, and not every module's speed has been compared with the original. Known differences: Marvel's poster transitions (wipes, irises, blinds and the like) show at once where the original swept them over about half a second, and in Chameleon (Totally Twisted and 10th Anniversary) a stray icon covers the "Accessories" label after about half a minute. Twelve modules that took the mouse and keyboard under Intermission instead of ending (The Far Side's Pterodactyl, Dilbert's Best of Dilbert and Budget Woes, On the Road Again's The Butt Boys and Skating, and seven of the Flintstones') run as ordinary screen savers here: input ends them. Intermission 4.0's Palette Animator shows only black on its own (it was made as the background of a MultiSaver group, as in The Machine (Palette)), and its Picture Show stays black until its Configure... names a folder of .BMP pictures (your own drives are under H: there). The Flintstones' DictaBird recorded from a microphone, which the emulated PC doesn't offer: it shows only its own line, "Sound Support Not Available For FM-DictaBird", as on a 1994 PC that could not record. Johnny Castaway's own Password option has no effect: input ends it at once, without asking for the password. The Linux player is newer still: docs/LINUX.md says what hasn't been tried on it yet.

Building from source

You need CMake 3.24 or later. What the Windows programs are built with, their compiler (llvm-mingw), ninja and the libraries built into them, is downloaded into third_party/ by tools/bootstrap.sh, rather than installed system-wide. The rest comes from the system:

• On Windows: Git for Windows (for Git Bash, which has curl, unzip and git).
• On Linux (a cross build of the Windows programs, and the Linux player): the tools from your distribution, g++ and the X11 headers for the player, and Wine, which runs the build's own Windows programs and the tests. On Debian and Ubuntu: sudo apt install cmake git curl unzip xz-utils zip g++ libx11-dev libxext-dev libxrandr-dev wine wine64 (Ubuntu 22.04's CMake, 3.22, is too old: use 24.04, or a newer CMake).

From the repository folder:

bash tools/bootstrap.sh   # once: fetches the compiler and libraries into third_party/
bash tools/package.sh     # builds the programs into build/dist/LongAfterDark/ (on Linux with the player, and zips that folder)

docs/BUILDING.md covers the rest: how the pieces fit together, building on Linux, the tests, and running a module without the screen saver.

Documentation

• docs/LINUX.md: Long After Dark on Linux: what you need, importing, the player's options, XScreenSaver and where the files are.
• docs/INSTALL.md: installing and using Long After Dark in detail, including the importer's command line.
• docs/BUILDING.md: building, testing and the source tree.
• docs/DESIGN.md: how the emulation works.
• docs/PACKAGES.md: the twenty-four releases and how each one is imported.

License

Long After Dark's own code is under the license in LICENSE. THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md lists the third-party code built into the programs, including the x86 emulator, which is derived from resource_dasm, the importer's ARJ decoder, modified from Robert K. Jung's UNARJ, and the Smooth look's shaders, ported from Hyllian's Super-xBR.

After Dark and every release above, their modules, pictures, music, sounds and box art belong to their rights holders, among them those of Berkeley Systems (After Dark), LucasArts (Star Wars Screen Entertainment), Paramount (Star Trek), Fox (the Simpsons), The Walt Disney Company (the Disney Collection), Warner Bros. (the Looney Tunes), Marvel (Marvel Comics Screen Posters), United Feature Syndicate / Peanuts Worldwide and Image Smith (Snoopy's Screen Savers), Binary Software and Stephen Blickenstaff / IMPart (ScreamSavers), Delrina and Anthony Andersen (Intermission), Delrina (the Opus 'n Bill, Flintstones, Far Side and Dilbert collections), Berkeley Breathed (Opus 'n Bill), Hanna-Barbera (The Flintstones), Gary Larson, FarWorks and Universal Press Syndicate (The Far Side), Scott Adams and United Feature Syndicate / United Media (Dilbert), Sierra On-Line and Dynamix (Johnny Castaway), 7th Level and Bill Plympton (Take Your Best Shot), 7th Level and Python (Monty) Pictures (the Desktop Pythonizer and its Desktop Extras), and Viacom and MTV, Cyclops Software, and Mike Judge, who created Beavis and Butt-head (Screen Wreckers). None of their files are in this repository or in the programs it builds: you import your own copies.