Shogo: Mobile Armor Division demo (Monolith 1998, LithTech 1.0, Direct3D)

App id shogo_demo, candidate shogo-demo (registered 2026-10-11, w5).

Source and licence

• archive.org item ShogoMobileArmorDivisionDemo, ShogoDemo.zip: 30,823,950 bytes, SHA-1 f372ab1a822002107980e6648fe101d10c19fb19.
• The zip holds an InstallShield 3 setup (SETUP.EXE, setup.pkg, _INST32I.EX_) and the game laid out loose under Game/. That directory is all the candidate needs; its copyTree puts it at installed/shogodemo.
• The game is the "PC Gamer Demo Version", about 43 MB of SHOGODEM.REZ plus the engine DLLs.
• No licence grant. Game/Readme.txt says only "Copyright 1998 Monolith Productions, Inc.", so the candidate is localOnly.

Launch

• ShogoDem.exe is a launcher with Play Demo / Display / Advanced / More Games / Quit. It renders, and the first Play Demo asks for a detail level.

• It then spawns:

  CLIENT.EXE -windowtitle "Shogo Demo" -rez shogodem.rez ++globaldetail 1 ++Sound16Bit 1
  

  with the game directory as cwd. The readme's default install is c:\games\ShogoDemo; the registration mounts it as c:\shogodemo (fileRoot installed), and the path does not matter as long as the cwd is the game directory. With the cwd pointing elsewhere the client exits (code 0) right after its window, before cshell.dll.

• Through the launcher (--spawn-processes) the child reached its Direct3D splash and stayed there.

• Started directly with those arguments, Client.exe reaches the main menu. The registration runs the client directly.

• The client loads its renderer and modules by name from the current directory (LoadLibrary):

  • d3d.ren (the LithTech Direct3D renderer; soft.ren is the software one);
  • cshell.dll and cres.dll;
  • imusic25.dll and its imrt*/msynth25/am18/ima set;
  • softsnd.dll.

• ole32.dll is missing from a fresh checkout and its imports fall to stubs. That is harmless here.

Headless route (CLI, --batch-size=200000)

The client is slow to boot: about 700 batches to the main menu. Send each Enter as both keydown:13 and di-keydown:13.

1. Main menu by batch 690, "single player" highlighted.
2. Enter at batches 700, 800, 900 and 1000 runs Single Player, then New Game, then difficulty, then the level load.
3. The Avernus mission briefing ("press a key...") shows by about batch 1900.
4. Space (keydown:32 plus di-keydown:32) at batch 1950 starts the level: a city street, the mech's weapon in view, and an Energy / Armor / Ammunition HUD.
   • Between batches 2150 and 2400 Energy drops 930 → 893 and Armor 914 → 872 under enemy fire, and traffic moves.
   • Holding Up from batch 2450 walks the mech forward. It was destroyed by about 2650, and the game went back to the main menu.

Evidence: scratch/runs/20261011T1030Z-shogo_demo-gameplay-w5.

Open

• The launcher route: why the spawned child stays on the splash.
• Firing (Ctrl, from the readme) and mouse look were not exercised before the mech died.
• Wall time is high: about 2400 batches take 10+ minutes in the CLI.