Hi. I'm playing the original Dark Forces in dosbox for the first time. I haven't played the game before. I've gotten to level 10 (Jabba's Ship) and I think I may have encountered a bug. After you get past the dragons at the start, there is a room where you have to flip a switch to raise a ledge that it seems you are supposed to jump up to get the blue key. However, when I flip the switch, it only stays triggered for 2-3 seconds (at most), then the ledge drops back down and the switch resets. The timing of the reset seems to be very random - sometimes it resets almost immediately, sometimes after 3-4 seconds.

It seems to be nigh-on impossible to get up the ledge before it drops back down and I suspect it may be a bug. I had a look at someone playing the start of that level on YouTube and they didn't seem to suffer from a similar problem.

If it is a bug, is there any known fix or workaround? Perhaps there is a cheat code that can just give me the blue key?

I am using the Dark Forces Dehacker tool (which gives mouse look, etc), so perhaps that might be part of the problem?

Ok, I found some cheat codes here. Looks like I can teleport to that platform to get the blue key and progress.

Same here. That lever seems broken and doesn't work as it should. Need fix.

Switch is working as intended, you just don't understand what is causing it to reset.






!!! SPOILER !!!!

The Kell Dragons trigger a motion sensor that causes the platforms to rise up. You have to kill the Kell dragons first.

!!!! SPOILER !!!!!


You can get the Dark Forces Community Patch through the launcher that makes it clearer with audio and visual feedback.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2353688304

Ok, that's interesting. To me it seemed unclear that was what was causing the reset. That section is super-hard then, because even once you get to the tunnel with the switch, there isn't enough ammo there to easily take out the dragons.

Great game overall though - excellent FPS!

That much is true. But you can use the tunnels as cover to perform single attacks, then always run back in.
This might be the hardest part of the entire game.

Certainly one the toughest parts, especially since the rest of the Jabba's Ship level after that is not exactly a cakewalk. There are some tough bits in the final level with the Mk2 troopers though. They're quite nasty, and there are a few of them.

Yep, that's not easy either. But I always found myself having the hardest time in Jabba's ship right at the start.
And I do have the feeling that now in the DOS emulation timing the melee attacks is harder than back then on my Pentium. Somehow the movement acceleration seems a bit off, but that might be my memory and my reflexes getting worse.