Early Crimsonland history¶

The original koti.mbnet.fi/temper/crimsonland/ site survives as 33 root-page captures representing five distinct revisions. The complete CDX result, raw HTML for each distinct revision, retained artwork, hashes, and local release artifact paths are recorded in analysis/historical/koti-mbnet-crimsonland/.

Site revisions¶

The committed CDX inventory preserves every capture timestamp even when several captures have identical content. Raw page captures and recovered artwork remain under ignored artifact directories. The archive retained four images from the 2003 design. The 2002 logo, background, thumbnails, full screenshots, and both 1.2.2 ZIPs are referenced by the HTML but were not retained by Wayback.

Freeware release inventory¶

Recovered packages are deliberately stored under ignored game_bins/, with their retrieval URLs, sizes, and SHA-256 hashes committed in the manifest. Two historical Reflexive installers and the independently archived 1.9.9 ZIP are preserved alongside them; the two installer versions remain undetermined rather than inferred from upload metadata.

Linked forum threads¶

The June 2002 page links to Pelit.fi thread 398570 and MuroBBS thread 118962. Neither thread has been recovered. The evidence and ignored raw artifacts are inventoried in analysis/historical/crimsonland-forum-links/.

The April 2022 MuroBBS bulk crawl does contain a record for the migrated URL /threads/118962/, but the archived response is HTTP 404 and says the thread was not found. The neighboring title-sorted CDX block contains no Crimsonland record, and public Wayback results contain no capture of the original thread ID. This makes the bulk archive evidence of a pre-crawl gap, not a recovered copy of the discussion.

Pelit.fi's public Wayback prefix and exact-URL indexes contain no capture of thread 398570. Its file catalog does independently preserve records for CLAND117.ZIP (1.1.7, 7.2 MB, 2002-05-23) and CLAND130.ZIP (1.3.0, 9.5 MB, 2002-07-24), but neither catalog record has a downloadable payload or checksum. The current Pelit forum search requires authentication, so a migrated private thread remains an open lead.

Useful behavioral evidence¶

• The 1.2.1 page describes four prototype levels unlocked by holding left Ctrl and typing LEVELS in the main menu.
• The 1.3.0 package contains seven .lvl files (level_1 through level_4, outdoors, redlight, and tolmec), while the 1.4.0 readme says level mode was disabled for that release.
• The 1.3.0 readme documents 17 weapons with two hidden weapons. The 1.4.0 readme changes that to three hidden weapons and explicitly hints that players can trace the game binary to discover them.
• Both freeware readmes say Vampyrism was disabled in 1.2.4 and later. That is stronger evidence for an otherwise missing 1.2.4 release.
• The original page names Grim 2D API for graphics, FMOD for audio, and DirectX 8.1 as a runtime requirement. It also records the early two-player shared-perk design and encrypted high-score migration.
• The 2002-12-16 announcement describes the commercial design before launch: Quest, Rush, and Survival, more than 40 perks, more than 15 weapons, and Reflexive's in-game trial purchasing system.

Preservation boundary¶

The archive is intentionally honest about gaps. A release mention or dead link is evidence that a version existed, not evidence that its package was recovered. No 1.2.2 binary, screenshot, or missing 2002 image is represented as present.