Evil Genius

Evil Genius
Evil Genius	2004
Evil Genius 2: World Domination	2021

Evil Genius is a singleplayer bird's-eye view building and RTS game in the Evil Genius series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 5 DRM.
GamersGate
GOG.com		Mac version is available once added to your library despite the store page showing Windows only and not Mac (except for a small Mac notice under the system requirements section).
Green Man Gaming
Steam
ZOOM Platform
Developer website (unavailable)

A free demo version is available from SierraHelp.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Skip Intro^[2]

Go to the configuration files location.
Open concept.cfg with a text editor.
Find the following lines and set them to these values.

StartupState=1
CopyrightScreenDuration=0

Patches

PCGamingWiki Patch

Contains all the official fixes and most tweaks, new fixes, along with the extra bonus content.

Official 1.01

The official patch for the game released by Elixir Studios.

Game data

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\DynamicResources\Config^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/3720/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\DynamicResources\Layouts\^{[Note 1]}
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/3720/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game general video settings.

In-game advanced video settings.

Graphics feature	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor		See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)	Change the Max Camera Height. See Custom camera height.
Windowed	See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed	Fixes `Alt`+`Tab ↹` crashes. When out of focus the game will appear as paused. See Borderless fullscreen windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)	See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS	No FPS cap. Performance hits are to be expected with more entities.
High dynamic range display (HDR)	See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

Widescreen resolution^{[citation needed]}

Download the Universal Resolution Changer and extract it to <path-to-game>\ReleaseExe
Open resolution.ini and set the desired values.

Notes:

A "Elixir App D3D: Genreic App Error" message may be shown on initial start-up when editing resolutions higher than 1920*1080, preventing the game from starting. This is caused by Discord, close Discord and restart the game. Discord can be opened again after the game has reached the title screen and this error disappears after first start-up and Discord can be freely used without closing it first on subsequent start-ups.^{[citation needed]}

Windowed

Through the resolution changer^{[citation needed]}
Download the Universal Resolution Changer and extract it to `<path-to-game>\ReleaseExe` Open `resolution.ini` and look for the line `Windowed`, then change it to `Windowed=1`

Input

In-game general control settings.

In-game key map settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Up to 7.1 output.^[3]
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		EAX 4
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German				See Enabling speech on the German version.
Italian
Spanish

Issues fixed

Corrupt main menu screen and missing audio

This is caused by the Windows region format setting being set to English (UK).

Crash when pushing the research button

Instructions^{[citation needed]}

Go to <path-to-game>\DynamicResources\Layouts\
Open the desired save game with a text editor.
Push Ctrl+H and in the Find field, type ResearchSubject=0 and in the Replace with field, type ResearchSubject=12008.
Click on the Replace button.
Launch the game and load the desired save game, then open the research screen and click on the door icon, located at the top.
Cancel the door research by clicking on the red icon.

Enabling speech on the German version

Instructions^{[citation needed]}

Go to the configuration files location.
Open concept.cfg.
Find the following lines and set them to these values or add them if they are missing.

[Sound]
PlayFeedback=true 
PlayNewsflashes=true

The Direct3D device has a non-zero reference

Deleteting configuration file^{[citation needed]}
Go to the configuration files location. Delete `Current.opt`. Follow the Widescreen resolution instructions in order to set up a custom resolution.

Generic Application Error

Install the DirectX 9.0c end-user runtime^{[citation needed]}

Missing grass (Windows 8)

Run the game in compatibility mode for Windows Vista.^{[citation needed]}

Playtime not being tracked (Steam)

By default, Steam only counts time while the game's launcher is active. To fix this, configure Steam to launch the actual game executable instead. Note time will nonetheless only be counted in fullscreen mode.

Name^{[citation needed]}

Open the Steam Properties of the game Evil Genius (right-clicking the icon is a common method to access the Properties).
Under Launch Options, enter the following line, but adapt if the game's actual file location is different:

/c "C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Evil Genius\ReleaseExe\EvilGeniusExeStub-Release.exe"

Other information

Enabling the developer console

Instructions^{[citation needed]}

Go to the configuration files location.
Open Default.ksb and Current.ksb with a text editor.
Add the following line near the end of the file, before the three hypens.

ToggleDebugCommands:Ctrl+D

Notes

While playing push Ctrl+D once, then press ~ or \ to open the console.

Increased Camera Zoom

Instructions^{[citation needed]}

Go to the configuration files location.
Open concept.cfg with a text editor.
Find the following line and set it to this value.

[GameCamera]
MaxHeight=65.0

Changing the default Debug.log location

By default on Windows this file is created into the main drive.

Instructions^{[citation needed]}

Go to the configuration files location.
Open concept.cfg.
Find the following line, then set it to the desired path.

Debug output log file=YourPath

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0b

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98SE	ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 800 MHz	Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.4 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 2 16 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0b compatible	Nvidia GeForce 3 64 MB of VRAM

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/3720/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (3720) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ Mac Game Update: 10 New Classic Additions - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ Intro Skip Instructions - last accessed on May 2023
↑ World Dominating Audio in Evil Genius - SoundBlaster - last accessed on May 2023

[gamedir-3] 1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[Proton_path_note-4] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/3720/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (3720) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[1] Mac Game Update: 10 New Classic Additions - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023

[2] Intro Skip Instructions - last accessed on May 2023

[5] World Dominating Audio in Evil Genius - SoundBlaster - last accessed on May 2023

[1]

[2]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[3]

Developers

	Elixir Studios
Publishers
2004-2008	Sierra Entertainment
2008-present	Rebellion Developments
Release dates
Windows	September 28, 2004
macOS (OS X)	May 9, 2013^[1]
Reception
Metacritic	75
IGDB	83
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Building, RTS
Themes	Comedy, Contemporary
Series	Evil Genius