Thanks, that first link was perfect and it has oxce+ included. I only had to add the usual copyrighted files and then it ran.
Man I tried out this old version of the game and it feels strange to not see enemies fishing red when hit and there is no melee attacks
If you want, you can simply copy the file HitFX-basic.rul from the current version of XCF to your ancient one. It will enable hit flashing.