Chaos Engine level viewer

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by Qube

As for the Ami CE demo, virtually all files are RNC'd, I'm guessing they can be unpacked etc for inspection. I guess the Bitmaps were more protective this time with their demo release..

Thats cool the CD32 version of CE very few files are RNC`d
Just for a test ive been able to edit Graphic Tiles and Move them about.

:The tiles are Raw Inter 16*16 4 Bitplanes - all 16 *16 tiles are stored in one file LEV1BAK.BIN

[Dastardly]

Originally Posted by jotd

you'll have to wait for the CE remake, and even more for the custom levels !!!
You've got work to do finding all secret stuff of the custom Gods levels

Very true. On your custom levels, I cant even figure out how to access that secret area on level 1 - world 1 first screen!! (above your head as you start).

either:

1. I'm nowhere near as good at these games as I used to be (I beat the original Gods)
or
2. This version is a LOT more difficult.

(I choose to believe it's 2)

[Qube]

Originally Posted by Dastardly

Very true. On your custom levels, I cant even figure out how to access that secret area on level 1 - world 1 first screen!! (above your head as you start).

either:

1. I'm nowhere near as good at these games as I used to be (I beat the original Gods)
or
2. This version is a LOT more difficult.

(I choose to believe it's 2)

Howdy, don't take the weapon, head up the stairs to the right, the left passage will open for ya

Some good stuff in the custom levels, the new 3rd one is tough but a good challenge too!

Q;

[Dastardly]

Originally Posted by Qube

Howdy, don't take the weapon, head up the stairs to the right, the left passage will open for ya

Strange. I'm sure I remember trying that because the hint along the bottom of the screen says something that made me try it. Not sure what happened then.

[Qube]

Originally Posted by Dastardly

Strange. I'm sure I remember trying that because the hint along the bottom of the screen says something that made me try it. Not sure what happened then.

Ye, the trigger is to walk to the stairs, then it will open.

If anybody knows how to open the 2nd secret that would be great to know, I think it's a timed event. But even with the shortcut teleport I still can't figure it lol. Good stuff all round.

Q;

[jotd]

Hi Guys,


I'm really delighted to see that some ppl try to solve the puzzles of the new levels / discuss them in the forums. That's exactly why I started to remake this game 2 years ago.

For the 2nd secret, I have lowered the difficulty recently since I could not reach it myself . First you had to solve the first & second puzzles in world 1, and reach the area in 140 seconds. Now you have to reach the area in 120 seconds but no need to solve the first puzzle (reward for the pain). There's a hidden chest to find. Find it, reach the end of the level quickly and the secret is yours

If you use the shortcut, then it does not work (like in the original Gods l1w1). The layout of this one is very similar.

That's true that my new levels are very difficult, but 1) I have made them easier in the new version and 2) people who played Gods during 15 years know it by heart so their opinion is biased 3) only Gods veterans are interested by new levels so I guess this is OK

Now I can beat level 1 with 6-7 lives in the end. My levels are generally bigger and hold more secrets than the original game. The drawback is if you miss a lot of secrets the game will be supertough as you won't have enough money/lives/firepower to complete it.

I'll create a complete walkthrough with all secrets, but I'm giving this time, you'll enjoy it better if you play more You can also check the Java code & level editor (that technically would be cheating but someone already did it because he could not figure out how to open the prison cell in level 3. Apparently not a Cadaver-puzzle fan )

BTW I recently played Chaos Engine to check some stuff and I got killed before w3 of level 1!!!! (I was not very careful but still!!)

Edit 1: I have checked Gods files (PC & Amiga) they look similar. Demo LEVEL1A.MAP does not seem packed and look similar to the LEVEL1A.CUT file once unpacked (went through whdload slave to check that). Still no clue about the internal structure. I'm sure it's a custom packer or a RNC-like packer without the header. Cadaver PC version uses another packer (MJM).


Edit 2: we should rename this thread to "random babble about Bitmap Bros stuff"

[Dastardly]

Originally Posted by jotd

Edit 2: we should rename this thread to "random babble about Bitmap Bros stuff"

Heh, that's all I do anyway

[Qube]

Ye the Cadaver packer, MJM, is Mike's own packer I think, from memory they coded Cadaver themselves while Assembly Line did the X2 asm. MJM = Michael John Montgomery.

Q;

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Qube

Ye the Cadaver packer, MJM, is Mike's own packer I think, from memory they coded Cadaver themselves while Assembly Line did the X2 asm. MJM = Michael John Montgomery.

Q;

you're right. But do you have some info about this packer? any source? even 68k or intel?
Some guy round 2001-2002 could decrunch the data and wanted to do a remake. I guess it needed more than decrunching (even if it is necessary since gfxrip does not work very well on this game)

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by jotd

Edit 2: we should rename this thread to "random babble about Bitmap Bros stuff"

Well its a good subject and youve proven how gods has stood the test of time.

Do you have the graphics dimentions for Gods to rip with GFXRip Please?
Have you tried ripping the graphics from the gods demo files with GFXRip.

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

Well its a good subject and youve proven how gods has stood the test of time.

Do you have the graphics dimentions for Gods to rip with GFXRip Please?
Have you tried ripping the graphics from the gods demo files with GFXRip.

I don't. Mavado did the work. You can check the related thread or grab the whole gfx in the drawer "tiles/1x" of my remake.

I did not try that, but the files are packed, so it would be difficult. Anyway, there are a few different graphics not present in the original game: an axe, a knife (items hanging on a wall) and a very ugly platform that reminds me of Cannon Fodder 2 alien levels You can rip them directly with WinUAE, it's no big deal. What would interest me more is the level layout.

[Qube]

Originally Posted by jotd

you're right. But do you have some info about this packer? any source? even 68k or intel?
Some guy round 2001-2002 could decrunch the data and wanted to do a remake. I guess it needed more than decrunching (even if it is necessary since gfxrip does not work very well on this game)

Howdy, I don't have any more info on the Cadaver packer really. I found it listed on some amiga packer ID site as being PKWare DCL.. do a search for "mjm1"..

http://www.amiga-stuff.com/crunchers-id.html

So I'm assuming they just used PKWare to crunch it and maybe created a custom header or something, it's a complete unknown. I guess somebody could try debugging the game as it runs in DosBox to see how it unpacks etc, complex task.

The Ami Cadaver demo games seem to be single file jobs which decrunch in mem etc. So a UAE mem rip is probably your best bet to get the original map files etc for that, if you can find them, since the game is iso-3D, the tilemaps will not be so obvious when viewing the mem, could be tough. Or unpack the demo single files and get to what's inside..?

As for the Gods tilemap data etc, well I don't know much more about that, I guess somebody could try finding the tilemaps in mem using UAE dumps to get the uncrunched data, or somehow debug Gods to find the decrunch routine and unpack the files from the disk, all very complex stuff. Bizarrely the PC Gods files include UNPACK.EXE which may be something, there seems to be no way to use this directly, so perhaps it is called to decrunch the data on the fly somehow.. The map files appear to be on Amiga disk 2 in the WHD set, some NDOS affair, but hex editing shows their names, so perhaps they are extractable somehow into files (you may have already done this).. As for their structure/format, it's a mystery, would need close inspection and guesswork.. oh joy,..

Reverse-Engineering eh, no greater challenge

[jotd]

Qube is right, MJM files are basically PKWARE DCL files (00 06 is a valid PKWARE DCL id) with MJM1 inserted before.
Gods PC version has files like this (without the MJM header).

I've downloaded & compiled dynamite (which allows to unpack those files) using Cygwin (not mingw: it crashes). I guess VC++ would have been ok.

I'm now able to DECRUNCH FILES FROM GODS & CADAVER PC oh my!! So big thanks to Qube for the MJM link. The compression format has been reverse engineered in 2001 (fortunately for us!!).

For Gods files:

dynamite PLEV1A.DAT LEV1A.DAT

For Cadaver MJM1 files

dynamite ENG1.LNG ENG1.LNG_unp 4

the Gods map files seem to be good. The Cadaver language files do not contain ASCII, tough luck.
BUT other files contain gfx data (i see swords, switches,... using gfxrip). But I'm afraid that the gfx data does not have the same size so it's tough to rip using gfxrip.

I'm putting the dynamite unpacker source & cygwin exe (needs cygwin1.dll, but I include it) on my website:

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jotd/sof..._pc_unpack.zip

[Qube]

Good find Jotd,

Having briefly compared the unpacked PC's LEV1A.MAP file to the contents of an uncompressed Ami/UAE memory dump (save state) file in a hex editor, side by side, it seems the tilemap is contained at the start of the PC's LEV1A.MAP file, offset 0-16FF. That section is identical between the PC's LEV1A.MAP file and the Ami/UAE memory dump (you can find the same hex series etc) (I also did a CRC32 on the two rips to check, checked out OK).

The rest of the data within the PC's LEV1A.MAP file seems to be other stuff, different to the Ami/UAE memory dump, or the Ami/UAE memory dump has the data at other locations. So I think we can assume the tilemaps to be identical between both versions, therefore the PC's map files are probably good to use for further work without worrying too much about having to extract the Amiga tilemaps.

To think Gods is nearly 18 years old and is still a puzzling game in all respects

Q;

[jotd]

Good work! I like when we reach the point where the data is the same across platforms.
Although Gods levels are 4096x1024 with tiles 32x16: tile information (uncompressed) should cover 0x2000 bytes. If I remove the first bytes of the uncompressed files (until 0xd) I get 0x2000 bytes of tile data and it seems to match (the correct number of 0xd which means "sky" then the correct number of roof tiles, then sky... you clearly see the platforms in the hexeditor too). The LEV1B.MAP is very similar to the LEV1A.MAP files but with other values sometimes. Puzzling.

In level 2, the boss room (missing from HOL map BTW) overlays the bonus room (where you collect the giant jump). It's the same coordinates on the map (each location of the 4096x1024 image is used so they have to reuse some space for the boss). On my remake, I had to make the image wider. I wonder how they handle this.

I'm mostly interested by:

1) tiledata for demo version (seems not compressed)
2) bonus/monsters locations for all levels: they are located around offset 0x4000: structure of 6 bytes with x,y (pixel-perfect coordinates) and then item code. Only static (created & visible when the level starts) objects appear here: visible bonuses, spikes, bats... Other bonuses and monsters are nowhere to be found. Bummer! maybe they're code driven or in another table but I did not find them.

[zenox98]

Just had to say 'Well done' guys - fascinating stuff

[Qube]

Yes it seems LEV1A.MAP and LEV1B.MAP seem similar, with only certain bytes or groups of bytes altered.. perhaps one is layered on top of the other, or perhaps one stores data referenced or changed from the other, its a right puzzle.

I was just trying to find the hex series for the demo LEV1A.CUT file in a UAE mem dump of actually running the demo, and I can't find a match, so I'm gonna guess here that the CUT file is actually compressed or scrambled in some way. I've yet to find the location of the map data within the demo mem dump, it's there somewhere, just hiding..

They may have changed the format of the map data from the demo to the full game, or changed the values etc, very possible.. I don't seem to be able to find any long 0x0D sky byte series in the demo mem dump, weird and confusing..

Q;

[jotd]

Same here (worked on the PC version and in the unpacked LEV1A.CUT file). As you noted, there's a "C" prefix on all files instead of "P". I think the tilemap block in the file is packed. Strange, as other information such as walls & item info seems very similar to the ones found in the final game.
Also there is no LEV1B.CUT file !

[Raislin77it]

today, surfing the internet i've found this page
http://www.amiga-stuff.com/decrunchers.html

at the end of the page there are :

These programs need KickStart 2 or higher and can only be used from the CLI. Start them with the arguments <Infile> <Outfile>.
Warning: these programs should only be used to decrunch files that are known to be crunched in the format the program understands. If this is not the case, the program may crash, corrupt memory, cause enforcer hits, etc.
All these programs are Copyright © 2000 Ronald van Dijk - All rights reserved. It is only allowed to download a copy from this website. Do not spread these programs in any other way.
CadaverDecrunch 30.2Decrunches files from the game Cadaver.
GodsDecrunch 30.1Decrunches files from the game Gods.

maybe this tools are usefull

[Qube]

Neat find Raislin77it,

Are you able to run the tool GodsDecrunch tool?, it doesn't come with any docs, so it's difficult to see what files it works against. I did just crash workbench when running it against one of the demo files, other times it responds with Failed returncode 20.. Bizarre tool..

The website says it only runs against files which are known to be compressed with a certain method, but doesn't say which files etc. If it's referring to the full game, then perhaps it implies that somebody ripped out all the files at some point.. Was there a file-based HD install for Ami Gods ever, or just the disk image WHD slave?..

Maybe a JST or earlier HD installer exists which would be of assistance to all this...?.. Edit: answered my own question lol, will try it!

http://home.wanadoo.nl/robertoh/g.html

Many thanks,

Q;