Phantasie I, II & III dungeon viewer

[Kroah]

Hi all,

I've made a dungeon viewer for Phantasie I, II and III from my reverse engineering work on the Phantasie serie.

The utility allows you to get cell information and to execute scripts located on "green stars" (while updating the map cells accordingly). Thanks to the Reload button, you can test every choices of the scripts easily.

You'll need .NET framework 3.5. Dungeon files are joined with the utility, no need to extract them from the games.

Before releasing it, i'll need someone having already played the game to check for bugs.

Anyone interested?

[MazinKaesar]

Nice job XD

Sounds like great work! It has been a while since I've finished I and III, never did play Phantasie II.

[demoniac]

Phantasie II isn't available for the Amiga. They did make it for Atari and C64.

Cool project. Wish I had more time to help you out.

[Kroah]

Thanks for your kind words.

Even if nobody has much time testing the dungeon viewer, i'll release everything when the Phantasie section on my site will be ready. Because i don't know if i'll add my reverse engineering notes on Phantasie (depends if people are interested), i can't give any release date.

Originally Posted by demoniac

Phantasie II isn't available for the Amiga. They did make it for Atari and C64.

In fact i've never played any Phantasie game on Amiga . I can't imagine skipping an episode and playing the 3 games in a row with the same party is really exciting. So the best choice (imho) is the Atari platform.

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by Kroah

In fact i've never played any Phantasie game on Amiga . I can't imagine skipping an episode and playing the 3 games in a row with the same party is really exciting. So the best choice (imho) is the Atari platform.

I once thought about porting the Atari version over, but I never got help on finding a suitable ST emulator.

[Kroah]

Originally Posted by demoniac

I once thought about porting the Atari version over

Yes i remember some of your posts.

P2 on Atari shares about 80% of P1 code, but i don't think those remaining 20% are easy to port. The core engine of P1 evolved a little and some UI added/updated.

If P1 on Atari is almost the same as P1 on Amiga (besides disk/os access and gfx), then updating the Amiga P1 engine using P2 on Atari should be doable (both systems are 68k).

But i don't think the Phantasie community is big enough to give someone the courage to work on this (given the time it would take...), not to mention the need to have both the knowledge of Atari and Amiga systems.

Originally Posted by demoniac

but I never got help on finding a suitable ST emulator.

I'm really surprised. Steem Engine is a well-known and remarkably stable Atari emulator.
It comes with a powerful and intuitive debugger (the best i'm aware of). Compared with WinUAE debugger, it's night and day!

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by Kroah

P2 on Atari shares about 80% of P1 code, but i don't think those remaining 20% are easy to port. The core engine of P1 evolved a little and some UI added/updated.

What's interesting is that it was listed on SSI catalog that P2 was coming out on the Amiga. Not sure what happened there, but it never made it.

But i don't think the Phantasie community is big enough to give someone the courage to work on this (given the time it would take...), not to mention the need to have both the knowledge of Atari and Amiga systems.

That's the issue I have as I don't know much about the Atari side of things. However, it seems to me that the game doesn't do any tricky system specific calls. Thus the functionality should be easier to implement.

I'm really surprised. Steem Engine is a well-known and remarkably stable Atari emulator. It comes with a powerful and intuitive debugger (the best i'm aware of). Compared with WinUAE debugger, it's night and day!

I did try out Steem and another emulator to get P2 running. Only one set of P2 images worked. That's about where I left it.

Some ideas I had in order to do this would be:

After finding a working P2 Atari image, the data files would need to be ported over. I prefer to do this via emulation directly, instead of copying the Atari images to disk and then copy the files to the Amiga side. In other words, I don't want to hook up my Amiga computer just to copy the files.

The Resource disassembler would probably be used to read the Atari files on the Amiga side. I would need to familiarize with it, which could take a long time.

Overall, there are a lot of challenges that I don't want to commit to by myself.


Back to your dungeon viewer, does it require accessing old save games in order to read the maps or what?

[Kroah]

Originally Posted by demoniac

Back to your dungeon viewer, does it require accessing old save games in order to read the maps or what?

I've already extracted graphics and dungeon files from the disk images, so every needed files are included in the zip of the dungeon and sprite viewer.

As long as copyright holders don't disagree and because roms can be found everywhere on the net with a search engine, I'll put these files in the release.

I've included the Amiga, C64 and Apple II P3 dungeon files too. That was easy to make the viewer compatible with them because they differ little from the Atari version (structure is almost the same as well as data).
In fact the most painful was to extract files from the disk images. I already got WinUAE and Steem Engine for Amiga (.adf) and ST (.st) files, but i had nothing for C64 (.d64) and Apple II (.dsk).
I finally managed to extract them and I found some typos and scripts bugs fixed between versions.

[demoniac]

There's also the Atart 8-bit and DOS versions for P1 & P3, which might be easy to adapt in a future version.

If you are looking for a big challenge, there's the Japanese P4, which might not have been made by the original creator:
http://www.generation-msx.nl/msxdb/softwareinfo/1587

Handling Japanese characters would be a challenge, but .NET makes it easy.

This link shows the P4 platforms and Japanese platforms for P1-3 as well:
http://www.flickr.com/people/phantasie_98/

[Kroah]

[quote=demoniac;660417]There's also the Atart 8-bit and DOS versions for P1 & P3, which might be easy to adapt in a future version.

Originally Posted by demoniac

If you are looking for a big challenge, there's the Japanese P4, which might not have been made by the original creator:
http://www.generation-msx.nl/msxdb/softwareinfo/1587

The first time i saw P4, i thought it was a fake. What a strange version it is . Django did a partial translation of the game, but i actually never tried it (msx is not my favorite system).
Did you (or someone) played it ?

Originally Posted by demoniac

This link shows the P4 platforms and Japanese platforms for P1-3 as well:
http://www.flickr.com/people/phantasie_98/

Thanks, really nice gallery.
Do you know who did it?

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by Kroah

The first time i saw P4, i thought it was a fake. What a strange version it is . Django did a partial translation of the game, but i actually never tried it (msx is not my favorite system).
Did you (or someone) played it ?

No, I never have. There appears to be a X68000 version as well. I'm guessing this would be the best version. P4 is probably licensed from the creator and that's all.

Thanks, really nice gallery.
Do you know who did it?

Looks like a dedicated Japanese fan.

[hitchhikr]

Demoniac asked me about his project to port Phantasie II to the Amiga, i uploaded the resource's files of the PII programs (in Amiga format) + their data into the zone.

Notice that utilit2 contains debug infos which may come in handy to decode the main exe especially for the c lib which is used in both files.

[Minuous]

@Kroah:

I'd be interested in trying out your map editor. Are you planning to add wilderness editing too? that would be really cool...
I have already reverse-engineered P1&3 savegame formats (http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/rpg-form.txt) and made a character editor (http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/PCE.lha), you might be interested in them...

There appears to be a X68000 version as well. I'm guessing this would be the best version.

At over 40Mb in size, one would hope it was the best version

[Kroah]

Originally Posted by hitchhikr

Demoniac asked me about his project to port Phantasie II to the Amiga, i uploaded the resource's files of the PII programs (in Amiga format) + their data into the zone.

Notice that utilit2 contains debug infos which may come in handy to decode the main exe especially for the c lib which is used in both files.

Thank you for the files.

Did you used Resource on Amiga?

[hitchhikr]

I converted the files to Amiga executable format & used resource to disassemble them.

[Kroah]

Originally Posted by Minuous

I'd be interested in trying out your map editor. Are you planning to add wilderness editing too? that would be really cool...

This is not a map editor, but only an "enhanced" map viewer which can interpret dungeon scripts.
I could add an editing feature, but "as is" it will not be enough to make a new game. Maybe in the future if the community is big enough I'll write a gfx/map/script editdor... but i'm sceptical.

The viewer does not browse wilderness maps. I've only extracted P3 maps to PNG.

Originally Posted by Minuous

I have already reverse-engineered P1&3 savegame formats (http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/rpg-form.txt) and made a character editor (http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/PCE.lha), you might be interested in them...

Thank you. I looked at them several months ago. Nice work you did.

[Kroah]

I've opened a Phantasie section on my website (http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/).

You'll find:
- the dungeon viewer (loads P1,P2,P3 dungeons / can run "green stars" scripts)
- the sprite viewer (loads and exports .CMP, .CSH, .SET P3 files / extracts P1,P2,P3 sprites)
- P3 wilderness maps
- P1,P2,P3 extracted sprites (PNG and GIF format)

Both programs have their source code included in the zip.

Actually i haven't added any info on my reverse engineering work (monsters data, combat rules, spells, stats). I'm a bit short on time. But i could add them on demand if needed.

Have fun with Phantasie!

[Minuous]

Thank you. I looked at them several months ago. Nice work you did.

Well, I thought so but now that I have seen your site I am ashamed by comparison

Actually i haven't added any info on my reverse engineering work (monsters data, combat rules, spells, stats). I'm a bit short on time. But i could add them on demand if needed.

Well, there are some fields I missed, especially for P1, so if you have that info, I could improve the character editor.

[ghost_of_war]

Wow, nice - one of my favs back in the day.