Modifiying / hacking game > What to use ? >

[Noob-tech-ninja]

Hi there guys.

I've got a real urge to play Diggers.

However I want to modify/hack the game so that I can freeze the CPU characters.
So that I can dig out the entire map(s), without any CPU interfeerence at all.
I want to make it look like Fraggle Rock !!

How would I go about doing this ?

Questions:

Should I use -

1. Action Replay ?

2. Hex editor ?
2.1. If so - do you have any reccomendations for good easy to use apps

2.2. If Hex editor, what variables would I look to change to alter the game
to allow me to do this ?


I might be erring towards the hex editor, as I don't have my action replay roms available yet.


TIA for any help or advice.


Useful information:
Amiga Emulator: FS-UAE 3.0.2 (Linux)
Amiga system: CD-32 (emulated)
Game: .iso file from my original version of Diggers / Oscar, CD-ROM

PC details:
OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
OS type: 64-bit
DE: KDE 5.18.8
Kernel: 5.14.0-1051-oem
CPU: 4x Intel Core-2 Q8200 (@2.33 Ghz)
GFX: Intel HD
RAM: 8GB

[Subzero]

1st: learn how to code

[crabfists]

I would fire up an emulator with a built in debugger. Have a look around and set some breakpoints. Start disabling routines and see what stops working.

[Noob-tech-ninja]

@crabfists

Thanks for the advice, appreciated mate.

I installed a few different hex editors in Linux (most seemed to crash after a short while)
although one programme didn't

I also installed an Amiga hex editor (Deksid 2) in my emulated Amiga system
and had a poke around.

Deksid 2, didn't crash but didnt seem to have a (or a decent) search function
TBF - I only had a qick 5 min play with it, so I might be missing something obvious

Looks like I'll have to try and find roms for my Action Replay.
Or get much better at playing the actual game !

[Gernot66]

My preferred hex editor:
Mirkes TinyHexer (windoze but of course it runs using wine)
I never had any problems with it and it is the best imho, it's such good that it isn't further eveloped since decades...

Laws of Computer Programming:
1. Any given program, when running correctly, is obsolete.
2. Any given program costs more and takes longer.
3. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
4. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
5. Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.
6. The value of a program is proportional to the
weight of its output.
7. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the
programmer who must maintain it.
8. Make it possible for programmers to write programs in
English, and you will find that programmers cannot write
in English.
SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 2, # 2

To the rather serious stuff...
Why in all the world you like to hack Diggers?
The game isn't hard to play in my opinion therefore it has many things you could use which aren't needed at all.

Btw, i like the game unlike "Lemmings" what onecould claim is the paragon to a game like Diggers it is not half that fast and you can plan your actions, it leaves you a lot of time, i know not as a new player to the game.

Some strategic hints:
- Start with the easiest tribe which are the F'Targs
- Use at maximum three of your clan of five diggers this helps to keep track
of them, the other three (start with two active diggers - really it helps) try
to put continously in rest mode and consult them to hold them again take
care that they don't get bored and start to walk around planless,
apart from that they will lose their life they will most probably dig straight
downwards and cross your plans.
- do strip mining "load by load" that is best.
best is to start your i.e. three diggers time lapsed, this means start to dig a load with #1
and wait a moment, then dig the next load using #2, wait a moment dig load number
three with digger #3, that is a quite fast method as long as there are no obstacles.
soon #1 gets bored of digging tell him to go on and repeat this with #2 and #3.
then check your resting two diggers advice them to wait.
- as soon as you can afford it use the large drill this is the handiest machine of all
but keep an eye on it.
- the lift is another somewhat handy thing to have but it needs a little experience and
double care that your own diggers don't undermine your construction
- Lores & tracks are almost useless - but if you like to invest a lot of money...
- don not hunt for precious gems just go on, when you are experienced in playing
the game you can do excursions especially in later levels (means leave two
doing their job and take one to explore the map).
- avoid confrontation, even if you aren't in a really bad position with the F'Targs since
they heal themselves.
- avoid falling from on heights it will kill the diggers or at least it will harm
them which is of course less a problem with the F'Targs.
- use the transporter when you can afford it this makes the Lift and most of the other
machines obsolete (except for the large drill).
- be sleek position your transporters on high platforms if an enemy teleports to your
transporter he will fall and break his neck, while this doubles this attention for your own
diggers.
You can fall higher with the F'Targs as i remember, thus plan your action with this in mind
means, create a sort of platform-stairs for them this is a hemlock for the AI.
- if a digger starts to run because he encountered a danger (a carnivorous plant i.e.)
hold that dude up!
- in later levels take care not to let the ghosts break out of their caves no matter
how attractive the gems look to you, ghosts will fly around and most probably kill your
waiting diggers.
- use dynamite that's a cool tool, clever used you can kill enemies and monsters with it
but well take care not to kill your own diggers, don't walk off when you ignitioned dynamite - run!
- the hatch can be a handy tool...
- be sleek use the hatch and flood your enemy.
- avoid under all circumstances any "aaaaaahhrgh"

Back 2 hack...
I wouldn't even know where to start for diggers mainly because i never thought about.
What i would do instead of hacking the program is to keep track of the running process in
memory, with tiny hexer you can edit a running process (assumed the game runs emulated).
And as very very first i would use a tool like (dammit what was the name of it?)....
I forgot but i will remember i will post it later, however it's a game-genie and allows you to
keep track of changing values in mem, as usual lose lifes or energy or whatever you like to change
(the least interesting is to hack you account) or gain or do both this returns the most certain results.
Emulated you can alternatively use MAME since it has a built in "game-genie" it needs a little experience.
Look out for programs for the amiga which offer you the same to keep track of variables.

Diggers uses no savegames (?) if i remember this right but i assume it stores the turd in the non volatile memory, i will see if i can get something out of that but i can't and won't make promises
(mainly because i have completely different things up as to hack diggers but i will see... if it's not to complicated - which i assume, the non volatile mem is tiny and you will soon find this or that)

I guess not to spoil the gameplay completely i would look if it's possible to freeze party members (quasi wait forever, if allocated a value can be freezed using a game-genie) since this will give you a free hand.

enjoy hacking...
you will be the thousends dev which started out in this manner
have a look at this dude:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DavesGarage
he started in the eighties with hacking the "Tempest" coin-op, you are in good company.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Gernot66]

the good thing is dudes who started to code in this manner are usually nice dudes and do not live in the clouds or seperate themselves form players or users since they are all players and hackers themselves.

We don't boast - we laugh about that.

[Noob-tech-ninja]

@Gernot66

Thank you very much for your deatailed and indepth response.
It's much apprecaited.

[Gernot66]

Hows the ongoing?
I liked this game much even if most guess it's boring (i guess).
Besides i like the games of "Millennium", or at least another one "Global Effect" which is even more boring to most.
But what fascinated me is that you can't win the race against climatic changes you can only reach a better score and that in conflict mode there is no way to get around a complete nuclear desaster.
A drawback of it is that you spend 3/4 of the time with planting trees but well it gives one an idea how useless our effort in this direction is since we are still chopping more as we can plant (check out the situation in Java and heck for what do the kill the jungle on this island? To produce so called high quality cellulose, in other terms the shitty masks or similar things which in fact could be made of cardboard waste - i'm a fabrics technician i know it - but the problem is that won't make the speculators rich and thus we chop the Jungle for it and rob Tigers and Orang-Utans the source to live and that's not even all due to the fact that the "chinese pulp production" leaves all the waste of the trees they chopped behind Java is now ranked pos 3 as worldwide methane gas producer - a former jungle island beats industrial countries in this. It literally stinks to heaven. Oh no don't search the responsability for this in china it is our responsability, the must of the steady raising dividend for shareholders and damned how many play this "game" on their machines and aren't aware that the kill our world by this. Industry would go a different path and would have the brains for it but we don't decide where we head to, the shareholders decide - So far to the real Global Effect).

To monitoring a process i will keep you updated there are quite many utilities out there you can use for this on the amiga and i first have to peep in some.
That might be a hard way to reach what you like but on the other hand it isn't that hard once you understood how that works.

Personally i like if i can lift ppl, it was as long as i co-developed Pioneer one of my specialities apart from modelling - being the good soul in the project and i might not be as good but you can never know who turns out to be really good. I guess i'm quite good in modelling else rather a little one, quite good means since i'm european i match easier our imagination, i differ clearly also since i started in a different manner as most other from on my first steps i liked to do it verticle by verticle which is nowadays a very uncommon way and my special pilot friend from scotland is still convinced that #1 is the best i ever made, she pushed that Courier everywhere on the web to advertise for Pioneer. I differ also because i'm a sort of link in my understanding to make models for games since i know a llittle how the internals work which many leak of.
A further reason is divorce you have to invent yourself new, i was near to give myself up hided from all but i had this old Siemens Laptop and the disassembly of Theunis de Jong "objects in Frontier". Time i had more as enough and i learned how to change the models in this old game. And well that might be the final reason why i touched the heart of some old fans of this game, i'm more as just close to and my very first ones (apart from the Courier) was exact clones of the originals - after the Courier, this i made when i still was married at this time i started to have interest in modelling, i had this CarCAD for NFS4 and i liked to do something with it i found this patch to make a "space race" out of NFS4 and right on commander let's put some Frontier stuff in it. Right then i also downloaded the stuff from Theunis but haven't had the time to examine it.

And still most time i use my imagination and hack the coordinates in a sheet.

Though for all the fans of this game and some who might recognize me by this:

Keep in mind that this isn't the output of a CAD it is scripted geometry, sure the program helps me but it has strong limitations. Coordinates still match the originals but for this release i made a couple of years ago i used a lot of bezier shapes to replace the crude look of the originals. Also i can only project a mesh on a texture and there is no way to unweald it.
The only reason that i sometimes convert them to a solid mesh is calculating time, the scripts are a little bit slower handled (even if the game itself converts it to a solid mesh before it can use it). It's not that i didn't like to work with a CAD but this is a somewhat higher challenge and sometimes i needed weeks to get a solution since i had no one i could refere to except to look at the old masters of this art and to dig for very old resources.
Mainly an animation for a model i imported from FFED3D to Pioneer, i liked to have the exact animation of the landig gear of this very fine if not best ever created for FFED3D. But heck how to achieve this where to start which part i have to rotate first and most of all how can i link all that in a script though that one drags the other behind itself. Using a CAD and setting up a matrix animation for it is a game compared to this and to be honest i would have to examine this old script to know exactly how i did it back then. The Frickin' thing is a scripted animation is mechanically true there is no way to cheat like for matrix animation either a conrod works or it fails, no correction possible. The decision of our later devs to use collada pushed me out i never understood their decision, collada is unsuitable for a game it's for architecture and mostly for presentations. Since it is in principles html format the way i can animate things are even more limited as what i can reach in a script since this is up to me and not bound to the stiff way of collada.
Their answer was "who needs animated landing gears" well i guess the players like it. "who needs exchangeable visible antennas and such things" well i guess the players appreciate it. "Who needs pilotesses with mega-boops" well i guess... you name it. Gosh yes sure the game would work the same if you fly around in space in a bare box, but that has no appeal and it is far from being sexy.

Looks like i'm somewhat bored, hm?
Sometimes i need that, i like to stress my mind but sometimes it sehz "no not today". Then i hang around in web and post all this long texts i'm famous for.

[Gernot66]

We had a mac and a linux port of Pioneer but well no one thought of the Amiga, but as i see it now while i'm diggin through all that it could have worked for modern Amiga. Perhaps but promises i can't made in principles some dudes still wait for my return. That is Pioneer (Phoenix for my derivative) and all the friends i made on Atari Age (Intellivision related). But i can't do all at once and have to concentrate on one thing and then i can step to the other and such could take a year or two.
Sure it would be supercool to bring back Frontier to the system it was (partwisely) developed on.

[Dan]

@op: on windows, the Cheatengine is nice even for the emulated games.

Idk if there is something similar for linux ...