Club Penguin DS & Wii Ripping Project - Operation: Preservation

[Kurabupengin]

Welcome the thread for Operation: Preservation. A preservation project for the Club Penguin Nintendo Trilogy, consisting of Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force and Club Penguin: Herbert's Revenge for the Nintendo DS and Club Penguin: Game Day! for the Nintendo Wii.

Note: This thread rework is still in a very WIP state, so there's still quite a bit of stuff left to cover, but I'll cover the basics first:

The DS games for many years were very difficult to rip, due to how they were made and lack of documentation for how to view the game's internal files. Everything changed in September of 2020, when Olivercomet created EPFExplorer, a tool made specifically to access, view and rip the assets such as sprites for both games.
Download EPFExplorer right here: https://github.com/Olivercomet/EPFExplorer
You'll need tinke to extract the core files first: https://github.com/pleonex/tinke

Currently this is the list of sprites needed to rip for the Original EPF:

• Most of the other Misc. characters
  
• Map with Icons and Player and Puffle sprites.
  
• Background Elements
  
• General UI & HUD Elements
  
• All of the 6 Minigames w/ their backgrounds and level layouts (has multiple palettes for the avatar)
  
• All of the short Microgames w/ their sprites and backgrounds (the short puzzle sections. They're labeled as "microgames" in the game's code.)
  
• Player Card and Icons (has multiple palettes for the avatar)
  
• Fonts & Dialogue Boxes
  
• Inventory Items, Gadgets and Clothing Icons (including DLC)
  
• Cursors
  
• Company Logos and Title screen
  
• Rest of the remaining Locations
  
• Cutscene sprites and large images
  
• Lots of Unused Content
  
• Newsletter DLC Content (Most of them currently lost media).
  

Currently this is the list of sprites needed to rip for Herbert's Revenge:

• Most of the Misc. characters
  
• Map with Icons and Player and Puffle sprites.
  
• Locations with their respective background elements.
  
• Player Card and Icons (has multiple palettes for the avatar)
  
• General UI and HUD elements
  
• All of the 4 Minigames w/ their background and level layouts (has multiple palettes for the avatar)
  
• All of the short Microgames w/ their sprites and backgrounds (the short puzzle sections. They're labeled as "microgames" in the game's code.)
  
• Inventory Items, Gadgets and Clothing Icons
  
• Cutscene sprites and large images
  
• Lots of Unused Content
  

As for Game Day!, extract the files using Dolphin emulator, then you can easily rip the sprites and models by decompressing the .cmparc and .cmpres files using the ntcompress program (you'll have to rename the .bin to the proper formats respectively), then opening the .arc and .brres files in Brawlbox.
Brawlbox link: https://github.com/libertyernie/brawltools/releases

Currently, the list of stuff left to rip for this game is... pretty much everything. Including:

• Most 2D graphics, UI elements, the works.
  
• Most of the 3D models and assets.
  
• All of the sound effects.
  
• All of the unused content.
  

If there's anyone interested in helping out, please let me know by replying on this thread, or PMing me over here.

I even made a video to announce this project if you wanna check that out:


Thank you so much for your time. Waddle On!

[Kurabupengin]

Can I ask for help?

[puggsoy]

Could you upload a couple of the aforementioned .arc and .bin files?

[Kurabupengin]

Am I allowed to do that?
Ok, here's the link I guess: 
http://www.mediafire.com/download/r345jq...sfiles.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/download/1qav5w...files2.zip

The first link is for Herbert's Revenge, the sequel. The second link is for the original Elite Penguin Force. I hope you can figure out what they are... thank you.

[Kurabupengin]

Ok, can somebody please check if theres something interesting by checking the .arc files I send by using Tile Molester? I've seen to find somthing, but I'm not sure.

[Kurabupengin]

For future reference:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/open-the-arc...er.209708/
http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10134

Tried to use FreeArc, but it won't let me open it because it says it doesn't have a signature. It has CRC SHA info which you can see with 7zip, however.

[chesse20]

You could do what the devs for doom 1 did and just take pictures of what you are trying to rip and then draw pixel art over the picture. wont be 100% perfect but will still look nice

[Kurabupengin]

After such a long time of me making no progress, I finally make some progress.
Thank you tinke devs for making these games compatible

[Kurabupengin]

Ok so a HUGE development has been made.
User Olivercomet on the Club Penguin Speedrunning Discord has managed to make a tool to extract and view files from both DS games!
The tool is called EPFExplorer.
With a new update, we can now view the sprites as well after all these years!

[Kurabupengin]

Ok so a HUGE development has been made.
User Olivercomet on the Club Penguin Speedrunning Discord has managed to make a tool to extract and view files from both DS games!
The tool is called EPFExplorer.
With a new update, we can now view the sprites as well after all these years!

Here's the most recent version of EPFExplorer: https://github.com/Olivercomet/EPFExplorer


Here's all the features so far:

• Opening and editing .ARC archives (Both EPF and HR)
  
• Opening and editing .RDT resource data files (EPF. HR is viewing/exporting only.
  
• Exporting sprites to PNG sequence, GIF, or (for folders) sprite sheets.
  
• Opening and editing TSB/MPB tiled images. (Both EPF and HR)
  
• Exporting and reimporting Lua scripts.
  
• Editing save files. (Both EPF and HR)
  
• Dumping audio clips to .wav (PCM or ADPCM format wav, openable if FFMPEG is installed)
  
• Exporting and replacing music tracks in .XM format, with all sample data
  
• Opening and editing the game's DLC mission (download.arc)
  
  

The music replacing also currently has issues with some tracks (e.g. Dojo and Gadget Room, among others)



You'll need to use something like tinke to extract the core files from the ROM.



If you want to help out with organizing everything for sprite sheets, please let me know.

[Kurabupengin]

Just updated the opening post with a complete overhaul. The project is now called Operation: Preservation! (just like an epf mission lol)

Please let me know if you're interested in helping out.