09-05-2022, 10:36 AM
Hi bluecake!
I'm interested in the same game as you as I grew up with the JumpStart franchise.
I've also noticed that the string "COMP" in TEXT.DF is preceded by the first four characters of a place name then some unprintable chars.
So:
"Chin ... <snip> ... COMP"
In MAP.DF, in that position you instead see "P800".
In SOUND2.DF, in that position you instead see "XXXX" which is interesting because "XXXX" is also used in BOSCO.DF to mark the start of text used for the Cemetery Game.
BOSCO.DF: 0x9488A5
"XXXX ... <snip> ... The %s\14n| were a knock knock knocking"
So therefore I believe that COMP must appear at the beginning of a section of data. So "Chin ... <snip> ... COMP" could be the beginning of the section of (perhaps compressed) data for China in the Pirate Ship game.
I've also tried to decompile 4G.EXE using ghidra and saw calls to win32 API functions, but wasn't able to find where the DF files are decompressed after being opened with _lopen().
What I haven't tried is to try interpreting each set of four (4) bytes in MAP.DF, say, as a hexadecimal colour.
I'm interested in the same game as you as I grew up with the JumpStart franchise.
I've also noticed that the string "COMP" in TEXT.DF is preceded by the first four characters of a place name then some unprintable chars.
So:
"Chin ... <snip> ... COMP"
In MAP.DF, in that position you instead see "P800".
In SOUND2.DF, in that position you instead see "XXXX" which is interesting because "XXXX" is also used in BOSCO.DF to mark the start of text used for the Cemetery Game.
BOSCO.DF: 0x9488A5
"XXXX ... <snip> ... The %s\14n| were a knock knock knocking"
So therefore I believe that COMP must appear at the beginning of a section of data. So "Chin ... <snip> ... COMP" could be the beginning of the section of (perhaps compressed) data for China in the Pirate Ship game.
I've also tried to decompile 4G.EXE using ghidra and saw calls to win32 API functions, but wasn't able to find where the DF files are decompressed after being opened with _lopen().
What I haven't tried is to try interpreting each set of four (4) bytes in MAP.DF, say, as a hexadecimal colour.