I'm in the process of trying to get technical information about the MADS engine.
For those who don't know, the game engine was created by Microprose in the early 90's and later sold to Sanctuary Woods. It was used by Microprose for Rex Nebular, Return of the Phantom, and Dragonsphere. Sanctuary Woods used it for Ripley's, and Orion Burger. Parts of it may have been used for Bloodnet, and it used the same encryption as Colonization.
I am working on writing a source code request letter to Atari/Infogrames (they own the rights to most non-Sid Microprose titles). If I get permission, I'll then start contacting members of the various development teams, to see if anyone still has any of the code.
I have been working on reverse engineering Rex Nebular's mainmenu.exe to see how it loads data files, and to see if I can find out how the compression works. The compression is still stumping me, and since I haven't found any helpful information on the internet I figured I should start asking.
By searching the forum, all I found was:
"An engine for MicroProse adventure games. I heard Cyxdown attempted to document the engine and experimented a bit. Games like Rex Nebular and one Star Trek game seems interesting." The Madventurer 31 May 2006
I do not know Cyxdown, and his site doesn't mention anything about these games. Any useful information would be helpful.
Thanks, in advance
Microprose adventure information request
Moderator: ScummVM Team
Re: Microprose adventure information request
Are you sure about that? AFAIK, the engine used by Ripley's and Orion Burger was called M4, and it was used just for those 2 games.zaxxon4 wrote:For those who don't know, the game engine was created by Microprose in the early 90's and later sold to Sanctuary Woods. It was used by Microprose for Rex Nebular, Return of the Phantom, and Dragonsphere. Sanctuary Woods used it for Ripley's, and Orion Burger. Parts of it may have been used for Bloodnet, and it used the same encryption as Colonization.
Eugene
Re: Microprose adventure information request
Hmmm... Just checked Return of the Phantom and it is definitely same engine. That's really interesting.sev wrote: Are you sure about that? AFAIK, the engine used by Ripley's and Orion Burger was called M4, and it was used just for those 2 games.
Eugene
This link gives a good clue.john_doe wrote:Yes, it's the same engine. I completely forgot to mail this to you, sev
Eugene
I've uploaded some of my MADS code.
It can be downloaded from http://gamefileformats.the-underdogs.in ... ads-12.rar
It's more than cyx's but don't expect anything great, it's quite unfinished obviously.
At least it has the decompression.
It can be downloaded from http://gamefileformats.the-underdogs.in ... ads-12.rar
It's more than cyx's but don't expect anything great, it's quite unfinished obviously.
At least it has the decompression.
I have been notified about this interesting thread just now.
I have tried to develop a tool on my own, some time ago, with the purpose of translating mads adventure games into italian language, for the italian adventure games translation team IAGTG. (For reference: http://www.iagtg.net , http://www.oldgamesitalia.com/forum/ind ... owforum=66)
As a matter of fact, though this tool (Delphi code) is just in a "scaffolding" state and it is far from being considered "complete", dialogs and descriptions texts can already be modified and resource files can be rewritten accordantly.
About the text compression algorithm, I found out a considerable help in this link (special thanks go to Dorian Gray)
where you can find the decompression C source code routine.
Hope this can help you too.
Please, feel free to contact me for further information, I shall be glad to share knowledge compatibly with my real life, of course.
Regards,
Alberto
I have tried to develop a tool on my own, some time ago, with the purpose of translating mads adventure games into italian language, for the italian adventure games translation team IAGTG. (For reference: http://www.iagtg.net , http://www.oldgamesitalia.com/forum/ind ... owforum=66)
As a matter of fact, though this tool (Delphi code) is just in a "scaffolding" state and it is far from being considered "complete", dialogs and descriptions texts can already be modified and resource files can be rewritten accordantly.
About the text compression algorithm, I found out a considerable help in this link (special thanks go to Dorian Gray)
where you can find the decompression C source code routine.
Hope this can help you too.
Please, feel free to contact me for further information, I shall be glad to share knowledge compatibly with my real life, of course.
Regards,
Alberto
http://web.archive.org/web/200512231859 ... 030803.zip
There is the file for historical reasons. I don't know why cyxdown deleted it.
There is the file for historical reasons. I don't know why cyxdown deleted it.
the file is there, but I think lycos checks the referrer to thwart leeching - go to http://membres.lycos.fr/cyxdown/stuff/ and manually download it, that worked for me...The Madventurer wrote:I don't know why cyxdown deleted it.
also, afaik his name is cyx, not cyxdown
(at least according to http://www.scummvm.org/credits.php )clem
