Topics

1

Everything-Else / Nintendo Gigaleak Reveals They Wanted To Hire a 3DS Hacker

« on: December 22, 2020, 12:26:05 PM »

It seems like Nintendo can't catch a break. A series of tweets with the highlights can be found here.

Mighty shady of them to extort a homebrew hacker in this way, and to even have a PR plan in place in case word of this got out.

Then again, it's not unusual for companies to sometimes hire members of the modding community to do official projects...

Obviously, it's not a good idea to link to any of these files here; I prefer not to know. Let's just say that they're out there, and leave it at that.

2

SCI Syntax Help / Converting sciAudio to Sierra Script

« on: June 22, 2020, 06:55:11 PM »

I have taken the liberty of converting the sciAudio script to Sierra Script. Here is a basic game that serves one purpose only: test a sound then quit.

It's in both SCI0 and SCI01 form.

And no changes to the actual sciAudio program were needed.

6/24/2020 EDIT: Both AudTests work correctly now! I changed msgBuf from a local variable into a temp variable. Also, sciAudio is now an instance of Object (if no superclass is given, it's an instance of RootObj)

3

SCI Development Tools / QFG2 Decompilation

« on: March 14, 2019, 08:27:59 PM »

Here is my decompile of QFG2, version 1.105!
Everything compiles without error, and the debug mode is activated at startup -- this is made simple by changing the suckBlueFrog global to TRUE in script 2's SetGraphicsSoundInit procedure. The SetGameInit procedure actually has code for a preset Hero in this case, obviously intended to be used by QA. That also explains why the teleport function has Intro, New Hero, and Import buttons as well as the ability to set the day and time.

Now, while everything compiles without error, bugs abound throughout the game, especially after restoring a saved game. That's why the archive also has the interpreter from The Seasoned Professional, and a batch file that starts the interpreter with the -d parameter. Also, after compiling, it's a good idea to rebuild the resources to ensure that the newly-compiled scripts are used.

Two of the scripts I know to be buggy are 2 (QG2Events) and 23 (Talker). Maybe it's a decompilation error.

4

SCI Development Tools / Early doVerb functionality in SCI01

« on: March 10, 2019, 09:50:29 PM »

So I discovered something interesting in QFG2, KQ1SCI, and the Seasoned Professional. It's some evidence of an early point-and-click interface.
The following verbs are featured in script 950 (FEATURE.SC):
Look
Open
Close
Smell
Move
Eat
Get
Climb
Talk

Was Sierra originally going to use a LucasArts-style GUI? Many of them were merged into a single "Do" verb.
I know QFG2 regularly uses this early doVerb method, possibly forwarding parser commands to this.

5

SCI Development Tools / SCI1.0 Template Game

« on: January 28, 2019, 08:53:59 PM »

Here is my prototype of a SCI1.0 template game. It was built on top of Ms. Astro Chicken, believe it or not. That's because that game is really just a stripped down version of SQ4. With that, it was fairly simple to fully re-enable the icon bar and control panel.

Feel free to make additions, changes, and bug fixes. After all, that's why it's on Github in the first place.

6

SCI Development Tools / SCI01 Template Game

« on: November 26, 2018, 10:21:07 PM »

After a bit of work, here is my SCI01 template game!
I based it off the QFG2 demo, and used the interpreter from the EGA 1990 Christmas Card.

The choice of the interpreter was an important one - it's the last pre-1991 interpreter, and still has its internal debugger on top of that!

11/27/2018 EDIT: I solved the problem with the game not recognizing new words -- SCI Companion thought the parser vocab was 000 instead of 900. To fix this, I went into the version detector and set the parser vocab to 900. Now it recognizes new words!

1/16/2019 UPDATE: The template is now on Github! From now on, you can get it there and make updates to it.
TODO
Work on R44Q SCI01 remake (I can do the scripting, but I can't do the graphics all that well).

7

SCI Development Tools / System Logger found in QFG1VGA

« on: November 08, 2018, 08:49:56 PM »

Well, it turns out the original system logger is still intact in QFG1VGA. To access it, delete or rename 952.scr and 952.hep (these are dummy files meant to disable the logger). During gameplay, press Alt-N to bring up the logger.

It seems that this was supposed to be removed for shipping, but Sierra made a mistake and left the key combination in the Main script.

Code: [Select]

(KEY_ALT_n
((ScriptID 952) doit: @sysLogPath 0)
(return (pEvent claimed: 1))
Here is some output:

Code: [Select]

           GAME: Glory
        VERSION: 2.000
        QA-DATE: 11/08/118
        ANALYST: EO
       SEVERITY: S
    QA-COMMENT1: This is a test of the hidden System Logger found in QFG1VGA.
    QA-COMMENT2:
    QA-COMMENT3:
    QA-COMMENT4:
    QA-COMMENT5:
    QA-COMMENT6:
    QA-COMMENT7:
    QA-COMMENT8:
    QA-COMMENT9:
   QA-COMMENT10:
     DEPARTMENT: P
           ROOM: 300
    ROOM-SCRIPT: sEnter
     ROOM-STATE: 2
          EGO-X: 237
          EGO-Y: 181
          EGO-Z: 0
     EGO-SCRIPT:
      EGO-STATE: 0
       EGO-VIEW: 4
       EGO-LOOP: 6
        EGO-CEL: 0
   EGO-PRIORITY: 14
    EGO-HEADING: 45
         CYCLER: StopWalk
      EGO-MOVER:
        MOVER-X: 0
        MOVER-Y: 0
    EGO-MOVESPD: 6
    SIGNAL-BITS: 3002
   ILLEGAL-BITS: 8000
        HOWFAST: 3
        ICONBAR: mainIconBar
       CUR-ICON: iconTalk
   DETAIL-LEVEL: 3
       CD-AUDIO: 0
      VIDEO-DRV: VGA320
      SOUND-DRV: ADL
      AUDIO-DRV: AUDBLAST
   KEYBOARD-DRV: IBMKBD
        JOY-DRV: NO
          MOUSE: STDMOUSE
   LARGEST-HEAP: 12782
      FREE-HEAP: 12910
     TOTAL-HUNK: 294
   LARGEST-HUNK: 31824
      FREE-HUNK: 37
**********************************


8

SCI Development Tools / QFG1 Event Flags, Procedures, and Variables

« on: September 14, 2017, 12:20:33 PM »

After a bunch of work digging through the decompiled scripts of QFG1EGA, I was able to put together a few lists of variables, procedures, and event flags relating to the game. Some of the flags and variables are specific to QFG1VGA, and are noted as such.

9/30/2018 UPDATE: Thanks to Charles' work on the scripts here, I now have more complete and accurate lists! Also, there is now an extensive list of procedures and global variables for QFG1VGA.