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Author Topic: Cannon Fodder remake - WE NEED HELP!  (Read 18215 times)

Offline darkestaxe

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Re: Cannon Fodder remake - WE NEED HELP!
« Reply #15 on: May 08, 2013, 12:20:34 am »
A lot of old games just had entirely too many untar'd files, so sometimes developers will lump em all in a archive of some type and change the extension to .dat so that noobs leave em alone instead of unzipping them. I tried 7zip ... no luck.

Looks like the header to an archive to me. If I made an archive I would want a list of the files contained at the beginning with index values to where each files data starts.

Whatever archive format was used probably wasn't an old DOS/Amiga era format since the archive change is more recent, possibly GOGs work, so you probably wanna go talk to some people who specialize in stuff like archive formats etc.

At any rate from what it sounds like all versions are probably using the exact same format and you can probably load them all with the port code you already have, once you can open the archive.

Offline eljohnno

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Re: Cannon Fodder remake - WE NEED HELP!
« Reply #16 on: June 02, 2013, 05:16:52 pm »
the file format of the cf_eng.dat actually isn't very difficult.

The first long is the total header chunk size, in this case 0x156F
The file entries are parsed as:
1 byte: string length
x bytes: string (filename)
1 long: offset in the file
1 long: length of the data part (filesize)
and so on

so first record is:
Filename: INT26.VOC
Offset: 0x156F
Filesize: 0xCF7

second file:
Filename: MOR28.VOC
Offset: 0x2266
Filesize: 0xB79

and so on

Offline GhostlyDeath

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Re: Cannon Fodder remake - WE NEED HELP!
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2013, 11:07:15 pm »
My apologies if a 10 day bump is against forum rules.

Hello folks.

Many of the retrogamers around here may be familiar with Sensible Software's wonderful wargame Cannon Fodder. We've recently secured the source code of an unofficial SDL fan-port made for the nintendo wii by Foxysofts, and while the gameplay code seems to be all neat and tight, this port unfortunately uses sprite and music rips and includes them directly within the package, which is borderline illegal, considering the game is still being actively sold on Good Old Games.

I've been collaborating with some of the folks of the GCW Zero crew, who have shown interest in using this code to create a universal open source port that would work with the original and legally acquired gamedata the same way OpenXcom does, in order to have it run both on their handheld and practically every other device imaginable. The problem is, we're having trouble reverse engineering the original PC data which all appears to be stored in some sort of compressed .dat file.

Given the general enthusiasm for retrogaming in this board, we were wondering if anyone would like to give us a hand with this task. We need to know how we can incorporate the original Cannon Fodder data with this engine so we're able to deliver a universal port. Would anyone around here be interested in helping us?

I accidently stumbled across this post in a Google search of similar topic. I decided to follow said link and saw your name. I remember your name because I saw that you joined GCW channel and I thought that was a strange name. In either case, would be able to assist in programming efforts in certain aspects. You can contact me on IRC by the same name rather than on a forum i've never been on and will most likely never post again to. If you are interested that is.

If you need a resume:https://remood.org/.