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Hacking Clickteam Games (basically Sonic Fangames)

Discussion in 'Technical Discussion' started by ValleyBell, Jan 5, 2011.

  1. ValleyBell

    ValleyBell

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    Like many others I had an attempt to make a Sonic Fangame with The Games Factory, an old Clickteam tool. And it didn't satisfy me. So I wrote an engine by myself and worked on it a lot.
    After some years I got the idea to port the old levels made in TGF to the new engine and because I'm a little "lazy" I didn't copy the levels by hand, but thought that it would be quite nice to write a tool that does it for me.

    So I started to reverse engineer the file format of TGF and I made a tool called Clickteam Extractor.
    This tool unpacks all game files and displays images from Klik 'n' Play to Multimedia Fusion 2. It also has a Level Viewer for TGF/CnC/MMF Express games that can also save complete level maps.
    You'll be surprised what these gam-file can contain. (e.g. unused music)

    Now the fun part: something to play
    I also wrote a converter to convert TGF levels to my custom Sonic game engine and I converted this game.
    You can download the improved version here.
    After converting it I just did the these things:
    - adding the original music
    - make a pixel-perfect copy of the original title screen (without the play-button)

    Note: The game has very many secrets. e.g. an options screen

    Have fun!
    EDIT: Updated link
     
  2. Aerosol

    Aerosol

    Not here. Moderator
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    Sonic (?): Coming summer of 2055...?
    Would've been useful back in the day when I didn't feel like trudging through sprite packs made with TGF.

    Nevertheless, awesome work and awesome technical achievement!
     
  3. Namo

    Namo

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    This is incredible. Thank you so much. I've been trying to remake an old TGF game forever and this will help greatly!
     
  4. Travelsonic

    Travelsonic

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    Man how I wish there was a way to remove the object limit TGF had. ~_~
     
  5. Now that we have this, someone should go about trying to find a way to port some of the more popular games back then to better engines, like The Fast Revolution and Time Attacked.
     
  6. Vitiman

    Vitiman

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    This thing is awesome! I find it odd how nowadays, no one appreciates Clickteam's programs or the games people make with them anymore, but since TGF was my first venture into game making, I've always loved it!

    So, quick question, the "Remove File Protection" thing is disabled. Does it actually work? Because, even if it was limited to TGF game files, it'd be really cool to see how some old fan games of my childhood worked. So, um... does it?
     
  7. Mr. Ksoft

    Mr. Ksoft

    Member
    Awesome tool! And I'm quite intrigued by the (assumedly forthcoming, since it's grayed out) Remove File Protection feature-- I may be able to recover some of my '01/02 TGF projects...
     
  8. Oh cool, but... Wouldn't it be quite dangerous at same time? People would steal content from other games.
     
  9. Billy

    Billy

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    Except for code, they could do that through screenshots anyway.
     
  10. ValleyBell

    ValleyBell

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    That's why I disabled the "Remove File Protection" feature. It actually works 90%. That means that you can't open it in TGF, but in MMF and higher.
    I'll think about it and maybe I'll tell you how to enable it.
    Btw: If someone is interested, I can upload my TGF file reference. (I got ~700 lines.)

    I actually wanted to convert an act from The Fast Revelation's Venga Party Zone, too, but I forgot it.
    Time Attacked is MMF, so there's no way of porting the game until someone cracks the exe-compression of MMF.
     
  11. SwissCM

    SwissCM

    Member
    Steal content? They're fucking fangames, isn't the concept of stealing artwork that is already basically "stolen" a little silly? Also I thought this forum was dedicated to reverse engineering, not ensuring protection of assets created 15 years ago by teenagers.
     
  12. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    I think we base it on a line between the stealing of "official" content, and the stealing of "fellow community" content. Why I've seen disassemblies made of other peoples projects/games and they get shot in the foot for that, while disassemblies that are made out of the "official" projects/games get praised. Maybe it's the benefit of how well that content is used, or maybe it's some sort of "pride" thing where we must work together in order to create a wealthy community that shares "within reason" and does not steal from it's own bank volt (I don't really know, just speculating here and I think someone else would put it into better words than me anyway).

    I don't really have much to comment on this topic as it's not really my area of interest, but any hard work deserves at least some praise for the time spent in making it posible, even if it's something that's not reasonably accepted.
     
  13. Techokami

    Techokami

    For use only on NTSC Genesis systems Researcher
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    That would be Clickteam themselves. They apparently have a tool that unEXEs MMF 1.5 games, as a service to customers who lost the source file in a hard drive crash.
    Ironically, they lost the sources to this program in a hard drive crash :V
     
  14. SwissCM

    SwissCM

    Member
    I just don't see any point in limiting a tool because people might take content from the games. If they do, then call them out on it I guess?

    More transparency is always good.
     
  15. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    This is going to be Very Helpful For my SRB2 projects. (I won't need to open TGF for refferance)

    Edit:
    Seems to have trouble making a map for SRB2 TGF's Deep Sea Zones acts 1 and 2
     
  16. Azookara

    Azookara

    yup Member
    I think it's about time to see Time Attacked with proper Sonic physics. With the effort put into it I think it deserves it. And thus I will go out of my way to try it out.. when I feel like it. :v:
     
  17. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    I just tried this thing on my unfinished Fangame "Sonic Extreme" (unoriginal title I know) and some of the level pieces were missing in the map render.
     
  18. ValleyBell

    ValleyBell

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    Thanks. You discovered some rarely used flag that causes it to crash.

    And yes, it doesn't draw all objects. It lacks support for Quick Backdrops that don't use pictures as well as all other special objects (like counters).
    You can just wait for the next update.
    I also noticed that there must be some additional BG layering. (HPZ GG ver. doesn't show right)

    And for all users of MMF and higher - press 'P' when you open the tool.
    Btw: You can use the cursor keys (with Ctrl, Alt, Shift) when you click on the display in the Image Decoder. Press S to save.
     
  19. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
  20. GWells

    GWells

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    Hey ValleyBell,
    what about releasing source code and the reference of the file format?

    I think that would help to improve this thing even further because it will help everyone's reverse-engineering efforts.