Documents the process (not just the results) for each format cracked:
- Binary identification: why 32-bit PE not 16-bit, what actually broke
- .FF archive discovery: speculative parsing from file count heuristic
- MUSIC.FF playlists: big-endian payload in LE container, segment ID math
- INTRFACE.FF bitmaps: BitB/BitR/XPAL system, index-2 black patch discovery
Includes tools, dead ends, corrections (2D->3D), and what's next.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
BitB/BitR/XPAL/STR# system fully reverse-engineered:
- BitB<id>.dat: big-endian uint16 width/height header
- BitR<id>.dat: raw 8-bit palette-indexed pixels (no header)
- XPAL<id>.dat: 256 RGB triplets, 8-bit per channel
- STR#<id>.dat: length-prefixed UI string tables
- Runtime patch: index 2 must be forced to black (0,0,0) --
the game engine overwrites this at runtime but stored values vary
Discovery: XPAL7A12 (correct render) vs XPAL7A1C (salmon background)
differ in only 3 palette entries (0,1,2); index 2 is the canvas black.
All 32 full-screen menu backgrounds, 57 vehicle HUD icons, cockpit
windshield frames, vehicle selection screens, and button strips now
render correctly. Documented in docs/FORMATS.md.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- ff_extract.py: .FF (FlashFile) archive extractor with music song
assembly (WAVE+PLST), ogg/mp3 conversion, and FL Studio pack export
(samples + per-song MIDI + mapping).
- docs/FORMATS.md: reverse-engineered file formats (.FF, WAVE/PLST music,
world data + binary notes).
- Original game data is gitignored (copyright Reality Bytes, 1995).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
