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1992-11-24
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4KB
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82 lines
HERMETIC SOFTWARE
presents
SCI DECODER
a Graphic Adventure Cheating Tool
(c) Copyright 1992 Carl Muckenhoupt. All rights reserved.
What Is SCI Decoder?
SCI is the name of a system for the creation of graphic adventure games
developed and used by Sierra On-Line. From 1988 to 1990, Sierra released
numerous games that featured EGA graphics, a natural language parser, and
a remarkable consistency of data storage. It is this consistency that
makes SCI Decoder possible.
With this program, you can examine text or graphic data from the games
without having to produce them the normal way (by playing.) In short, you
can cheat.
How to Use SCI Decoder
To start the program, type
sd [path]
where path is an optional pathname specifying the directory in which the
game you wish to examine can be found. If the path is not specified, it will
look in the current directory.
You will be presented with a large scrolling menu. There are three parts
to a menu entry. The first specifies the data type: text files contain text,
view files contain several views of an item for the foreground, and pic files
contain background. You will notice other data types, but these are the only
three you can view with this release of this program.
The second part is simply an index the game looks for in loading the data.
The third indicates which resource file or diskette it resides in. Some data
is duplicated on several diskettes.
To view the data, press ENTER or RETURN. In general, you can exit the
viewing by pressing ESC. Alternately, you can dump the unencoded data to a
file by pressing D. Most games will look for data in such a file before
trying the usual method; you can use this fact to bypass the normal data
loading. (Ever wanted to play King's Quest IV as Roger Wilco?)
Viewing Text Data
This is very straightforward. The text will be displayed, a page at a
time, until it ends or you stop it.
Viewing View Data
Pressing the left-right arrow keys will move you within a group of
pictures. Pressing the up-down arrow keys will move you to different groups
of pictures. Pressing any other key will simply advance you to the next
picture in the series.
Viewing Pic Data
This is too slow. I realize this. Maybe in the next release I'll
rewrite this entire section in assembly language. At any rate, there are
three screens available to you. By pressing 1, you get the default screen,
which shows the graphics. By pressing 2, you see the priorities, i. e.,
what goes in front of what. Each patch of color in this screen has a
single priority. By pressing 3, you see the special areas of the floor,
which basically means you can see where you can walk and what regions will
trigger special events (such a a door opening or your character falling off
a cliff) if you step on them.
Shareware
This program is freely distributable. In other words, if you make copies
for your friends, you are not breaking the law. (If you sell copies without
the author's permission, on the the other hand, you are.) All I ask is that
you register your copy with Hermetic Software. Only with your support can
this program and others like it be produced. What's more, I will only
produce an improved version if there is enough interest to justify it,
where interest is measured by the number of registered users.
To register, send a $10 (US) check or money order to:
Carl Muckenhoupt
196 Woodfern Road
Neshanic Station, NJ 08853
You will receive in return a copy of the latest version of this program.
Please specify disk size.