^Ripper's Anime Page

How does this PSX game tick.
Inner working explained through (poor) reverse engineering.

!!! Important !!!

This information will change as i figure out more.
Some info maybe incomplete, incorrect or outdated.

The scripts are found in the .LDP files located in the M3, M4, M5 and M6 folders.
They reside at the end of the file.
I have only decoded the script part of the files.

Decoding the actual script data:
(I have a working decoder/encoder/script editor, so this is just informational)

Game text is located at the end of the .LDR file in chunks of 2048 bytes depending on required space.
Header/index/entry data is in 4 byte chunks.

[12 byte header][index][entries]

Header:
Chunk 1 XX XX 00 00 <- XX = Little endian unsigned short: The total size.
Chunk 2 XX XX 00 00 <- XX = Little endian unsigned short: The largest entry size.
Chunk 3 XX XX YY YY <- XX = Little endian unsigned short: The amount of entries. YY = Unknown atm, and is usually the same number. (Default entry?)

Index:
Each index entry uses two 4 byte chunks: XX XX 00 00 YY YY 00 00 <- XX = Little endian unsigned short: Start adress of entry, YY = Little endian unsigned short: Size of entry.

Entry:
Entry size is in 4 byte chunks and always dividable by 4! It has trailing 00's when needed.
If the entry is perfectly dividable, add a blank 4 byte 00 00 00 00 chunk.
Entry consists of a leading identification chunk 07 00 00 00 (encoded text) / 05 00 00 00 (decoded text), followed by the text and terminated with 0A 0A and trailing 00's when needed.
Text part is encoded! Flip bits 1,5,6 out of 8 to get the real data!
Game text does not have to be re-encoded when updated, it will use decoded entries just fine.
Also, an entry cannot be on the boundry of two 2048 byte chunks.
If that occurs, then 0 pad the remaining bytes and start the next entry on the next 2048 chunk.
This due to the game loading each chunk when needed and it will only partially load the entry.

Irregularities in Chunk 3 of the Header in some files:
These should be left alone or be fixed manually back after rebuild!
Text formatting:
(this is ongoing, as i havent found all the formatting tags yet!)

Special tags

WP-xxx-yyy / WP+xxx+xxx

Window Position measured from top-left of the first character.
A character = 16x16 pixels standard or 12x16 when BL1216 is used.
First is the X offset (- is to the left), second the Y (+ is to the bottom.
X = 242 max, Y = 108 max for top-left corner.

WSxxyy

Window Size measured in character width.
xx = characters per line and yy = amount of lines.
xx = 25 / yy = 2 for a standard window on BL1616 and xx = 33 / yy = 2 on BL1216.
30 characters wide is the visual limit on BL1616 standard and 40 on BL1216 standard.

BLxxyy

Character width / ???
xx = character render width, yy = ??.
1616 is default and must be declared in the beginning after WS.
1216 is the best spacing for western characters and provide more space on each line. 33 characters instead of 25.
Use WS

gx

Margin-left for the next character.
x = 0-9 where g0 is the default value.

cxxx

Color tag for next character only.
xxx = shorthand hex color like f30(red).
The following are used in-game: c0f3, c86f, ce5c, cf0d, cf30, cff0.

CSA0

Automatic text advance with timer.
A0 = ... seconds ????

w+xx

Line start indent spaces.
Adds a space where xx is the amount of spaces.
The following are used in-game: w+01 and w+02

b0-b7 + br

Text color out of a loaded pallette.
First 8 are "safe" colors and br(78) looks like an end tag that returns to default color.

\\

Line break
Issued after the max amount of characters reached as a forced return.

@@

Pause text and empty text window.
When the lines of the text windows are used up or you want to start with a clean text window.
Text continues after pressing the dedicated key.

s3 + sr

text fade-in instead of each character appearing.
s3 = 3 seconds, t0 = instant text due to fading, a1 = ?, n1 = ?.
sr is return to default.

t0 + tr

Text speed where 0 is instant and 9 is slow character printing on screen.
tr is return to default.

a0 + ar

??
ar is return to default.

n0 + nr

??
nr is return to default.

[0 , [1 , etc

Menu option
2 bytes followed by a blank space 8140 for 1 character padding to accomodate the choice arrow!

[DD0 , [DD1 , etc

Selected menu option.
4 bytes followed by a blank space 8140!

i0xx

??? last tag after a menu. xx used are 10, 25, 30
If it is in the source text use it!

BKAx

??

BKCxxx

Text box background color.
xxx is a shorthand hex color of the semi transparent background.

FRAx

???

FRCx

Text box foreground color (border).
Color x is a color from "a" palette.
Only values "1" and "3" are used in the game.

Dump of all unique lowercase ascii control codes Game menu texts are in the /NOR/ folder and can reside in every .E file.