ROM Hack [Request] Culdcept DS

choji · Oct 13, 2008

Game name
Culdcept DS or ??????DS

Gbatemp game thread:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=109499

Release date
10/16/2008, leaked on 10/11/2008

Game info

QUOTE said:
From Wiki:
"Culdcept is a turn-based strategy video game. It has drawn comparisons to other modern strategy titles, and also shares features with non-video games Monopoly and Magic: The Gathering. The series of games saw high popularity in Japan, and a North American version was released for the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2003. Despite low sales in America, the game continues to have a strong following among fans. It has since gone out of print and has become relatively rare."

I would have to say this game is fairly popular in Japan as it has been out since the saturn and dreamcast days with the only US release being on XBOX 360 called Culdcept SAGA.

Also, Voice acting is COMPLETELY ENGLISH!! as with all culdcept games.

Screenshots
Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sHbEtmW4RQ
TGS Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKwS6Hk9OaQ
Official Site:
http://www.culdcept.com/
Screenshots @:
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3164061

Your offering:
I offer to translate the game. I need someone to hack the game for me and put it together once I finish translating. There doesn't seem to be many files in the game:
5 overlay.bin files,
1 utility.bin file,
1 culd.sdat file,
1 culdcept.dat file,
1 end0.mc file, and the usual arm7, arm9, etc. files.

This game is supposedly a port of the Saturn/PSX version and I already have a site that has all the card information translated. The menu shouldn't be too hard to translate. I wanted the tutorial to be translated so those who are new to the game understand the rules. Objectives also need to be translated. Most of the story is voice acted in English so any in-game text that is not voice acted needs to be translated.

multiboy2k · Oct 14, 2008

I 2nd this request. This game is beyond excellent in terms of depth for a handheld!

CharAznable · Oct 14, 2008

Actually, you're a bit wrong here. There was also a US PS2 release of Culdcept.

NetShira · Oct 14, 2008

Seems like a fun game although I can't understand it yet.. I hope you find someone with hacking skills to help!

Glacius0 · Oct 16, 2008

I was about to post something similar when I saw this topic. I'm currently playing through the game and would like to translate it as well. Unfortunately I also don't know much about rom hacking, but I'm quite proficient at Japanese.

BTW, could you provide the link to the page with the card translations?

FAST6191 · Oct 16, 2008

Turn based strategy you say, colour me interested. I am still waist deep in the hacking docs (just GBA video, GBA implementations of compression and a few example hacks to do) which are probably going to take some time to do.

I have not pulled apart any games by the publisher or developer so I doubt much insight can be gained from that route.

5 overlay.bin files,
Overlay files are files that are able to be put at a given memory section to do whatever. Being part of the binary they can do just about anything although I would be surprised if it was text (overlays are useful but they are usually done for the less important functions).
How big are the files?

1 utility.bin file,
While .bin is generic on the DS utility.bin is usually to do with the wireless multiboot/download play (open it in a hex editor and you will probably see some ASCII strings dealing with errors in transmission towards the end of the file).

1 culd.sdat file,
Sound format.

1 culdcept.dat file,
dat is a generic extension and could be anything.

1 end0.mc file,
.mc is not something I immediately recognise from DS roms.

"and the usual arm7, arm9, etc. files."
It is not especially uncommon for the text to be in the binaries.

Check .dat and the .mc file in a tile editor and a hex editor (something like crystaltile2 should be able to do both quite well).

Elrinth · Oct 16, 2008

end0.mc might be ending movie clip, no?

FAST6191 · Oct 16, 2008

I got bored and pulled the rom apart.
utility.bin was contained within a dwc directory so I was on the money there. Bunch of common formats all LZ compressed. SRL subfile was just a binary (the ARM7 binary was bigger too) and usual nitrorom file system stuff.

sdat is the sound as predicted. Messed around with it and English audio as was stated.

Alas that is where it ends.
Scanned through the remaining files with a tile editor. No hits on 8bpp or 4bpp but a hex editor reveals telltale signs of compression (looks to be lzss) in one of the overlays (the 114 kilobyte overlay_0003.bin at the end) although a NFTR font appears to be in there somewhere.

ARM9 appears to be LZ compressed.

culdcept.dat appears to have a pointer table at the start B020 and 20B0 appears to be the start of something.
Format is 8 byte entries per file, usual flip.
First 4 bytes location, last 4 bytes length (note next entry is not necessarily location+length).
No obvious file naming that I have determined.
Sample

Code:

0000000 0000 20B0 0000 4137 .. ...A7
0000008 0000 61E8 0090 9386 ..a.....
0000010 0090 F570 0000 6784 ...p..g.
0000018 0091 5CF4 0000 8088 ..\.....
0000020 0091 DD7C 0000 7357 ...|..sW
0000028 0092 50D4 0000 9DEC ..P.....
0000030 0092 EEC0 0000 7E97 ......~.
0000038 0093 6D58 0000 2DB6 ..mX..-.
0000040 0093 9B10 0000 2DA4 ......-.
0000048 0093 C8B4 0000 6AA4 ......j.
0000050 0094 3358 0000 6F04 ..3X..o.
0000058 0094 A25C 0000 3EFC ...\..>.
0000060 0094 E158 0000 40C0 ...X..@.
0000068 0095 2218 0000 58A4 .."...X.
0000070 0095 7ABC 0000 36A8 ..z...6.
0000078 0095 B164 0000 4904 ...d..I.
0000080 0095 FA68 0000 44C0 ...h..D.
0000088 0096 3F28 0000 36C4 ..?(..6.
0000090 0096 75EC 0000 4C04 ..u...L.
0000098 0096 C1F0 0000 57D4 ......W.
00000A0 0097 19C4 0000 68B0 ......h.
00000A8 0097 8274 0000 5A68 ...t..Zh
00000B0 0097 DCDC 0000 9894 ........
00000B8 0098 7570 0000 5B8C ..up..[.
00000C0 0098 D0FC 0000 6180 ......a.
00000C8 0099 327C 0000 44F4 ..2|..D.
00000D0 0099 7770 0000 69C4 ..wp..i.
00000D8 0099 E134 0000 6251 ...4..bQ

end0.mc
Not as obvious a file system.
566688 is in the "header" if you flip it and as the next file appears to start at 30 (there are only two ASCII character as opposed to the usual 3,4 or more) and the whole file ends at 5666B8.....

All in all it looks like this game is going to be a mess of compression and with a couple of unknown file types holding it all together (overlay3 has common file types if you decompress it). I am however seeing bmg and ntfr files referenced all the time.

If anyone else wants to try some more I highly suggest crystaltile2 be used, it can uncompress LZ quite nicely.

Amusing end note
From the overlay9_0003:
rom:/dwc/utility.bin

Glacius0 · Oct 17, 2008

Could it be that culdcept.dat is a container with a bunch of files that are LZ compressed? I think this because any game usually has a lot more files than this.

Thanks a lot for the effort thus far FAST6191. If you could look into it some more that would be great^^ The game is quite fun.

choji · Oct 19, 2008

Glacius0 said:
I was about to post something similar when I saw this topic. I'm currently playing through the game and would like to translate it as well. Unfortunately I also don't know much about rom hacking, but I'm quite proficient at Japanese.

BTW, could you provide the link to the page with the card translations?

The site I went to is www.culdceptcentral.com
I'll just let you know ahead of time that there are cards that have been updated from the saturn/psx versions. Some of these have been posted in their forums so make sure to add anything you notice to their list. One of the members also started a menu translation.

@ FAST

I am not a hacker so I have no idea what you are saying. However, I've opened up utility.bin with crystaltile2 and it seems that alot of these files are lz compressed. I'm guessing this is where all the information is at. I uncompressed some of the files out and loaded them up in with crytallite2 but nothing is really showing up, just a bunch of organized gibberish/symbols. But I guess the file is about wifi and download play since there are msg files with information about Wifi connection.

kesadisan · Oct 21, 2008

for one reason this game is being ported to US version...
so i think there's no need to translate this...

ph0ebus · Oct 22, 2008

Guys, I found that there is font table whose starting address is from 0x11C22F at decompressed arm9 file,
and there are bunch of text datas whose starting address is from 0x118E70 at the same file. (I think these are ONLY menu text)

But i cannot find any information where the card description datas are.
Need somebody's help to find out something more useful from culdcept.dat or another.

Glacius0 · Oct 22, 2008

Great. Is there any way you can make the menu text available to me so I can translate?

ke7syv · Oct 22, 2008

kesadisan said:
for one reason this game is being ported to US version...
so i think there's no need to translate this...

Where did you hear Culdcept was being ported to a US version? I can't find even the slightest mention of the game being brought over.

ke7syv · Oct 22, 2008

ストーリー . . . . . . .Story
メンテナンス . . . . . Maintenance
ひとりで対戦 . . . . . Versus Battle Alone
ワイヤレス対戦 . . . .Versus Battle Wireless
Wi-Fi . . . . . . . . . . .Wi-Fi
プロフイール . . . . . Profile
セーブ . . . . . . . . . .Save
マニュアル . . . . . . .Manual
終了 . . . . . . . . . . . .End

Main Menu -> Story:
つづきから . . . . . Continue
はじめから . . . . . From the beginning
戻る . . . . . . . . . . Back

The question marks(assuming you only see 3 question marks in the menu below this) just mean that I haven't been able to get those characters to come out of the Google Translate page yet. I've tried a good number of variations for the corresponding English word. I know what it says because I've selected that menu item and figured out what it is.
Main Menu -> Maintenance:
ブック . . . . . . . . . Book
セプタータグ . . . . CepterTag
ルール . . . . . . . . . Rules
?? . . . . . . . . . . . . .Stages
アルバム . . . . . . . .Album
メダル . . . . . . . . . Medals
画? . . . . . . . . . . . .Paintings
セーブ . . . . . . . . . Save
設定 . . . . . . . . . . .Settings
マニュアル . . . . . . Manual

Main Menu -> Maintenance -> Book:
ー新規ブックー . . . . . . - New Book -

Main Menu -> Maintenance -> Book -> (Book Name):
編集 . . . . . . . . . . . Edit
コピー . . . . . . . . . .Copy
コメント . . . . . . . . Comments
名前変更 . . . . . . . . Rename
削除 . . . . . . . . . . . Remove

Main Menu -> Maintenance -> CepterTag:
ともだちコード登録 . . . . Register friend code

Here are some translations of things you'll see on creatures.
Other translations:
配置制限 . . . . . . . Land Limit
強? . . . . . . . . . . . Critical hit
即死 . . . . . . . . . . Instant death
後手 . . . . . . . . . . Last Attack
先制 . . . . . . . . . . First attack
再生 . . . . . . . . . . Regeneration
防?? . . . . . . . . . . Defense only
無効? . . . . . . . . . Immune
反? . . . . . . . . . . . Reflect damage

Various others:
はい . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yes
いいえ . . . . . . . . . . . .No
削除 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Remove
ラウンド . . . . . . . . . . Round(as in Round 1)
さんのターンです . . . ."is his/her turn"*
目標 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goal
合計 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Total
ボーナス . . . . . . . . . . Bonus**
ゴリガン . . . . . . . . . . Gun-Gori***
*Appears as "Nameさんのターンです" before your turn
**Seen after passing the castle as in "Land Bonus", "Symbol Bonus", etc
***The old man staff; Gun-Gori >> Gori-Gun >> Goli-Gun >> Goligan
*ALL CREDIT GOES TO "NoOutlet" at CuldceptCenteral.com*

Glacius0 · Oct 28, 2008

Well the translation is not really the problem, but it'll be nice for people that are playing this. The problem is trying to get the translation hacked into the game.

Juicii · Dec 18, 2008

Any updates on the translations? I really want to play this game but it's hard because I can't understand Japanese.

Zane · Dec 18, 2008

I was actually looking for a homebrew game of Magic: The Gatherin, but this seems like a good game.

Juicii · Dec 19, 2008

How come there isn't a fan translation for this game?

Glacius0 · Dec 19, 2008

I'm still willing to translate the game. It has an awesome online mode and is very addictive. People should be playing this. I just need someone to hack the game and input/output the text.

ROM Hack [Request] Culdcept DS

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