Hacking Gaming Mysterious .ZZ compression format? & possible hidden Dev message

[Ludwig_Osdee]

Hi. I extracted the files from a WiiWare game called Rage of the Gladiator. Nothing crazy of a game, but I enjoyed it as a kid.
Anyhow, when I extracted the data, I noticed the files were "compressed" (at least it seems so) in this .ZZ file format.

The files are named something like "Image.jpg.zz", removing the .zz doesn't help. And looking at it through HxD and Notepad++, it looks like some form of
compression has been applied (at least I think so). And one caught my attention, the one named "Facebook-Game-Info.txt.zz", opening it with Notepad++ reveals this:

***(Transcript as is)***
Good FB game mak es 5 cen ts per D aily Active Us ( DAU)
=$18.25 $ye(ar -u
5500
s ne eded for $100k/*

Issues:
* Tdv +
ad tising$M&A is happ en Big compani ¨w ill buy sma on ¼ ; cecan't re !y ;et@eLTV - LifeTi úValu

Now, GBATemp omitted some of the NUL characters and what not, here's the file itself if you're interested in it: Facebook-Game-Info.txt.zz
So the rough idea of this message is probably a complaint of some sorts
I did some research and I found a tool called Zzip, it's from around 2000 and I tried it, but either it doesn't work or I can't get it to work.

I'm really interested in seeing that message uncompressed and intelligible, and be able to extract the other 75% or so of the game that's locked away.
Any ideas or suggestions on this topic are welcome!

 

[master801]

I got it to decompress.

Good FB game makes 5 cents per Daily Active User (DAU)
=$18.25 per year per user
5500 users needed for $100k/year

Issues:
* servers
* advertising

M&A is happening
Big companies will buy small ones since small ones can't really compete

LTV - LifeTime Value

Not really sure what they're trying to get across though.

 

[Ludwig_Osdee]

I got it to decompress.



Not really sure what they're trying to get across though.

Wow! How did you get it to decompress? If this is it, thank you so much for deciphering the message!!!

 

[master801]

Wow! How did you get it to decompress? If this is it, thank you so much for deciphering the message!!!

Kuriimu from Kuriimu. I don't recommend using Kuriimu 2.
https://github.com/IcySon55/Kuriimu

Tools -> Compression -> Nintendo -> Decompression -> General

 

[tastymeatball]

More precisely it uses the compression algorithm LZ10.
The first byte of the file decides which algorithm is used which you can look up in the enum Mehtod here: https://github.com/IcySon55/Kuriimu/blob/master/src/Kontract/Compression/Nintendo.cs

 

[Ludwig_Osdee]

Hey, does anyone else have any problems trying to decompress LZ40???
I get this IndexOutOfRangeException, seems to only happen in LZ40