Quick Question: Boosters Lab, Modding, Mac?

Hey everyone! Long time no see.

I had a quick question that I wanted to run by "the experts" so to speak.
I am in the process of created a cave story modding tutorial website [I know that it has been done a thousand times already .] but I figure I would throw my hat (and version) into the ring (so to speak).

My question is the following:

I know that the modding program "Boosters Lab" runs on both Mac and PC.
Can Boosters Lab on the Mac edit the Mac version of cave story (the non .EXE one, meaning the .App one).

My limited tests so far say no. I don't want to create a whole section on hex editing (removing the (C) Pixel requirement and other walk-thru) focused on the Mac side of things if no mods can actually be created using Booster's Lab on a Mac.

As a side question, and follow up, can Booster's Lab on a Mac edit the Windows version of cave story? If yes, couldn't a modder (in theory) make all the edits on a Mac using Booster's Lab to the .exe with the only (main) problem of not being able to test (run) that .exe modded file? (Not that I would recommend this)

Thanks again for your feedback!

 

- Booster's Lab can't edit the .app format on its own, but it can edit the .exe format while running on Mac.

- Andwhyisit knows how to port mods to the format, but it takes an extended process and there are increased limitations.

- I use a Mac for 90% of my modding and I just use Wine to test the .exe (Cave Story is surprisingly very easy to run with zero problems over a good Wine setup). You can also run Cave Editor and use its special functions with this.

- Now that I think about it, it's kinda silly for all three of my Windows-exclusive mods to be made and tested on a different OS entirely.

- I'm glad that you are helping out the mod community, I wish there were more people I could converse with on the subject.

 

I suspect Noxid will put off that idea for as long as possible given his lack of a Mac to test on.

 

Yeah, what they said. The main things keeping me from working on that are not being able to test anything, low incentive due to not many people needing the feature, and a lack of documentation on the .app version of the game

For what it's worth the editor can open pxm and tsc files individually but working that way is pretty limited and you can't do some useful things like changing tilesets. Wouldn't recommend.

 

and a lack of documentation on the .app version of the game

I actually posted some info in the BL thread over a year ago, but I stopped due to a lack of interest. I can give you mapdata locations, mapdata formats, weapon data locations, weapon data formats, save file naming, directory structure, and whatnot.

The only thing I'm missing is starting values (starting maps, starting events, starting health, starting position, initial facing direction) and a way to break the map limit.

Here's my original post:

Dear god I'm an idiot. Please ignore that idea.

Though I do have information on the mac format.

The .dmg is more or less a Mac-specific file packaging format, like .zip and the like.
Well that's not what the format was originally intended for but that's what nakiwo used it for.

Doukutsu.app is a folder in reality. Though opening the .app folder rather than the main executable binary would be the safest option.

Save file names can be edited here:
Doukutsu.app\Contents\Info.plist
Doukutsu.app\Contents\Resources\Info.plist

It's an XML-ish plain text format. Look for key "CFBundleIdentifier" and modify the paired string to your needs. All save files are saved in the same folder, so a way to set this from the editor would prevent conflict.

Data Folder:
Doukutsu.app\Contents\Resources\data\

Executable:
Doukutsu.app\Contents\MacOS\Doukutsu

The mapdata is at $9FD40 and $1467A0 in the executable, one for PowerPC Macs and another for Intel Macs. The format is different to CSPC and the two sets of mapdata have different byte orders to each other.
This only applies to the universal binary mind you. I know little about the PowerPC-only binary but I doubt anyone really uses it these days.

However I don't know how to break the map limitation.

Here's a copy of the files to mess around with (.zip instead of .dmg):
http://www.mediafire.com/?58401hfxeu8muqo

Here's cultr1's old anti-(C)Pixel .bmp hack, so you can run file comparisons if you want:
http://www.mediafire.com/?we63ym18f1gep6c

I had information on mac weapon data, but I can't remember where I put it.

I can give full documentation on all weapon data and mapdata formats and can completely flesh out all the above information if the desire is there.

 

Thanks for all the prompt replies. I feel the larger question with respect my the tutorial website I am creating is this:

Can the .app version of Cave Story be properly modded by any of the modding programs? (Sue's Workshop, Cave Editor, etc) notwithstanding the use of WINE. I assume no, but just want to confirm.

I would like to thank EnlightenedOne for mentioning the WINE program on a Mac. I have dabbled in that program a bit, I will have to brush up on my command line, but I think I can put together a section of my website dedicated to it. I want to be thorough. (I don't personally mod on a mac, since I have a dedicated gaming pc for that, but feel that providing a step-by-step process would be useful).

 

No it can't. You have to make a PC mod and then port it to Mac. I can give you instructions to that effect if you wish.

 

I am in the process of created a cave story modding tutorial website

Oh really?


We should kinda have one for more organized information, it's kinda spread out, and though not to hard to find, it would be nice to have it all in a nice list and such. Good luck with that.


Hmm, kinda reminds me of that ASM hacking guide to NPC's that I have to finish...