Hobby PC 18/Hobby PC 18.iso/Soft/cp2setup/cptech.tx_/cptech.tx

Text File | 1998-07-13 | 15KB | 353 lines

CYPET TECHNICAL INFORMATION for CyPet v2.0            (c) Axe Software 1997-1998
by Alex Warren, July 1998



This text file contains information on the .CYP file format, registry
entries used by CyPet, the cheat, and how to change the graphics.

Axe Software will *not* accept responsibility for any damage you do while
following any instructions given. Axe Software cannot guarantee the reliability
of the information presented here.

Note that if you put out-of-range values into the .CYP file it is quite
possible the pet will not load at all and/or you will get some strange
errors. If you put out-of-range values into the CyPet section of the
registry it is quite likely CyPet will not work at all, or will behave
very strangely.

Again, Axe Software **WILL NOT** accept responsibility for any damage you
cause as a result of using the information contained within this file.


THE FILE FORMAT

Files for CyPet as saved with a .CYP extension and the format is
actually very simple and therefore easy to edit. The files are saved as
text files in the format below. Items in <brackets> refer to numbers, eg
<happiness (0 to 10)> would be a number between 0 and 10. Items in
[square brackets] refer to strings.


LINE #  TEXT                    COMMENT
     1  CYPET02                 Version header. If the text in this line
                                is different, CyPet will not read the
                                file. The exception is when the version header
                                is CYPET00 - in this case, CyPet 2 knows that
                                the file was saved in CyPet 1 and will load
                                the pet and assume as Strength value of 5.
                                CYPET01 is the header used in the original Beta
                                Release 1. This was upgraded in Beta Release 1a
                                to fix a bug where some information was not
                                saved properly. CyPet should be able to load a
                                file with a CYPET01 header, though this has not
                                been tested.

     2  <hunger (-10 to 10)>    Hunger value, -10 being full-up and 10
                                being on the verge of death.

     3  <weight (0+)>           Weight of the pet. The ideal weight for
                                a pet is (age+1)*10

     4  <happiness (0 to 10)>   Happiness value, 0 being suicidal and 10
                                being totally ecstatic.

     5  <boredom (0 to 10)>     Boredom value, 0 being interested in
                                everything around and 10 being utterly
                                bored out of its brains.

     6  <health (0 to 10)>      Health value, 0 being on death's door
                                10 being as healthy as can be.

     7  <dirtiness (0 to 10)>   Dirtiness value, 0 being clean and 10
                                being a pretty disgusting mess.

     8  <age (0+)>              Age

     9  <discipline (0 to 10)>  How much discipline the pet is being
                                given. This can be altered from the
                                discipline window so there's not much
                                point in editing it.

    10  <behaviour (0 to 10)>   Behaviour value, 0 being an evil git and
                                10 being "teacher's pet" (witty pun
                                there)

    11  [name]                  Pet's name. This can be altered using
                                Change Name function in the Stats screen
                                so again, there's not much point editing
                                this line.

    12  <strength (0 to 10)>    Strength value of the pet, set on the New
                                Pet dialog. This value is not included when
                                the version header is CYPET00 - ie a file
                                saved in CyPet v1.0.

    13  <pet type (0+)>         A number to identify which animal the pet is.
                    This will refer to a position in the
                    ANIMALS.DAT file - the first pet defined is 1,
                    the second 2, etc.


So, here is an example file:

CYPET01
 0.01
 10
 5
 0.01
 9.95246523618698
 0.01
 0.001
 0
 8.13642084598541
Henry
 5
 1


Here, the pet "Henry" is neither hungry nor full up, is a good weight, is
reasonably happy, not bored at all, very healthy, not dirty, very young,
undisciplined and very well-behaved. It has average strength and is of type 1.

The health and behaviour values fluctuate randomly, so that is why in the above
example the numbers have a lot of decimal places.


REGISTRY

You don't really need to use the registry to change anything as you can
do all the changes right from the CyPet program. But, for the curious,
here is how to edit the settings:

Run REGEDIT (click Start|Run, type REGEDIT and press ENTER, or make a
shortcut to REGEDIT.EXE somewhere). Then go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\CyPet\

You will see there are three sub-folders:
    Data
    Init
    Options

To edit any of the values in these folders, double-click the folder and
then double-click the entry you want to edit. Enter the new value in the
"Value Data" box and press ENTER.

The sub-folders contain the following entries - note that you may have less as
some settings may be left-overs from CyPet 1:

SUB-FOLDER  ENTRY           COMMENT

Data        bestage         Highest age of any pet
            bestperson      Person who scored the highest age
Init        install         Value CyPet uses to see if it exists.
                            Anything other than 0 will make CyPet
                            restore any missing entries in the registry
                            next time it starts. It will also bring up
                            the "read CYPET.TXT" message that you saw
                            when you first used CyPet. NOTE: Setting
                            this to anything other than 0 will NOT make
                            CyPet restore any invalid entries in the
                            registry - it will only resotre MISSING
                            entries. [NOTE: This is a value from CyPet 1. I'm
                            not sure if it is used in CyPet 2... which is odd,
                            since I programmed it :) ]
            version         Version identifier. If set to anything other than
                            "200IB3", CyPet will restore missing values in the
                            registry. In version 1.0, this value was "100", so
                            when you upgrade from CyPet 1 to CyPet 2, CyPet
                            keeps the original settings.
            cypetlocation   The location of CyPet. This was only used in CyPet
            1 and is definitely NOT used in CyPet 2, so it is
            more than likely you will not have it on your
            system. CyPet 2 reads the location automatically.
            licenseename    Your name that you entered when you first ran
                            CyPet.
            serialnumber    Your serial number.
Options     autobringup     This number actually stores two pieces of
                            information. Convert it into binary to get
                            the two bits. The first bit is the
                            autobringup for the stats window, 1 making
                            the window come up. The second bit is the
                            autobringup for the discipline window. So,
                            to bring up both windows the bits would be
                            11, converting to the decimal number 3.
            prompting       Specifies prompting method:
                                1 - Automatic saving
                                2 - Prompt to save
                                3 - No prompting
            startupfilename The file to load when CyPet starts.
            startupmode     Specifies what to do on startup:
                                0 - Do nothing
                                1 - Load file in startupfile
                                2 - Use last loaded file, saved in
                                    startupfile
                                3 - Prompt to load file
                                4 - Start with new pet
            timerinterval   Timer Interval in milliseconds, eg 1 second
                            = 1000
            warningmode     Convert to binary to read three bits.
                            Bit 1 - Pop up message
                            Bit 2 - Warn in status bar
                            Bit 3 - Warn as bold label in Stats
            bosswait        Specifies the amount of time to wait after the
                            boss key has been pressed, in seconds.
            showtoolbar     "True" or "False", specifies whether the
                            toolbar is displayed
            playsounds      "True" or "False", specifies whether sounds are
                            played
            soundinterval   The chance of a random sound, i.e. 1 in
                            <soundinterval>
            suspendsoundstatus  "True" or "False" - specifies whether sounds
                    are suspended in the Status View mode.


CHEAT

So, you want to cheat at CyPet? OK, here's what you do:

Click Stats and then click Change Name. Enter the new name as "AXE
SOFTWARE, HOW NICE IT IS" (no quotes, all in capitals). Then you can
either:
    - Click Yes for the "good" cheat
    - Click No for the "bad" cheat

The "good" cheat makes the pet really healthy, happy, etc. - just as you
would want it to be. The "bad" cheat makes the pet really unhealthy,
unhappy, hungry, underweight, etc. - just the thing if you want a big
challenge. Actually, a rather huge challenge as the pet tends to die instantly.
Have fun...

There is also a hidden cheat where you can change each individual setting. I
use it for testing purposes... and I'm not going to tell you what it is :)


CHANGING THE GRAPHICS & MAKING YOUR OWN ANIMALS

This is a different process to the one that you would have used in CyPet 1
(well, you most likely didn't use it at all, but anyway...). As CyPet 2 has
support for multiple animals, it is easier to add your own graphics to CyPet.
All you do is modify your ANIMALS.DAT file - this is what it should look like
after a normal installation of CyPet, without the asterisks and not indented (I
added those so you notice the spaces):

*** [ beginning of file ] ***
    ANIMALS.DAT-0001-200
    1
    DEFAULT:
    CYPET01.GIF
    CYPET02.GIF
    CYPET03.GIF
    CYPET04.GIF
    CYPET05.GIF
    CYPET06.GIF
    CYPET07.GIF
    CYPET08.GIF
    CYPET09.GIF
    CYPET10.BMP
    BELCH.WAV
    LAUGH.WAV
    OWCH.WAV
    GIVEFOOD.WAV
    BORING.WAV
    OI.WAV
    HELLO.WAV
    TAPS.WAV
    Old-Style v1.0
    OLD01.GIF
    OLD02.GIF
    OLD03.GIF
    OLD04.GIF
    OLD05.GIF












*** [ END ] ***

The space between the "OLD05.GIF" line and the "END" line is VERY important. If
you paste that straight into an ANIMALS.DAT file make sure you include the
space. Note that there is no need to do this anyway, as if you muck up the
ANIMALS.DAT file you can easily delete it and CyPet will restore the file to
the default.


Here's what it all means, line by line:

1  VERSION HEADER       This should be ANIMALS.DAT-0001-200. Anything else
                        will make CyPet assume an invalid file. Note that CyPet
                        2 Beta Releases 1 and 1a used ANIMALS.DAT-0000-200,
                        which is NOT compatible with this version.

2  NO. OF ANIMALS       This is the number of animals in addition to the
                        Default - ie number of animals -1.

Next come the animals, in groups of lines in the following order:

    1  NAME             For the first pet this should be DEFAULT: and for
                        subsequent animals, the name of the animal that is to
                        be displayed in the drop-down box on the New Pet
                        dialog should be here. In the example, the additional
                        pet is called "Old Style v1.0"

    2  GIF: NORMAL      This is the GIF file that is displayed when the pet is
                        "normal" - ie not showing any emotion/warning.

    3  GIF: HUNGRY      GIF to display when the pet is hungry, of course.
    4  GIF: HAPPY
    5  GIF: SAD
    6  GIF: BORED

    7  GIF: < CORRECT   The GIF to display in peek-a-boo when the player
                        chooses the left side and is correct.
    8  GIF: > CORRECT
    9  GIF: < INCORRECT
    10 GIF: > INCORRECT
    11 GIF: HIDE-N-SEEK The GIF file to display in the Hide 'n' Seek game. This
            is the new, extra setting in the Beta Release 2
            ANIMALS.DAT file which is why BR2's file is
            incompatible with the previous versions'.

    12 WAV: BELCH       The WAV to play after the pet has been fed.
    13 WAV: LAUGH       This WAV used to be played when you got the correct
                        side in peek-a-boo. However, very recently I changed
                        CyPet so that the music played throughout the game, so
                        this file is not used any more. It will be replaced by
                        something else in the next Beta, probably...
    14 WAV: OWCH        When the pet is injected
    15 WAV: HUNGRY
    16 WAV: BORED
    17 WAV: RAND1     } These WAVs are played randomly throughout the game -
    18 WAV: RAND2     } the chance of a random sound being played is set
    19 WAV: RAND3     } in the Options dialog.


Blank lines in any of the above give a short way of using the same file used by
the default pet. For example, leave a blank line in line 17 to use the same
RAND2 WAV file as used by the default animal type. This will work for any
animal other than the first DEFAULT: pet, of course. It is used in the original
ANIMALS.DAT above, hence the blank lines ("Old Style v1.0" uses the same sounds
as the default animal).


EDITING THE NAMES LIST

Simply edit NAMES.DAT to edit the names in the drop-down list box on the "New
Pet" window.




Have fun with the above tips!

Alex Warren
July 1998