News – The world of CD-i

Shikotei’s The Apprentice Free PC version!

Shikotei, our website member, have just completed a completely insane project!
9 years ago he got this crazy idea to convert a CD-i game into a Windows game… Yes… 9 years of intensive work!
The game selected was The Apprentice of course! This game is for sure one of the best you can find on CD-i and maybe one of the best platform game of the 90’s!

CONGRATULATIONS Shokitei for this amazing work!
You are crazy and we need more crazy guys like you!

Shikotei:

After having started almost 9 years ago in Excel, porting this to PHP, porting that once again to Director in Lingo, and finally porting everything to Unity in C# this game has come a long way!

The Apprentice remade for PC is the project of just me whose idea of a challenge is programming everything from scratch. No black boxes, no bug-free engines, no such thing of any kind. Stupid? Perhaps.. but it got me knowledge beyond what I thought I needed to make a game! Knowledge that should enable me to make another one if I ever finish this one.

My version of The Apprentice requires an ISO of the original CD-i disc to run. It is needed because all the sprites, backgrounds, music, sound effects, and level layouts are stored there. None of them are aboard the game itself because that would be a copyright infringement. It is my way of trying to protect myself against those who hold the rights to the Apprentice.

Every asset I extract from the IMG file is kept in memory and so nothing is actually stored on the hard drive.

Download the PC version game right here!

For more information about how to play it and also other Shikotei projects, please visit his website at www.shikotei.com!

A forum topic has been created so Shikotei can answer your questions!

The 7th Guest – Remastered

Well, as we are in the middle of Halloween festivities, here is some creepy news!
The Israeli game developer company MojoTouch released the 20th Anniversary of The 7th Guest in a remastered edition!
The game has been released in 2015 for Android, available at Google Play for 4,59€, and game received its latest update on 29th February 2016 for version 1.0.0.8-11.

Number 2 in the USA and Top 10 in more than 84 countries, the success made MojoTouch decide to export it for Windows and made the 25th Anniversary remastered version in 2019 for 8,19€ (this year)!

Released on 14th April 2015 for AndroidReleased on 2nd April of 2019 for Windows

Watch the official android Trailer:

But how did they manage to make it?
They just found the right guy to make this job… Luc Rooijakkers, ex CD-i programmer from SPC Vision company.
The World of CD-i talked to him in exclusivity about his work for The 7th Guest – 20th Anniversary Remastered.

Luc Rooijakkers:

In July 2014 I got contacted by someone from MojoTouch, an Israeli game company.
They were developing the 20th Anniversary Edition with the IP licensed from Trilobyte and he was looking for someone to extract good quality voice tracks, and also German and French versions.
They were basing the Android version on the PC version, using the existing open-source ScummVM game engine.
Unfortunately quality of the PC audio files left something to be desired and it was only available in English.

He had already gotten out most of the videos using online tools but wanted more.
We did some back and forth on it and agreed on a price after I did some analysis of the game.
It turned out that many audio and video assets where in “processed” CD-i formats and thus not readily extractable using standard tools. After a considerable amount of reverse engineering I was able to extract almost anything that he wanted, except for some games that simple weren’t on the CD-i disc for space reasons.

This included all audio in three languages as well as a number of text screens in those same languages.
At the end of August, after I received payment, I delivered all the extracted assets (many hundreds of megabytes).
We had some general correspondence after that but my work was basically done.

I also provided him with all the game videos in CD-i MPEG format, but they ended up not using them.
The PC video files were a bit better resolution, looked somewhat less “blurred” and with less muted colours.
This came out better after upsampling and conversion to the format they were using.

Interestingly, I found out during the reverse engineering that the CD-i game uses a kind of “compiled” game scripts for all the interactivity, with a very general format and functionality.
It did not in any way look like the ScummVM code, not even in the “opcode” list based on the PC version assets.
My guess is that the CD-i makers re-used an existing “script compiler” architecture and/or game engine and wrote or recompiled all the scripts from scratch.

Due to the generality of the script codes, you could create many different “FMV” games using the same engine; the actual game as released is almost completely data-driven.
This could even be a “portable” engine, all the asset manipulation is in the CD-i specific parts outside the basic script engine and called using generic operators.

In January 2015 I got the official beta version of the 20th Anniversary edition for Android as a courtesy, and it is this version that the screen shots I sent you earlier were taken from.

Earlier this year a 25th Anniversary Edition also appeared on Steam, but it seems to be English audio only with subtitles.

Luc provided us with some pictures taken from the original game files, enjoy!

Quizard on CD-i players!

TAB-Austria, as the name indicate was an Austrian company that created a series of arcade games in the late 90’s.
What is important for us is not the arcade game… It is the fact the games were developed under CD-i format.
These games first appeared on MAME version 0.139 (July 30 2010), as you know MAME is a multiplatform system emulator and the people behind it are jointing all games into one single place.
Quizard 1 (version 1.7), Quizard 2 (version 2.2), Quizard 3 (version 3.2) and Quizard Rainbaw 4 (version 4.1) are some of them, but they are not included into the official CD-i catalogue.

Quizard series are Quiz games up to 2 players, with a limited time to answer different questions categories, on each wrong answer, you will lose 1 live, until you lost the game. The objective is to get the most points as possible.

Quizard 1 and 2 worked almost perfectly on MAME and CD-i Emulator thanks to Harmony, but Quizard 3 and 4 wasn’t working at all.
That is when Team Europe entered in action, a dedicated group of people to decap MCU’s from original games integrated chips, they got originals Quizard MCU’s.

What is a MCU?
It is a chip which has inside a CPU + EPROM. This chip can get protected with a FUSE-BIT. When this bit is set, you can’t read the EPROM part from it. This chips were pretty expensive back in the days and the only way to read the EPROM part, is to decap it. (Open the Chip, cover the EPROM area with UV-opaque and put it under UV-eraser, which will then “delete” the FUSE-BIT. After that you can read the EPROM part, like it was never protected.

What is an EPROM?
It is a chip with data on it, it can not get protected and is pretty easy to read with any programmer.

Decapping MCU’s is the way you are able to get into the middle of it and reach the Eprom to unlock it with UV light, then copy to a brand new MCU. You need to place an UV protection on the Eprom to avoid any damage when erasing the lock
Easy right? No… Not at all… This is a very sensitive mission and I do not recommend any of you to try it at home!!!

So back in 2016, Team Europe received Quizard 1 and Quizard 4. They did what they know best… decapping the MCU to erase the unlock and be able to read it in a Eprommer reader, then copy it to a new Eprom.

Then back in 2017, Team Europe received Quizard 3 MCU and did the same.
In the following pictures you can read on the original MCU “DE132D3”, this means:
Language: German (DE)
Version: 1.32 (132)
Revision: D3 (D3)

In 2018, Team Europe received another version of Quizard 3, the “DE132A1” and did the same again!

Remember, there is a least 8 versions of Quizard 1 and many others from Quizard 2, Quizard 3 and Quizard 4!

Now, let’s talk about the 2dn part of the work:
Turn you CD-i player into an working Arcade Machine…

Team Europe didn’t just managed to unlock and copy new Eproms, they also designed a MCU board that connects to your CD-i player (Input 2) that will inform your system it is allowed to play the game.
The reason of decapping MCU is because the new MCU copies will be placed into the board.
This way, if you want to play Quizard 1.xx, you will need to place MCU Quizard 1 on the board, the same thing for Quizard 2.xx, Quizard 3.xx and Quizard 4.xx.

Retrostuff received a complete MCU board from Team Europe ready to be mounted. He did the work and test it for us!
Check it out!

I am waiting to receive one, I will also do my tests, but no needs to post anything unless there is some news.

With people like that… The future of CD-i is promising!
Congratulations to all!

ASSEMbler Games forums going to close?

This is official from ASSEMbler’s team in this post:
https://assemblergames.com/threads/this-forum-to-close-in-30-days.71032

You can read from the Admin:

Current account status -$2880 ($120 x 24 months)
It cannot continue at such a loss.
Thank you for being companions for 23 years journey.
-ASSEMbler

ASSEMbler Games is the place that get the very first information about Mario Takes America for CD-i!
https://assemblergames.com/threads/mario-takes-america-phillips-cd-i.12062

It is more than just CD-i, this a place that helped people to develop all kind of game’s systems, selling stuff and so much more… A major lost for internet and gaming lovers! ;(

It is in fact a little bit stranger for a forum to be so expensive… $120 each months…?
I do believe there is lower prices for the objective of the forums.

If nobody buy the forum or if no money is found to pay the bills, then the last breath will be Saterday 29th of 2019…

CD-i goodies for all tastes!

TEEPUBLIC is based in New York (USA) and it’s the world’s largest marketplace for independent creators to sell their work on the highest-quality merchandise.
An independent artist is paid with each purchase made on TeePublic. Since 2013, independent artists on TeePublic have earned around the globe.
They got the idea to sell products with Philips CD-i logo and I really love this idea!
You can choose about 26 different T-shirts colours, or just buy other goodies like:
Coffe Mug, Travvel Mug, Hardcover Handbook, Spiral Notebook, Tote, Pillow, Phone Case, Lapetop Case, Baseball T-Shirt, Long Sleeve T-Shirt, Crewneck Sweatshirt, Tank Top, Hoodie and finally there own homemade sticker logo design!

Get your goodie right now for a good cause!

Thank you “CD-i Guy” @Philips_CDi from Twitter for this info!