ROM Hack Extracting Layton Puzzles

tj_cool · Jan 20, 2011

So, I wanted to extract all Puzzle (text) data from the Professor Layton games.

The first game was fairly easy, cause all the text was in simple txt files which I just had to combine

But after extracting the second/third games (with DSBuff), it seems they changed methods as I can't find any clear text in any of the files.
So I'm thinking they might have encrypted it somehow.

Looking around a bit, it seem to be .PLZ files in Layton 2 and .CPCK files in the third game. I've done a lot of searching for both file formats, but didn't get much results....
I've seen some .PCK extractors, but they don't work with the CPCK, so I'm guessing it's a Custom/Compressed PCK like file.

There's also ARC files, but I believe those contain the images, which I don't need.
(Though If there is an easy way to extract the ARCs, it won't hurt to try

)

Anyone have an Idea what I could do? I only want to extract the texts; not the images/sound/....

Thanks

shadowmanwkp · Jan 20, 2011

Did you try using a hex editor? Sometimes it is extremely easy to find text in a hex editor, because it isn't compressed. If you want to use one, I'd recommend using windhex. If the text ain't anything near legible you can also make a relative search for a word that without a doubt is in the game. The editor searches for hex values that possibly could be the word you're searching for. If you get the same result several times with the same Hex values (the middle screen with only two pairs of numbers/letters) you can make a table file out of it that makes your text much more legible.

If you have found the text and you want to extract the text, you can export as a simple *.txt file it by hitting F10 (dump text). After specifying between which offsets (positions) you want to dump the text and the name, you will have a nifty little text file with all the text you need (granted you could create a table that converts characters properly). Note that you can see the offset by default at the left most side