gameinfo.js

Copyright 2010-2021 Adam Nielsen <[email protected]>

This is a Javascript library that ties together the other Camoto Javascript libraries to provide a single unified interface to supported games. With this library, rather than having to know which archive files to open and what each file is for, all that is abstracted away and instead a list of items is provided. Each item can be "opened", which will return an instance of whatever the file happens to be - a Map instance from gamemaps.js if it's a game level, or a Music instance from gamemusic.js if it's a song, and so on.

Installation as an end-user

Although not the intended use (due to limited functionality), you can install the library as an end-user and use the command-line gameinfo utility to work with games directly. To install it globally on your system:

npm install -g @camoto/gameinfo

Game support

The library currently supports these games:

• Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure (episode 1) [incomplete]
• Dangerous Dave [incomplete]

Command line interface

The gameinfo utility can be used to access some of the library's functionality. Commands are specified one after the other as parameters. Use the --help option to get a list of all the available commands. Some quick examples:

# List available items in a game, autodetected from the files found in the
# given folder.
gameinfo open /dos/games/cosmo list

# Rename an element and save changes.  This changes the filename inside
# COSMO1.VOL as well as patching COSMO1.EXE to use the new name.
gameinfo open /dos/games/cosmo select music.19 rename newfile.mni save

# Extract the title screen and save as a PNG image.
gameinfo open /dos/games/cosmo select splash.title export -t img-png title.png

# Load the PNG image again and use it to replace the title screen.
gameinfo open /dos/games/cosmo select splash.title import title.png save

To get a list of supported games, run:

gameinfo --formats

Installation as a dependency

If you wish to make use of the library in your own project (the intended purpose!), install it in the usual way:

npm install @camoto/gameinfo

See cli/index.js for example use. The quick start is:

import GameInfo from '@camoto/gameinfo';
import Filesystem from '@camoto/gameinfo/interface/filesystem.js';

let fs = new Filesystem('/dos/games/cosmo');
const handler = GameInfo.getHandler('game-cosmo');
const game = new handler(fs);
const warnings = game.open();
console.log('Warnings:', warnings);

Installation as a contributor

If you would like to help add more games to the library, great! Clone the repo, and to get started:

npm install

Run the tests to make sure everything worked:

npm test

Most of the tests require original files from the games, which aren't part of the git repo. So to fully run the tests (and to add support for new games) you'll need to copy the game files into the test folder:

1. Find out the identifier for the game in question, e.g. game-ddave is the identifier for Dangerous Dave.

2. Make a folder with this name inside the test folder, so in this case the command would be mkdir test/game-ddave

3. Copy the game files into this new folder. Only the files read and written by the format handler need to be included, but extra files (such as the game's documentation files) won't hurt.

4. Run the tests again and confirm they are no longer showing as "skipped". You can run only the tests for this game with a command like npm test -- -g game-ddave.

Now you're ready to go! To add a new game:

1. First make sure the file formats you need have been implemented in the other support libraries, e.g. all the archive formats are supported by gamearchive.js, the levels by gamemaps.js, the images by gamegraphics.js, and so on.

2. Create a new file in the games/ folder for your game. Copying an existing file that covers a similar game will help considerably.

3. Edit games/index.js and add an import statement for your new file.

During development you can test your code like this:

# Open a sample game and list the files, with debug messages on.
$ DEBUG='game*' ./bin/gameinfo.js open /path/to/game list

# Run the unit tests just for this game, using game-ddave as an example.
$ DEBUG='gameinfo:*' npm test -- -g game-ddave

# Run all the unit tests to ensure code passes the lint checks.
$ DEBUG='gameinfo:*' npm test

Only very basic checks are performed with the standard tests. You should create an extra test file that actually performs some modifications, to ensure everything is functioning correctly.

This is done by creating an extra .js file in the test/ folder. Copy one of the existing files such as test/game-ddave.js to use as an example. The new file will be picked up automatically when the tests are run.

Once your code is at the point where you've gone as far as you can go with the CLI and unit tests, you will probably want to test it with the web version of Camoto, so you can view images, maps, etc.

To do this, clone the studiojs repo and follow the instructions to get it running locally. Then replace the gameinfojs dependency with your local version:

cd studiojs
npm remove @camoto/gameinfo
npm install ../gameinfojs    # Use the path to your local copy

This will then make your local web UI use your development gameinfojs code, so you can test out your changes before sending in a PR.

You can do a similar thing in gameinfo.js, removing one of the other dependencies (say @camoto/gamemap) and replacing it with a local instance. In this example, you would be able to change level reading/writing code in gamemap.js and test it immediately through the web UI when opening a game level. Depending on your caching/file watching settings, you may need to restart the local web UI server before it picks up your changes.