Reference · Engine

The desktop text - mail, board, news

The in-game desktop's mail, bulletin board and news headlines are C tables compiled into the desktop.prg and toppage.prg overlays. Every table has a Parody Mode twin, used when ccSaveData.parodyFlag (+0x842b) is non-zero.

Tables

All little-endian; pointers are VAs in the overlay.

ccMailData          0x48 bytes     MailTbl 0x0041dfd0, MailTblp 0x00425280
  +0x00  s32       NO              mail number, equals the index
  +0x04  s32       reFlg
  +0x08  s32       mailFlg
  +0x0c  char *    title
  +0x10  char *    from
  +0x14  s32       fromNO          sender id: the photo CMP_xddphot{fromNO + 1}
  +0x18  s32       line            lines in the body
  +0x1c  char *    sentence        `line` NUL-terminated strings, back to back
  +0x20  ccReMailData oneRes       first reply the player can send
  +0x34  ccReMailData twoRes       second reply

ccReMailData        0x14 bytes     ReMail 0x0041c8d0 [294], ReMailp 0x00423b80 [294]
  +0x00  s32       mailFlg
  +0x04  char *    title
  +0x08  char *    from
  +0x0c  s32       line
  +0x10  char *    sentence

ccBBSThreadList     0x0c bytes     bbsThreadTbl 0x00406450, bbsThreadTblP 0x00408200
  +0x00  char *    title
  +0x04  ccBBSMsgList * msgList
  +0x08  s32       msgNum

ccBBSMsgList        0x14 bytes     bbsMsgTbl 0x004049a0 [341], bbsMsgTblP 0x00406750 [341]
  +0x00  s32       dateindex       the date cell, 0-5 plain, 0 in parody
  +0x04  char *    title
  +0x08  char *    transname       the poster
  +0x0c  s32       maxLines
  +0x10  char *    message         `maxLines` strings, back to back

HtmlData            0x1c bytes     HtmlTbl 0x0041c120 [70]
  +0x00  s32       No
  +0x04  s32       flg
  +0x08  char *    title           the headline
  +0x0c  char *    ccsName         CCS file holding the page image
  +0x10  char *    chunk           texture name in it
  +0x14  ccFileList * html
  +0x18  s32       hight           page height in pixels (spelled so)

MailTbl and MailTblp hold 326 entries each; bbsThreadTbl 63 threads over all 341 posts. How the board shows them, and which the save posts, is on the top page.

Start-up copies

oneRes and twoRes are filled at load time: __sinit_mailtbl.cpp (0x00461c30) and __sinit_mailtblp.cpp copy ReMail[k] / ReMailp[k] into them, and mwLoadOverlay runs them. Read the tables after running the overlay's constructor table (tools/eemu.py), not from the file. 147 mails have both replies set afterwards.

Text encoding and escapes

Strings are single-byte ASCII mixed with Shift-JIS pairs. ccKanji::Disp (0x0015e380) handles:

bytes	meaning
`#0`	`ccSaveData.plName` (+0x00): the player character's name
`#1`	`ccSaveData.plRealName` (+0x18): the player's own name
`#R`	colour `ccSpriteColorTable`+0x90, (128, 56, 56)
`#G`	colour +0xa0, (72, 128, 72)
`#B`	colour +0x88, (48, 80, 128)
`#Y`	colour +0x30, (128, 128, 0)
`#W`	the string's starting colour
`%` + byte	an extended font code, passed through to the draw pass
0x20-0x7f	ASCII
Shift-JIS pair	`ccGetExtendedCode` (what it maps, and how `%` codes are drawn: font); if the result's high byte is `%` it becomes that two-byte code, otherwise `_`

Colours are GS values, 0x80 = full intensity, alpha 0x80.

Notes

In the US build the plain tables are English and the parody tables Japanese. The parody tables are a separately written comedy script, not a Japanese copy of the normal one: event dialogue differs in content (worklog 18), though the mail entries compared so far agree. The English area addresses still use the Shift-JIS Δ (83 a2).

Corrupted-text mails use # and % as noise characters; the renderer treats them as escapes regardless.

Unknown

reFlg, mailFlg (their writes are ported: desktop), HtmlData.flg.
Which mails and posts the game actually delivers in Infection.